Trading
Trading — the network of the Alive economy

Commerce is not one machine.
It is a network you can descend into.

The market hall is the layer you can see. Beneath it sits the whole iceberg of trade — retail, wholesale, production, commodity flows, and the institutional floor. Six layers, six capitals, one ledger. Descend through it.

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Layer 01The layer you can see

Hall

The market hall. Where you wander, meet makers, and choose. The warm surface — everything below feeds it.

What moves

Finished goods, in small quantities, into people's hands.

Who trades

Makers and stalls, selling directly to the people who eat, wear and live with what they make.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
Layer 02How goods reach the hall

Retail & Distribution

The quiet logistics behind the counter — shelves, routes, regional hubs. The first layer beneath what you see.

What moves

Cases, pallets, last-mile loads moving from regional hubs into stalls and stores.

Who trades

Independent retailers, regional distributors, co-operatives, fulfilment partners.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
Layer 03Trade between businesses

Wholesale / B2B

The layer most marketplaces never show you — businesses buying from businesses. Volume, contracts, terms.

What moves

Bulk orders, multi-pallet shipments, recurring contracts between firms.

Who trades

Wholesalers, importers, hospitality buyers, small chains, procurement teams.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
Layer 04Where things are made

Productive

Producers, workshops, factories, farms. This is where productive capacity is created — the same capacity that backs the Alive reserve.

What moves

Inputs becoming outputs — milling, baking, weaving, brewing, assembling, growing.

Who trades

Producers, workshops, mills, farms, manufacturers, processors.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
Layer 05Raw inputs, moving across the globe

Commodity & Cross-border

Wheat, copper, grid electrons, coffee beans, lithium — raw material flowing across regions and borders, feeding everything above.

What moves

Grain, ore, energy, fibre, fuel — measured in shiploads, megawatt-hours, futures contracts.

Who trades

Commodity houses, exporters, refiners, customs regimes, cross-border logistics.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
Layer 06The floor of the network

Institutional

The civilisational layer. D12 trade coordination and Economic Article 5 commitments — nations bonding capacity to each other.

What moves

Bilateral and multilateral commitments: capacity reservations, treaty-grade trade obligations.

Who trades

States, blocs, central banks, multilateral institutions, the D12 trade coordination layer.

Six-capital readout
Human
Ecological
Energy
Social / Trust
Financial
Productive
The world model

Every exchange is how the model sees the real economy.

This entire network — every trade, at every layer — is observable economic reality at fine grain. It is the economic-flow layer of the world model.

Causal, not statistical. Not "what tends to follow this purchase," but what this exchange does across all six capitals.

The fractal stack

The same shape, from the counter to the continent.

A person

buying olive oil at the Hall counter.

A nation

bonding renewable capacity into a cross-border commitment.

An exchange, accounted across six capitals, settled on a physics-anchored rail — at different magnitudes. The network is continuous from the individual to the civilisational. Only the scale changes.

Productive makes.
Trading exchanges.
Delivering brings it home.
Appreciate moves the value.

Discover in Hall. Move the value in Appreciate.

© 2026 Trading — part of the Alive platform