Then
TCP/IP for packets
Applications stopped caring which physical network carried the bits. Ethernet, satellite, serial lines — one internet, many wires.
Vision
The Internet of Value is a connectivity problem. Overledger’s claim is to sit above ledgers and core systems the way TCP/IP sat above physical networks — a gateway operating system, not a twelfth blockchain.
Whitepaper · 2018
Applications should not be trapped on a single ledger.
Verdian, Tasca, Paterson, Mondelli — Quant Overledger whitepaper v0.1, archived at UCL Discovery. That sentence is still the product.
Open the whitepaper reader →
Then
Applications stopped caring which physical network carried the bits. Ethernet, satellite, serial lines — one internet, many wires.
Now
Applications should stop caring which ledger, core or rail settles the money. Fabric, Ethereum, Corda, a bank core — one gateway, many domains.
Thesis
The 2018 Overledger whitepaper, archived at UCL Discovery, is unusually clear for a crypto-era document: the problem is single-ledger dependency. Applications that want to move value should not have to pick Ethereum or Fabric or a bank core and live there. Overledger’s claim is to sit above those domains the way TCP/IP sat above physical networks — a gateway operating system. Gilbert Verdian’s career (Vocalink, Mastercard, UK government CISO work, ISO/TC 307) is the industrial version of that sentence. Paolo Tasca’s books are the philosophical one. Colin Paterson and Gaetano Mondelli signed the same document and the same US ordering patent.
Philosophy
Tasca’s 2020 Frontiers essay calls the Internet of Value ‘a risky necessity’: moving value as easily as packets is coming, and with it datafication, platformisation and privacy risk. Enabling the Internet of Value (Springer, 2022) treats blockchain as connective tissue for global business, not as a speculative venue. Banking Beyond Banks and Money (2016) asked the prior question — what remains of a bank when money is software. Overledger is one engineered answer: put a governed gateway in front of many ledgers so regulated institutions do not have to become exchanges. The risk does not disappear; it is concentrated where it can be audited.
Taxonomy
The 2023 ACM DLT paper — Belchior, Riley, Hardjono, Vasconcelos, Correia — is the academic statement of the same idea. Interoperability has modes (data, asset transfer, asset exchange) and infrastructure (nodes, proxies, gateways). Quant’s product claim occupies the gateway cell. Riley’s 2021 Quant note and Hyperledger webinar are the industrial walkthrough of that taxonomy. Belchior’s 2021 ACM Computing Surveys review (284 papers) is the map of everything else people have tried: public connectors, blockchain engines, hybrid connectors. Read those three before any homepage.
Architecture
In April 2026 Verdian published the three-layer digital money architecture. Layer 1 is wholesale central-bank money and RTGS finality. Layer 2 is tokenised commercial-bank deposits — GBTD lives here. Layer 3 is public-chain stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets. The system only coheres, he writes, when all three can talk to each other and to SWIFT, Faster Payments, Open Banking. That horizontal interoperability layer is the Overledger job. Fusion is the multi-ledger rollup Quant now ships on top; PayScript is how money is programmed once it is connected.
Discipline
Internet of Value is a thesis. SATP is an IETF work item (ODAP was the 2020 name). GBTD is a UK tokenised-deposit pilot with Quant as technology partner. Project Rosalind was a 2023 BIS × Bank of England API experiment Quant says it supplied as a vendor — concluded, not a standing Basel office. None of those are a live CBDC. The bigger vision is still the 2018 one: connect the networks that already exist.
The stack of money
Verdian’s 2026 diagram, rendered without a map. Each band is a different liability. The gate is Overledger.
Library of the thesis
2018
Verdian, Tasca, Paterson, Mondelli
The primary source. Gateway OS, not L1.
Open →2023
Belchior, Riley, Hardjono, Vasconcelos, Correia
ACM DLT. The academic taxonomy Overledger occupies.
Open →2021
Belchior, Vasconcelos, Guerreiro, Correia
ACM Computing Surveys. 284 papers. The map of the field.
Open →2022
Tasca & Treiblmaier (eds.)
Springer. Blockchain as connective tissue.
Open →2016
Tasca, Aste, Pelizzon, Perony
Springer. Pre-history of programmable deposits.
Open →2020
Paolo Tasca
Frontiers in Blockchain. Governance as the price.
Open →2021
Luke Riley
Quant research note + PDF. API gateway as the practical category.
Open →2018
Quant
Design note from the whitepaper era.
Open →Did you know
Vision
Did you know Verdian publishes money as three layers plus a horizontal one?
Layer 1: wholesale CBDC / RTGS finality. Layer 2: tokenised commercial-bank deposits (GBTD lives here). Layer 3: public-chain stablecoins and RWAs. The system only coheres if a horizontal interoperability layer talks to all three and to SWIFT, Faster Payments, Open Banking. That horizontal layer is the Overledger claim.
Three-layer architecture →Vision
Did you know Tasca called the Internet of Value a risky necessity?
The 2020 Frontiers essay argues that moving value as easily as packets is coming whether banks like it or not — and that datafication, platformisation and privacy risk come with it. Overledger’s answer is not to deny the risk; it is to put a governed gateway in front of the ledgers so regulated money can move without every institution becoming a crypto exchange.
Tasca’s essay →Vision
Did you know the Overledger whitepaper lives on UCL Discovery?
2018, historical document, not a product spec. The claim has not aged: a gateway OS over many ledgers, rather than a twelfth chain. UCL hosts the PDF; this encyclopedia keeps a local copy so the argument is readable without leaving the map.
Read the whitepaper →Vision
Did you know Overledger’s analogy is TCP/IP, not Bitcoin?
TCP/IP did not replace Ethernet, token ring or the telephone network. It sat over them. Overledger’s published claim is the same move for ledgers and legacy: Fabric, Corda, Ethereum, a bank core, Faster Payments — one request, many rails. The future of money is many ledgers. The scarce layer is the gateway.
Open the stack →