What is P2P Digital Barter?

Traditional bartering.

Bartering is an ancient way of trading. Whatever you have to offer, you exchange it for whatever you need. Anything can be exchanged, both tangible and intangible. It is possible to barter goods, services and even time. When bartering both parties have to agree, there are no intermediaries, it's peer to peer. Digital bartering requires a higher degree of trust and both parties need to be sure of two things. Firstly that the other party is who they claim to be and secondly that what they’re offering is real.

For P2P Digital Barter we have created the concept of the Personal Token.

A Personal Token is like a currency created and minted not by a central bank or government but by an individual. It represents the goods, skills, services or time that that individual has decided to exchange. It also represents the reputation the individual has as a provider. The tokens do not give the individual a value, they only represent what they offer. The individual can decide how many of their personal tokens they want to make available but they are obliged to deliver whatever the token represents.

Personal tokens can be used to barter digitally and can also be returned to their creator to be exchanged for whatever they represent. Personal tokens are a promise to the holder and an obligation to the creator. Anybody can transact with any token just as anybody can use any traditional currency. If the value of the token is trusted, the token can be used as a means of exchange.

How do you create and use Personal Tokens to transact?

To create a personal token you need a profile and then within the profile you need to describe what exactly you want to barter. This is important because whatever you put here defines what your token represents to the other members of our community.

You need to explain what you offer and make it clear when, where and how you offer it. If you are offering your time, how soon will you be available? If you are offering access to content or events, where are they accessed and for how long?

The promise

Detail is important because whatever you define in your profile, whatever you are offering to barter with, becomes the promise you are using to back your token. How well you keep your promise will affect the reputation you have on the platform and will determine how many people accept your token.

For example, the service I offer is that of an English teacher and my promise is relatively straight forward: 1 token is 1 minute of my time. On my profile page there is a booking calendar which shows the earliest time I am available i.e. the earliest time my token can be redeemed for my promise.

The promise you define on your profile page is public and represents the face value of your token. As when bartering in the real world you have control over the real value of your offering. The face value can be different to the real value, the specific deal you would like to offer to a friend or peer.

For example, if you are a software developer, you might define the face value on your profile page as 50 tokens for a 10 minute consultation, but in a private session with a trusted acquaintance you are free to offer an hour or two of real development work for the same 50 tokens. How you barter your offering is up to you, it's peer to peer!

We can see that the token may have two different types of value. The first fixed, the face or public value, the promise or obligation you have defined on your profile page. The second, dynamic, decided by the two parties who want to use your token to barter.

Reputation based value

On your profile page there is another important factor to take into account; reputation. This is measured in two ways. Firstly, your reputation on the platform is increased depending on how many transactions your token is involved in over time. Secondly, the people you transact with will rate how well you keep your promise, the quality of your offering and the speed of delivery.

How soon what you offer is available and your general trustworthiness all add to your reputation and all this adds value to your token. A personal token represents a specific promise and a reputation. These are the factors you need to take into account when deciding whether to accept a token in a transaction.

How do Personal Token transactions work?

In the video below, the inventor of the Personal Token explains in more detail, showing how the tokens are used in different transactions and illustrating the cyclical nature of the token, returning to it's creator when it's redeemed.