BCX is a basic mutual credit platform.  Mutual credit means that we, ourselves, issue credit to each other for our own goods and services.  We call it “bio-credit”.  There is no money involved, only an accounting of exchanges.  Trading in this way connects us to the resources within our own community, offsetting some of our need for conventional money and increasing the density of our interconnectedness - an important key to biological success.  When we form a credit facility, we also position ourselves to intertrade with other communities in the future and to link up with a larger grassroots credit ecology.  Of any long-term funding strategy, this is the most aligned with biological design principles.

More concretely, here's how it works:

Every BCX member starts with an account balance of 0 and the unit of account is hours.  You can spend before you earn or earn before you spend within the network up to an initial credit limit of 13 hours in either direction (positive or negative) during the pilot.  For the prototyping phase, there is no fee to join and operations are covered through voluntary contributions.  To participate, you must agree to:

1. Give and receive in equal amounts within the network over the course of your membership.  Concretely, this means returning the balance of your account to 0 before exiting the system in the future, whether during or after the pilot period.  This is how we guarantee a balanced flow of exchange throughout the community.
2. Make at least one transaction during the pilot (which will last through July 2016).  We would also encourage you to post at least 3 offers and 3 wants to help build our internal market if possible, but this is not a strict requirement.
3. Fill out a simple survey at the end of the pilot providing feedback on your experience and any recommendations you might have for our community credit strategy going forwards.