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Human Exchange Protocol

A record of what people do for each other
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Welcome to the Human Exchange Protocol
For most of human history, people cooperated without money. They helped each other, built things together, cared for each other, and kept track the only way they could: by remembering.
As communities grew, memory was not enough. A system was needed to track who did what for whom. Money became that system. It solved real problems, but it also created new ones. After thousands of years, most human effort is invisible to the economy. The things you do for the people around you — the care, the knowledge, the labor — go unrecognized and unvalued. When they are recognized, they are often thought of as an expense rather than a contribution.
This app picks up where memory left off, using modern tools. When two people cooperate and both confirm what happened, that act is permanently recorded on each of their own personal threads. Nothing is printed. Nothing is issued. Two people agreed that something real happened, and now it lives on both of their threads.
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The way modern civilization works, we consent to trust systems outside of ourselves. Banks, governments, private companies, fiat money, cryptocurrencies. We trust institutions to manage our value, our identity, our transactions. This is exogenous trust. It comes from outside of you.
This is the opposite. Here, trust is endogenous. It comes from within. It is built from your own cooperation, one act at a time. Every act on your thread was confirmed by another real person. No one can fabricate cooperation alone. As your thread grows, it becomes evidence, not of wealth, but of who you are in relation to others.
That evidence is what makes your record meaningful to people you have not met yet. The more honestly you participate, the more your thread speaks for you.
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You already understand this. When a child throws a ball, they do not know the theory of physics, but they understand physics. The same is true for economics. You may not know the academic language, but you understand economics deeply. You know what feels fair. You know when something costs too much. You know when someone is being generous.
Economics has been the driving force of human development since the very beginning, long before any record was ever kept, long before money, long before institutions. It is an underlying principle of human survival and cooperation. And that cooperation is what gave humans exponential growth potential. Two people working together do not just produce twice as much. They produce something qualitatively different that neither could create alone. That compounding effect is what built civilizations.
You will be tempted to think about this in terms of money. That is natural. Everyone goes through it. But this is not money. This is not debt. This is a record of your cooperative life. The things money could not care less about, the effort you give to the people around you, matter here.
Early exchanges are how you learn. There is no harm in getting it wrong. The system is designed so that every exchange after a mistake makes the mistake less significant. Approach it thoughtfully. Give yourself time. The rest will come.
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Feel free to go back and read through these ideas again. Everything here, along with other learning tools, will be available inside the app whenever you want them.
When you are ready, continue to set up your identity.

Install to your home screen first

On iPhone, your data is stored separately for apps on your home screen. If you set up here in the browser, your thread won't be accessible from the home screen version.

Tap the share button at the bottom of your screen, then tap "Add to Home Screen." Once installed, open it from there and set up.

First, let us secure your thread. Choose a PIN that you will remember. This is the only key to your identity. There is no recovery process, no reset email, no customer service. If you lose your PIN, your thread cannot be accessed by anyone, including you. This is by design. Your thread belongs to you completely.
Create your PIN
Confirm your PIN

Enter it once more to make sure.

