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Adventures in mutual credit

Interledger for the credit commons?

published by matslats on Sat, 07/09/2016 - 10:04

Lucas Huber suggests that the Interledger Protocol would be a suitable technology for implementing the credit commons. This post is a space to explore that more fully.
Credit commons was originally conceived as a ledger between the all the ledgers on all the separate platforms of the complementary currency movement, and the actual function of the interledger protocol is the same, to ensure that one transaction in one ledger is equivalent to another transaction in another ledger, thus that money/credit are not created/lost by mismatches in ledgers.

Ripple, reciprocation and the Credit Commons.

published by matslats on Fri, 07/01/2016 - 15:36

For a long time I have marvelled at the elegance of the Ripple protocol, which allows members of a network to extend trust to one another and for payments, or at least virtual payments, to ripple through the resulting mesh along pathways it finds.

Conversation with Vrillissia timebank, Athens

published by matslats on Fri, 06/17/2016 - 08:58
I sat down with Athens' newest Timebank, Vrilissia, and Luke Flegg to talk about cooperation in Austerity-riddled Greece.

Request for Information II (published at CES)

published by matslats on Wed, 05/25/2016 - 17:04

This was published at: https://www.community-exchange.org/docs/smalladsrfi.html
This request for information is seeking partners and friends to work on an open directory of ads to support grass roots economies. The requirements are almost exactly the same as my 2011 RFI, but now with the added weight of CES.

MOOC Alumni newsletter

published by matslats on Mon, 05/23/2016 - 16:10

Greetings Alumni of the Money and Society MOOC,

Jem and I decided to keep in touch with you with this new Biannual newsletter. It includes some headlines I found interesting, and other tidbits about what Jem and I are doing.

Our news

Resolving the paradox of monetary discourse.

published by matslats on Wed, 03/30/2016 - 15:51

Students of economics are taught that money has three main functions, a unit of account, a store of value and a medium of exchange. On closer examination we find that these three sit uneasily together. For example, a store of value should increase in value over time, while a medium of exchange works best when the value is decreasing. All the while the unit of account should stay the same value!

The scale of credit

published by matslats on Fri, 03/18/2016 - 09:00

My understanding of money came initially through LETS and the beautiful, simple mechanism of mutual credit. Working from the principle of balance, mutual credit accounting begins and ends with no debts and no money. Money is just an imaginary intermediary that keeps account between all the members of society, enabling them to 'split the barter', giving and receiving with different people at different times, but always in balance.

Challenging the Business Barter industry

published by matslats on Sat, 01/16/2016 - 23:16

About four years ago I realised that my work with local exchange systems could be much more impactful if I concentrated on commercial business barter rather than on LETS and time banks.

Wave/particle money

published by matslats on Wed, 12/09/2015 - 02:37

This article develops the idea from my recent post, Is money like energy

Is money like energy?

published by matslats on Mon, 11/23/2015 - 01:21

I am often told that money is like energy; that it flows around the community creating economic activity remaining essentially the same, never being destroyed. But this metaphor doesn't satisfy me. it works quite well for cash whether fiat or backed, but most of our money is not cash and in fact behaves very differently.

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