Mutual credit, minus the enterprise software.
Mutual credit is a beautiful idea that keeps dying on bad tooling: enterprise suites that need an admin team, or spreadsheets that need a saint. barter.game gives your network its own cryptographically signed credit ledger — hosted, free, and simple enough that members actually use it.
Credit issued by communities, backed by trust.
In mutual credit, the currency is created when members trade: one account goes down, another goes up, and the network always sums to zero. On barter.game each community runs its own bank that issues vouchers — promises of goods and services. Members hold, trade, and redeem them, and every entry on the ledger is signed.
A real ledger, not a spreadsheet
Every account, balance, and transfer is recorded on a cryptographically signed ledger with its own keys — auditable by design.
Members self-serve
No admin-managed accounts. Share your network's link and members create their own accounts with their own keys and passwords.
Federated by default
Your network stays sovereign, but it isn't isolated: banks on barter.game can trade across communities, so credit flows where trust already exists.
For networks that trade on trust.
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Local trade networks
Neighbors and small businesses exchanging goods and services without cash changing hands.
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Barter and LETS groups
Local Exchange Trading Systems get a modern home: accounts, balances, offers, and requests in one place.
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Mutual credit experiments
Testing a credit commons or a new community currency? Spin up a bank in a minute and start trading, no infrastructure to run.
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Networks of networks
Because banks are federated, separate communities can settle with each other — the way mutual credit was always meant to scale.
The fine print, in large print.
Is this a cryptocurrency or a blockchain?
No. Each community bank keeps a signed ledger — real cryptographic integrity — but there is no token, no mining, no chain, and nothing to speculate on. Credits have value because members honor them.
Can we set credit limits?
The ledger records balances transparently, so the network can see who is deeply in the red. Formal per-account limits are on the roadmap — today most networks manage this socially, as they always have.
What does it cost?
barter.game is free: the bank, the public community page, and hosting are included.
Who can move credits?
Only the account holder — transfers are signed with the member's own key. The platform hosts the bank but cannot move anyone's balance.
Spin up your ledger in a minute.
Registration is free. Your network could be trading today.
Start your network