---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Matthew Slater <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Apr 6, 2014 at 8:28 PM Subject: Intertrading: an answer to Bitcoin To: Xavier Hawk <[email protected]>, Michel Bauwens < [email protected]>, Tim Jenkin <[email protected]>, Arie Ben David < [email protected]>, Daniel NEIS <[email protected]>, Jordi Griera < [email protected]>, Marco Sachy <[email protected]>, Jaromil Rojo <[email protected]>, Neil Peters <[email protected]> Cc: Kevin Parcell <[email protected]>, Jem Bendell <[email protected]>, Stephen Beckett <[email protected]>, Miles Thompson <[email protected]>, Stephanie Rearick <[email protected]>, Leander Bindewald < [email protected]>, intertrading-protocol < [email protected]>, [email protected], Steve Cassidy <[email protected]> Greetings monetary innovators, and lurkers alike, I hope you will spare me few moments of your time. Thomas Greco has called for a credit commons, comprised of a network of local clearing systems and for five years now I've been working on tools for constructing that network. Last September a handful of us met in Berlin and hammered out this semi-official protocol on the social and technical levels. http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/wp-content/uploads/CXP_protocol_intertrading_a... But work has paused since then because it seems money is needed for software development, and also my attention is taken up with upgrading CES, the largest existing network. CES supports intertrading between its member communities, which I call internal intertrading. I think an Intertrading API, implemented across the networks such as are represented here, would be *as interesting as Bitcoin*, oh yes. Imagine: A global payments network, with a stable unit of value, issued by member communities on the basis of trust and agreed limits, promoted towards transition groups, communities, intentional communities, LETS, time banks or informal barter groups. Unlike Bitcoin, participation involves trust. Unlike Bitcoin, credit issuance would be done by member communities according to their own policies. Unlike Bitcoin, governance and responsibility would be required. As interesting as Bitcoin certainly, but perhaps not such a lottery, a white knuckle ride, polarising issue, and not so divisive or attractive to fraudsters, sharks and speculators. The reason I'm reaching out to everyone here (the To: recipients) is 1. if we could connect our work together we have much more chance of reaching critical mass, 2. there may be opportunities to share resources 3. for most of you, this initiative should add value and global reach to your main projects. So I would like to introduce you to one another. First myself - *Matthew Slater*, cofounder of Community Forge which provides hosting for around 80 LETS and time banks. I produce software for many more, and recently I was made an ambassador for the Global Ecovillage Network in hope that I'll say something insightful about their economy. Then, in approximate descending order of current constituency size... - *Tim Jenkin* is the builder of CES, the largest nonprofit network of mutual credit exchanges in the world - already intertrading and currently collaborating with government in Australia, myself and Jnana consulting. - *Michel Bauwens* (P2P Foundation) wishes to see 'A currency for the commons', meaning the whole sharing economy, including permaculture, carsharing, enterprise investment and I suppose land ownership. - *Jordi Griera* is working with the Catalan Integral Cooperative - a radical coop of coops involving many currency projects which seek to be more interoperable. - *Stephen Beckett* maintains hOurworld which provides hosted software for a great many time banks, with internal intertrading. - New Zealand time banks (*Miles Thompson*) are looking together for the next software platform which will allow them the right degree of interoperability and configurability - *Arie ben David* is building a community money network aimed at villages, activists and also working on politicians and the public in Israel. - *Xavier Hawk* is working with bitcoiners to build a Permacredits cryptocurrency for ecovillages, to encourage investment and help incubate businesses. - *Daniel Neis* is building a new kind of business exchange system in Germany in which the credit issuance is tied directly to the promise of goods and services. - *Neil Peters* is building crowdbucks, a crowdfunding platform and wide modular infrastructure which intends to issue credit on the basis of invested money. - *Marco Sachy & Jaromil* have European money with the D-CENT project which has a broad remit to support communities with democratic tools and monetary tools. Freecoin is envisaged as a toolkit and there is an idea of 'social mining' to issue currency (which I'll blog<http://matslats.net/complementary_currencies>about when I get a minute). These are just the few projects with one foot in the English speaking world who are looking outward... Between us ten projectswe have a constituency of many tens of thousands of users moreorless ready to participate. We have a very high overlap in values, and intentions about building alternatives to money in order to redeem humanity rather than to get rich. Yet between us we are able to generate very little popular excitement about our work. Few of us are blogging, making videos or speaking at conferences. Few of us are under 30. Almost none of us are attracting volunteers. This mail was prompted by a conversation with Neil, who is offering to put a programmer to work on intertrading this month, project managed by me. But we have yet to decide a technical approach for intertrading. If we build it will you implement it? Don't forget the first half of the protocol we published was social, not technical. regardless of the technics, we could start now building the governance if we want to. I don't want to be pushing people where they say they want to go and I don't want to be the only engine on the plane, after all my sabbatical year is 2 years overdue! So I'm calling for a reality check, especially from the named people above. 1. Given the marginal use of internal intertrading in existing systems, am I barking up the wrong tree, or would intertrading at scale have much more potential? 2. Could we accomplish more by working more closely together? 3. If we developed a consistent PR approach, would that help with adoption and volunteering and funding? 4. Should we think of a sexier name for intertrading, and a message such as 'This [sexier name] is the social, local, ecological and grown-up alternative to Bitcoin' and should we then talk about it in public in a coordinated way to educate the people (and Bitcoiners). 5. With a Commons Intertrading infrastructure in place, can we envisage business opportunities e.g. B2B barter networks, crowdfunding that would use it? 6. We are all working hard to make the world better, so who should be contributing to this initiative, if anyone? Please reply to 'all' (50 people) and try to be brief. I hope I haven't been long winded. Matthew Find out more about my work in local money systems My personal web site <http://matslats.net> including my blog, Adventures in mutual credit <http://matslats.net/complementary_currencies> Interview on Corbett Report Radio<http://www.corbettreport.com/corbett-report-radio-057-solving-the-money-problem-with-matthew-slater/> Brief bio and articles on shareable.net<http://shareable.net/users/matthew-slater> I co-founded Community Forge <http://communityforge.net> Bitcoin donations accepted: 1QLPWcQpp1x2Qzqocjm2CfnpoiCLUd4JXt -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/