Geek Credit, p2p digital currency
Abstract
Geek Credit is a digital complementary currency for internet. It is
decentralized, secure, interest and demurrage free. It is backed by
mutual credit (time). There is no central issuing and control
authority, so it is a true peer-to-peer currency.
It is a digital form of WATT local currency system
that is used in Japan.
Like any complementary currency it is best fit for paying for
services within a community. So for internet it is paying to free
software, mp3s, books, best blogs, items from MMORGs, etc.
News, status
Geek Credit pocket software is alpha. Download current source release 0.018.
Precompiled binary for Windows 2K/XP users who don't have Python installed
is also available.
Geek Credit pocket is a reference implementation of the Geek Credit Policy.
It is a Python script that has a command line and simple Tkinter GUI interface.
It is usable and the only reason because I consider it alpha is
that there was not much independent testing so far.
Please submit bug reports and feature requests for the pocket
software. I'd also appreciate any ideas about Geek Credit
system design and development.
Short description
If you provide a service for community (writing free software,
providing your band's mp3s for download, etc) you may ask users to
pay you Geek Credits. You may also pay Geek Credits you received or
issued yourself to anyone who agrees to accept them. Issuing
a Geek Credit means a commitment to provide some service in the future to the
community (one who will eventually pay you this Geek Credit in the future).
Geek Credit can also be used to create a private community currency, that is not convertable to internet community Geek Credit.
Geek Credit may also be used as one of the tools to create a massive multiplayer game economy.
The main design goals for Geek Credit system are:
- to make it as simple as possible, share the complexity between user agent and policy. no network protocol involved, its possible to use it offline, with e-mail only or even using fax and scanner.
- p2p, nearly impossible to destroy a working system; does not require a central authority to operate; viral distribution, it is not needed to register or open an account to start using Geek Credits.
- open source(GPL) implementation and open documentation, this promotes trust,
Geek Credit pocket reference code is less than 1KLOC of well documented Python.
- policy centric, i.e. the Geek Credit system is essentially a policy, system security does not rely on the security of the software implementation. It is pointless to hack a Geek Credit pocket software.
Details
- Project page at Gna.org
- a place to download Geek Credit
pocket software and documentation, web cvs, mail lists, bug tracking, etc.
Geek Credit pocket software
needs GnuPG and Python to run (unless you download the precompiled version).
- Geek Credit Manual - this is the the user
documentation for Geek Credit system. Please read readme.txt in the archive too.
- Geek Credit Policy - this is
the technical basis of the Geek Credit system.
- FAQ - more documentation on the Geek
Credit system.
- TODO - how I am improving Geek Credit
system right now.
- Sample community page - my personal Geek Credit page.
Similar projects
There are few development efforts with similar goals in the internet.
The DEM is also implementing
a distributed digital currency. It will have more features than Geek Credit when done.
i-WATT will be released soon (hopefully this weekend)
All other digital currencies efforts I am aware about are either internet payment systems based on the conventional money, or LETS implementations.
Other
Geek Credit system currently lacks the information infrastructure that is essential
for large scale operation. To become more usable, it needs a web site
to track the information on goods being traded and frauds. I am
trying to create one now but I am no web programmer (you see this
page ;) so I would really appreciate any help here.
I am receiving a lot of e-mails saying that Geek Credit is an excellent system, so this worth waiting till everyone will use it and then join. So I have a chicken and egg problem here. There is no existing framework to be backward compatible with, so I cannot use this catch-22 defeating formula :(
Python simulation scripts that can be used to simulate the Geek Credit systems can be found in GNA cvs, along with the latest snapshot of the Geek Credit pocket script, docs and test scripts.
Author: Alexander Komarov, this is my homepage
Changed at Mon Apr 12 21:18:34 MSD 2004
