How does the circular economy of trust actually work? Beneath the technical complexities and corporate connectivity our top-flight team has so expertly detailed in Peer Mountain’s white paper, the fundamentals are simple. On Peer Mountain, each user, whether an individual or a business, owns their own information. This means all the information that makes you who you are: bank details, credit history, identification; but also things that are unique to a particular user, such as their certificates, awards, and even their golf handicap.

The key is that this information is owned by you, and only you. This is the foundation, and everything flows from here.

In an economy where identity is sovereign, Peer Mountain’s unique concept of attestation offers a new and powerful business model. Everyone on Peer Mountain can be an attestation provider, from large banks to individuals.

Here’s an example: you loan a friend money through a mobile payment app linked to Peer Mountain. When she pays you back on time and in full, you simply attest that she honored her obligation. This attestation becomes part of her profile, adding another data point that indicates she is trustworthy. The next time she applies for a loan, the lender can see this and all other attestations, both negative and positive.

When that happens, the lender automatically makes a micropayment to Peer Mountain in Peer Mountain Tokens ( PMTN) for every attestation it uses in evaluating the application. Peer Mountain splits this with you and any other attestation providers involved. At no point does the owner of data need to hold any PMTN — but the more attestations you provide, the more revenue you can generate, and the more money Peer Mountain earns. A country club can simultaneously generate PMTN by verifying members’ handicaps, and spend PMTN in consuming data about guest players!

This ability to connect all parties together and enable them to share information to engage in commerce is what sets Peer Mountain apart from standard sovereign identity platforms like Civic or SelfKey.

It facilitates user adoption because attestation providers have a true incentive to create this economy of trust and push it out to users. For example, a university could earn a continuous flow of revenue by providing all graduate users with digital versions of their diplomas on Peer Mountain. Peer Mountain is a marketplace where attestations compete on price, with the most reliable and valuable attestations standing out and earning the most revenue.

Peer Mountain enables individuals to generate supplemental revenue simply through normal interpersonal interactions; it also can create large income streams for major companies. Imagine how much revenue will be generated for Peer Mountain by a major lending institution processing thousands of applications a day! Peer Mountain therefore has enormous growth potential through this attestation model as more and more corporate partners join the circular economy of trust.