Take a picture of yourself. It does not need to be perfect. This is not social media. It is just you.
This photo gets encrypted into the foundation of your thread. It is your identity anchor. When you exchange with someone, they can compare your current photo to this original to verify you are the same person who started this thread. It protects you.
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Skipping this means your thread has no identity anchor. You can add one later, but it will be harder for people to verify your thread is yours.
What should people know you by? You can use your real name, a nickname, an alias, whatever feels right. There is no authority here, no verification, no rules about this. Most people use what the people in their life already call them, but you decide.
You can change this anytime. Life changes. People change. Names change. That is all part of being part of a community, and it is all welcome here.
Make your first declaration
Declarations are things you record about yourself that help people understand who you are. This is a deeply personal process. You can always come back and add more over time.
In our current system, people understand you through degrees and certifications. This is different. This is about who you are and what you do. Some of that may be formal training, but it could also be life experience, things you learned by doing, skills no institution ever validated. Caregiver. Gardener. Problem solver. Mechanic. Mentor. Whatever is true about you.
Do not feel limited here. This is a declaration of who you are, not who other people decided you are.
You are about to think about how you value the things you do. This is not a test. There are no wrong answers.
We are going to ask you a few questions about value. Just pick numbers that feel right to you. Do not overthink it. Your instincts about what things are worth come from a lifetime of experience.
After you finish, we will show you something that ties it all together.
Imagine this.
On a scale of 1 to 1,000,000 — what value would you give to someone who cured cancer? Or someone who discovered a clean, carbon-free energy source that transformed our world?
What makes it valuable? Tap any that apply.
Time it takes Physical effort What feels fair Skill required What I'd charge in $ Years of learning Materials or supplies Risk or responsibility
Now, with that in mind, let us think about the things you do.
A small favor. Something easy that you would do for someone — it takes a few minutes, no special skill. Carrying a bag. Holding a door. Helping someone find something they dropped.
How did you arrive at that number? Tap any that apply.
Time it takes Physical effort What feels fair Skill required What I'd charge in $ Years of learning Materials or supplies Risk or responsibility
A full day of work. Whatever you do most days — for a job, for your family, for your community. A full day of your energy and effort.
How did you arrive at that number?
Time it takes Physical effort What feels fair Skill required What I'd charge in $ Years of learning Materials or supplies Risk or responsibility
Your best work. Now think about the most impressive thing you could do — combining all of your skills, knowledge, and experience into something that might take weeks or months. The best you are capable of.
How did you arrive at that number?
Time it takes Physical effort What feels fair Skill required What I'd charge in $ Years of learning Materials or supplies Risk or responsibility
Your Values on the Shared Scale
Everyone who uses this system shares the same scale: 0 to 1,000,000. It is a ruler, like meters or degrees. It does not tell you what your energy and effort is worth. It gives everyone a shared frame so that when two people meet, they can compare values directly. No conversion. No math. Just two numbers on the same ruler.
How pricing works here.
When you exchange with someone, their values will most likely align with yours if they followed the same logic. But you may notice someone asks for a higher recognition of energy for something that does not seem to require much. That is the pricing mechanism at work.
If a price does not feel right, you do not have to exchange. Someone else may offer the same energy at a different value. You can also negotiate — just as you would at any market. This is no different than deciding not to buy something at a store because the price does not feel right.
If you make a few exchanges and later realize you agreed to values that were too high or too low, that is fine. You are not punished for it. Every exchange after a mistake makes the mistake less significant on your thread. Early exchanges are how you learn.
How exchange works without money.
Imagine two people. Maria bakes bread. James fixes bikes. Maria's bike is broken and James is hungry. This works perfectly — Maria gives James bread, James fixes Maria's bike. They both record it. Both threads grow.
But what if Maria's bike is fine and James is still hungry? In the old world, Maria might bake him bread anyway. She remembers the help. James knows he should reciprocate. The whole community keeps a rough mental ledger of who gives and who takes.
That system worked beautifully for thousands of years. What broke it was not selfishness. It was scale. As communities grew beyond a few dozen people, no one could hold everyone's cooperative history in their head anymore.
This system solves the memory problem.
When Maria bakes bread for James, they both record it. Maria provided energy worth 50 units. James received it. Maria's thread goes up. James's thread reflects what he received. The exchange is real. The energy moved. The record is permanent.
Now when Maria needs her roof patched, she goes to Elena. Elena can see Maria's thread — a person who cooperates, who provides real value to her community. Elena names her price. Maria agrees. They record a new exchange. New units are created on both threads.
Maria did not need to have something Elena wanted right now. Her thread — her history of genuine cooperation — is what made the exchange possible. That is how the coincidence of wants is solved. Not with a token that passes between hands, but with a record that shows who you are.
This is just a starting point. The exercise above helps you think about how you value things. As you exchange with others, your actual history becomes the real picture. You can always revisit this.

Generating your identity...

Creating your keys and securing with your PIN.

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You have just created the beginning of your thread.
Right now it has one entry: you, declaring who you are. Everything that follows, every cooperative act, every exchange, every moment of real effort recognized, builds on this foundation.
As your life evolves, new skills, new experiences, new things you want to declare about yourself, you can add them anytime. Your photo can be updated. Your declarations can grow. Your thread grows with you.

If you are not exchanging with someone right now, we recommend starting with the learning tools. They will walk you through the concepts that make exchanges meaningful. The learning section is always available from the home screen.

Human Exchange Protocol

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