As micropayments and virtual currency get set to take over the web, evidence for a coming wealth explosion is gathering momentum.

Hub Culture's social currency, Ven, has now traded over 1,000,000 units since its broad inception in 2007. The usage of the currency and reaction among members has created a set of insights that are changing the way we see money and value in an internet based economy. Core to this understanding is a shift in understanding of the very nature of money itself - away from a basis on scarcity (which we've been taught to accept) and toward a basis of information exchange. This idea of money as information, tracking our debits and credits owed to others in our network, is at the root of a fundamental democratization of money.

This is set to have enormous consequences for both the internet and the global economy at large -especially in regard to our relationships with finance and financial institutions.