something clicked for me today about how SIGN connects the identity layer to the money layer and honestly i'm still not sure how i feel about it.
in the current system, cash is anonymous. you hand over notes, you get goods, nobody logs who you are. even most card transactions the merchant knows your card, not really you.
in SIGN's architecture, your identity credential and your payment are part of the same infrastructure. that's the point. that's what makes it possible to verify eligibility, prevent fraud, distribute benefits fairly.
and i genuinely see why that's powerful.
but it also means every transaction has context attached. not just the amount and the merchant — but who you are, what your verified status is, whether this purchase fits within whatever rules are active.
per 1,000 transactions in a SIGN-based system, that's 1,000 data points that connect a verified identity to a specific financial action.
i'm not saying that's wrong. i'm saying it's a fundamentally different relationship between a person and their money than anything that's existed before.
does that feel like progress to you, or does it feel like something else?