The 'pixel' is an ideal unit of matter that contains almost every element in a distribution that is statically most efficient for providing raw material for manufacturing. This allows storage and distribution of resources without advanced knowledge of the nature goods that may need to be produced. On-demand manufacturing consumes pixels to gather the necessary material to produce goods. The remaining unused elemental portion of consumed pixels is discarded as waste product or held in a buffer in case it is required for a future production task. Pixels are the primary input for molecular printers. Currently, the amount of physical Pixels available is still growing from a massive supply drop, as the creation of Pixels can only be facilitated in a few locations known as the Pixel Mints. The creation of Pixel Units is highly regulated in Civspace due to the dangers that would result from faulty minting, leading to a few select organizations having access to the formulas for their creation.
As a digitized currency, the amount of Pixels in one's ownership represents a value of their possible engineering output. Due to the space that is taken by storage of Pixels, people rarely opt to use anything but the digital currency when dealing in Pixel Units, only withdrawing physical units when needed. While the physical variant of the Pixel has a natural forgery fail-safe in that they are only produced by a few select groups in the Galaxy, the most often applied method of fraud-prevention in digital Pixel trade involves a form of fail-safe whenever one decides to digitize or materialize a set amount of Pixels. When this transfer occurs, the digitization results in the molecular breakdown and essential destruction of the Pixel being deposited (said waste is often cycled back to mints for use in later batches), and when re-materialized, the amount of digital currency one has inside of their account is lowered in accordance with however many moles of Pixels are being produced.
Pixels are used as a form of universal currency in the Fringe especially due to their universal value and the fact that civspace takes great effort in ensuring their stability, even if molecular printers are less common than they are in civspace. The unit for pixels is ▣ or Px. 1▣ is equal to approximately 0.50 USD.
Though the exchange of physical pixels as a cash currency is very rare, pixels are built to be able to clump together using magnets built in using magnetic material present in the pixel unit, allowing them to be stacked into larger 'voxels' of different values, and taken apart into their individual units. In most cases, pixels are transferred easily electronically whether it be through online stores, brick-and-mortar businesses, or private transactions, whether it be from digital wallets owned by the individual, or from a bank in larger amounts. If physical pixels are required, such as for a manufacturing task, they can be withdrawn from a terminal or bank, automatically deducted from the digital account and electronically verified.