The Velocity Trap
Research Programme
The programme examines why monetary velocity declines in modern economies and develops a formal architectural alternative to constraint-based Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) design. It also explores what current financial innovation opens up in possibilities for economies and monetary economics. It produces working papers, policy briefs, and comparative system analyses targeting academic journals and central bank policy audiences.
Research outputs
The programme produces working papers, policy briefs, and comparative analyses. All working papers will be posted to SSRN upon completion of internal review.
Additional papers in pipeline across six theoretical modules. Full research agenda available on request.
Research, intellectual property, and funding
The programme operates a translational research model. Research is pursued through standard academic channels — working papers, journal publication, conference engagement. The underlying monetary architecture is protected through intellectual property, which the programme intends to commercialise through licensing and partnership with institutional deployment partners. The programme is actively seeking grant funding and sponsored research arrangements to support its research agenda through to commercial maturity.
The programme is engaging with foundations, research councils, and institutional sponsors whose missions align with research in monetary architecture, financial stability, and the design of public payment systems. Suitable instruments include project grants, named research fellowships, and sponsored research arrangements. Enquiries from prospective funders are welcome at info@thevelocitytrap.co.uk.
The design problem
Four major central banks are currently designing retail CBDC architectures. Each is independently encountering the same structural problem: when digital money is attractive, it gets hoarded; when it gets hoarded, velocity declines. Each institution is responding with constraints — holding limits, non-remuneration, intermediation rules. The programme argues that constraint-based approaches manage the symptom. Architectural separation addresses the cause. The programme proposes an alternative: a dual-instrument architecture in which spending and saving functions are carried by separately designed monetary instruments rather than reconciled within a single one.
The Symbiotic Monetary SystemCore research questions
The programme is organised around four research strands. Each produces working papers targeting specific journals and co-author relationships with researchers at the BIS, Bank of England, ECB, IMF, and leading universities.
The programme also examines behavioural economics of monetary separation, fiscal architecture, merchant circulation dynamics, and system-level emergence.
The Velocity Trap
A book-length treatment of the programme's central argument: that monetary velocity decline is an architectural problem requiring an architectural solution, not a better constraint. The book proposes the Symbiotic Monetary System — a dual-instrument architecture separating spending and saving functions — and develops the theoretical, empirical, and policy case for its adoption.
FlowCheck
FlowCheck supports the programme's empirical analysis. It is a comparative CBDC architecture evaluation platform: FlowCheck uses LLM-assisted document analysis with researcher review to produce structured comparative assessments of central bank design parameters. FlowCheck outputs feed directly into the programme's policy briefs and comparative working papers.
FlowCheck is in active development. Access details and research-tier pricing will be announced at launch.
Programme team
Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow, with a PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Author of books published by Routledge and MIT Press and former lecturer at the Universities of Glasgow, York, and Essex. He brings expertise in research design and editorial coordination to the Velocity Trap programme.
Affiliations listed for identification purposes only. The programme is recruiting a permanent domain expert in monetary economics with CEPR or NBER affiliation and central bank research experience. Enquiries welcome.
Key institutions and reading
Co-authorship and collaboration
The programme engages with academic researchers, policy institutions, and research networks through co-authored working papers, conference presentations, and policy submissions. Enquiries from monetary economists, CBDC researchers, financial stability specialists, prospective funders, and partnership enquiries are welcome.
info@thevelocitytrap.co.uk