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| crco:credit_commons [2026/04/10 14:40] – [Specialist curators of this topic] Simon Grant | crco:credit_commons [2026/08/11 13:38] (current) – Matthew Slater |
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| ===== What's a credit commons? ===== | ===== What's a credit commons? ===== |
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| It's the 'money system' for the commons economy, if you like. Money in the modern world _is_ credit, and from a commons perspective, that credit should belong to all of us, in common, not the banking system. _[Thomas Greco](http://lowimpactorg.onyx-sites.io/posts/future-of-money-thomas-greco) coined the term credit commons to describe a global system of mutual credit networks linked via a protocol._ | It's a way of unifying small currency projects into a global 'money system' which is greater than the sum of the parts. Money in the modern world _is_ credit issued by banks for profit, but from a commons perspective, that credit should be issued publicly for the benefit of the community. |
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| A [mutual credit](/mucr/mutual_credit) trading network in any town can be seen as that town's credit commons. So, for example in Bristol, a city-wide mutual credit network could be called Bristol Credit Commons, where credit is held in common - just as housing is held in common in Bristol Housing Commons. | Any [mutual credit](/mucr/mutual_credit) trading network is issuing credit for the good of the community, but that credit cannot leave the local network unless there are signed agreements about what happens if it does not return. The credit commons provides a framework, if not a template for those agreements, in which towns, regions, countries etc can make their own agreements, and make them compatible with their neighbours'. |
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| A global credit commons can be built by federating local trading groups together (but with autonomy for local groups), and the tool for doing that is the Credit Commons Protocol (see below). So we can talk about credit commons as a concept, but use capital letters when we talk about a town's network, the global network or the protocol. | We can speak of a credit commons which exists between all humans who ever lend and borrow. The Credit Commons Protocol offers a path to formalise this into a true financial system, with federated governance and infrastructure. |
| ==== Global Credit Commons ==== | |
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| We need scale to challenge the current money system, but starting at scale involves massive cost and risk (of failure or corporate takeover). Credit commons is about federating small, local schemes to get to scale. | A protocol is a bit like the rules of chess. To exchange with each other, we have to agree about how we keep score, otherwise there'll be free-riding, disagreements etc. With chess, if someone has a different idea about what chess is, you're not going to be able to play with them. |
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| The global Credit Commons concept is like the Internet – something that we can all plug into. It can incorporate business networks that trade with each other using mutual credit, fiat, crypto or barter, or anything else. But their relationship with the rest of the CC will be a mutual credit relationship. | ==== Global Credit Commons ==== |
| | The [[local currencies]] in recent decades and before have made little impact on people's lives or on the larger financial system. There are many reasons these systems were not adopted _en masse_ as their advocates hoped, but remain marginal until attention and resources run out. The Bristol Pound lived for a decade and consumed a few million real pounds of funding, but when the funding stopped there was no momentum. |
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| Elinor Ostrom, in _[Governing the Commons](http://lowimpactorg.onyx-sites.io/wp-content/uploads/ostrom_1990.pdf)_, suggested that to grow, commons should be 'organised in multiple layers of nested enterprises', which is exactly what the CC does, in a recursive, fractal way, like [sociocracy](/soci/sociocracy), but for trade rather than governance. | But there is another way to scale - by making myriad tiny projects interoperable. That is the vision of the credit commons. No matter how the small the group, it should be able to become part of a larger network and trade with that network using its own credit. |
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| | Elinor Ostrom, in _[Governing the Commons](http://lowimpactorg.onyx-sites.io/wp-content/uploads/ostrom_1990.pdf)_, suggested that to grow, commons should be 'organised in multiple layers of nested enterprises', which is exactly what the CC does, in a recursive, fractal way, like [sociocracy](/soci/sociocracy). Groups of groups of groups, but for trade rather than governance. |
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| ==== Credit Commons Protocol ==== | ==== Credit Commons Protocol ==== |
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| _Matthew Slater and Tim Jenkin introduced the Credit Commons Protocol via a [White Paper](https://creditcommons.org/assets/credit-commons.pdf) in 2016._ It's a set of standards and rules that govern how transactions are recorded and managed within a network. It utilises digital ledgers, similar to blockchain, to ensure transparency, security, and accountability. However, it differs from blockchain in emphasising mutual credit rather than cryptocurrencies. | _Matthew Slater and Tim Jenkin introduced the Credit Commons Protocol via a [White Paper](https://creditcommons.org/assets/credit-commons.pdf) in 2016._ It's a set of standards and rules that govern how transactions are recorded and managed within a network. Each group has its own (digital) ledger, and there are rules for trading accross ledgers. Although it uses hashing to ensure consistency, this is not a [[blockchain]] architecture. |
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| A protocol is a bit like the rules of chess. To exchange with each other, we have to agree about how we keep score, otherwise there'll be free-riding, disagreements etc. With chess, if someone has a different idea about what chess is, you're not going to be able to play with them. | |
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| The Protocol doesn’t just keep track of balances, it checks members' balance limits, and prevents transactions that violate those limits. So you don’t just need trust and collaboration, you need balanced trade within the network, to allow members to buy and sell without becoming stuck at their limits. | The Protocol doesn’t just keep track of balances, it checks members' balance limits, and prevents transactions that violate those limits. So you don’t just need trust and collaboration, you need balanced trade within the network, to allow members to buy and sell without becoming stuck at their limits. |
| - [Commons economy](coec:commons_economy) | - [Commons economy](coec:commons_economy) |
| - [Use-credit obligations](ucos:use-credit_obligations) | - [Use-credit obligations](ucos:use-credit_obligations) |
| - [Low-impact money](limo:money) | - [Collaborative finance](cofi:collaborative_finance) |
| - [ROSCAs - rotating savings & credit associations](rosc:roscas) | - [ROSCAs - rotating savings & credit associations](rosc:roscas) |
| - [Housing commons](hoco:housing_commons) | - [Housing commons](hoco:housing_commons) |
| ===== Specialist curators of this topic ===== | ===== Specialist curators of this topic ===== |
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| * [[user:matslats|Matthew Slater]] | * [[user:matslats|Matthew Slater]] of [[https://creditcommons.org|CreditCommons.org]] |
| | * [[user:mrauchs|Michel Rauchs]] |
| | * [[user:dil|Dil Green]] of [[https://www.mutualcredit.services/|Mutual Credit Services]] |