Recursive Mutual Credit Protocol

Decentralized Monetary Protocol

A meta-protocol grammar for federating mutual credit networks recursively — enabling parent networks to compose child networks under shared rules while preserving each network's autonomy. The same protocol nests at multiple scales, with cross-network settlement through protocol-defined paths. Prototype: Credit Commons Protocol (Matthew Slater and Tim Jenkin).

Community
Links
Visit Community

Details

License Libre. https://gitlab.com/credit-commons
Dev Status 🟢 Active
Dev Status Detail Beta — protocol specification and reference implementation available; production deployments limited.
Owner Credit Commons Society (UK-registered); core stewards Matthew Slater, Tim Jenkin.
Country United Kingdom (Credit Commons Society).
Start Year 2016
Stack PHP (reference implementation); language-agnostic protocol specification.
Funding Volunteer; small grants; community contributions.
Last Investigated Jul 1, 2026

Use Case Domains

Platform Evolution & Sovereignty

Decentralized Monetary Protocol Attributes

Origins Solidarity economy finance; mutual credit federation research; cooperative banking traditions.
Data Formats Account tree structures; transaction routing data; cross-ledger settlement records.
Terms Open protocol; reference implementation free to deploy.
Funds Unknown — small-scale volunteer project.
Based On Classical mutual credit theory; nested institutional analysis; Tim Jenkin's earlier work on CES (Community Exchange System).
Permissions Per-ledger governance; protocol rules for nesting between parent and child networks.
Smart Contract No — reference implementation is off-chain; blockchain bindings possible.
Development Tools Credit Commons reference implementation; documentation.
Protocol Maturity / Standardization Community Standard — published specification with reference implementation.
Trust Framework Inherits parent network's trust framework; protocol enforces nesting rules; bilateral trust at each network layer.
Target Application Domain Solidarity economy finance; cross-community mutual credit federation; cooperative economic networks.
Game-Acceptance Position Modify-Additive — designed to federate existing mutual credit networks alongside national currencies.
Accumulation Regime Inherits parent — each network's accumulation regime preserved; protocol enforces zero-sum at each level.
Coordination Mechanism Bounded-trust mutual at each node; recursive composition at protocol level.
Issuance Model Inherits parent network — each child network issues per its own rules; protocol governs cross-network settlement.
Value-Signal Type Inherits parent network's units; supports plural sub-units across federated networks.
Federation Pattern Recursive — designed for arbitrary nesting; scales through composition.
Substrate Independence Substrate-neutral.