Scalability

Scalability - increasing integration towards a universal currency

There seem to be three approaches which could be taken towards homogenising and intertrading between all compliant systems. These three options range from the one currency-one community approach of traditional LETS, to a centralised overlapping currencies / overlapping communities approach.

Model 1 (Linked schemes with interchangable currencies)
This represents the minimum that LETSlink UK wants to facilitate. Schemes will sign up to the national accreditation, and LETSlink UK will offer them software and probably hosting, or they can arrange their own as long as it meets the requirements. All currencies are convertible to minutes and therefore schemes can exchange currency, automatically if their software supports it. People wishing to work in hours will find this the hardest, and also individuals without a scheme in their area. Groups wanting to run multiple currencies can do so unless limited by software. MatsLETS was designed on this model.

Model 2 (Interchangable currencies managed by schemes)
This represents a shift in thinking where each currency has its own trading system, fees, rules, membership, and committee. Still the committee can be responsible for software, but LETSlink UK would provide hosting for the currencies and an interface that allows users to sign up to multiple currencies and and manage them through one login. A user would expect to be able to transfer funds between accounts, and this might happen so easily that all the currencies might be thought of as part of a universal system of exchange. That means all LETS traders will be on a single database, and when they log in they will see the news, notices, job postings, stats from the currencies to which they are signed up. It could be that cyclos' architecture is better suited to this model. cclite, also, although that software has a long way to go in terms of managing the rest of the community.

This model would also allow the exciting possibility of inter-radial communities mentioned above. It seems to me though that this model is merely the start of a slippery slope towards model 3 and beyond.

Model 3 (currencies as windows onto a universal time-based currency)
In this model there is almost no role for committees because all schemes are merged into one. Currencies may have local names, and rules, but they are so easy to intertrade they may as well all be hours. Individual currencies are a facade serving only to trading clusters, because it feels the same to trade within and accross currencies. Any idea of locality is done by inter-radial groups in which users define their own localities and interests. The software is rather complicated, but the fundamental model, of everyone trading hours, is much simpler.