FOAF Ecosystem & Landscape¶
This document tracks organizations, communities, events, and resources in the broader mutual credit, credit clearing, and collaborative finance space. FOAF does not operate in isolation — knowing who else is building in this space helps us position well, avoid duplication, and identify future collaborators.
Resource Hubs¶
lowimpact.org — Mutual Credit Category¶
URL: https://www.lowimpact.org/categories/economy/mutual-credit
A worker co-operative running one of the most comprehensive public resource hubs for alternative economics. Their mutual credit section links out to related topics including:
- Credit clearing
- Credit commons
- Local / independent currencies
- ROSCAs (rotating savings & credit associations)
- Co-operatives and commoning
Useful as a reference for framing, education content, and understanding how the broader public encounters these ideas. Their audience overlaps significantly with FOAF's target users.
Communities & Gatherings¶
Collaborative Finance (CoFi) Gathering¶
URL: https://www.collaborative-finance.net
An annual week-long gathering in the Austrian Alps (Commons Hub, Hirschwang) focused on the theory and practice of alternative financial systems. Organized by Matthew Slater, Stephen DeMeulenaere, and Scott Morris — veterans of the community currency and commons economy space.
Past attendees include organizations with direct relevance to FOAF:
| Organization | Relevance |
|---|---|
| Credit Commons | Protocol for interoperable mutual credit networks |
| LedgerLoops | Multilateral credit clearing / cycle detection |
| Mutual Credit Services | UK-based B2B mutual credit operator |
| Grassroots Economics | Community currency implementation in Kenya |
| Circles UBI | Trust-based UBI on blockchain |
| Holochain | Agent-centric distributed computing |
| Sikoba | Peer-to-peer IOU / credit network |
| Celo | Mobile-first blockchain for financial inclusion |
| Commons Stack | Token engineering for commons governance |
Status: Aware of CoFi; not attending until iOS/Android apps are released. A working product is a stronger entry point than a pitch.
Parallel Implementations¶
VimbisoPay / Credex Ecosystem¶
Organization: Great Sun Group Location: Zimbabwe (Harare/Mbare), with technical leadership in Halifax, Canada URLs: https://mycredex.app, https://docs.mycredex.app GitHub: https://github.com/Great-Sun-Group/credex-core
Team: - Ryan Watson (Founder & CTO, Great Sun Group, based in Halifax) - Mike Dube (CEO, VimbisoPay & Great Sun Group Zimbabwe operations)
What They're Building:
A mutual credit system with remarkably similar architecture to FOAF:
- Core Mechanism: "Credex" smart contracts are non-transferable IOUs between two parties. Outstanding credexes automatically chain into "credloops" (credit cycles) which are detected and cleared by their Minute Transaction Queue (MTQ).
- Zero-Sum Ledger: All credits and debits balance to zero across the system — identical to FOAF's mutual credit model.
- Client Apps: VimbisoPay mobile app and WhatsApp chatbot connect to the credex-core API.
- Natural Resource Anchoring: Daily Credcoin Offering (DCO) ties exchange rates to natural resource flows rather than fiat.
- Secured vs Unsecured: Can issue credexes backed by real assets (currency, gold) or purely on trust.
Key Differences from FOAF:
| Aspect | VimbisoPay/Credex | FOAF |
|---|---|---|
| Token Model | Credcoin (DCO-based, resource-anchored) | FOAF (governance) + RHEO (transaction utility) |
| Blockchain | None — centralized API/ledger | Radix DLT (planned) |
| Credit Clearing | MTQ (Minute Transaction Queue) | Trust-path routing with credloop detection |
| Philosophy | "Alternative TO currency" — Steiner-inspired, sovereignty-focused | Trust networks + resilience hubs |
| Target | Zimbabwe initially, focus on cash-scarce economies | Community gardens → broader marketplace |
Development Status (as of March 2026):
- Launch Timeline: Demo announced September 2023 in Mbare, Harare. Actual user adoption unclear.
- Technical Maturity: credex-core API exists with documentation. Credloop clearing logic appears implemented.
- User Base: No public evidence of active users or transaction volume.
- Team Size: Very small (~2-3 visible team members).
Relevance to FOAF:
- Algorithmic Overlap: Their MTQ credloop clearing is solving the exact same graph traversal problem FOAF needs to implement. Worth studying their approach even though we can't see their source code.
- Shared Challenges: Both projects face identical obstacles — building trust in mutual credit, user onboarding in low-connectivity environments, and making abstract credit concepts tangible.
- Complementary Strengths: They appear to have built the credloop logic; FOAF has more user-facing work done. Both are MVP-stage with no significant user base yet.
- Different Paths: Centralized API vs. blockchain, resource-anchoring vs. fiat-denominated, philosophical vs. practical framing.
Potential Collaboration:
Given similar stage and overlapping problem space, knowledge sharing could be valuable — especially around credloop algorithms, user education, and credit limit management. Both projects would benefit from open dialogue.
Notes on Positioning¶
- FOAF's trust-path routing and credloop clearing have meaningful overlap with what LedgerLoops and Credit Commons are building. Worth understanding their architectures before any collaboration or differentiation conversations.
- The lowimpact.org "credit clearing" category is particularly relevant to FOAF's credloop logic — their framing of multilateral netting maps directly to what we're implementing.
- CoFi explicitly bridges community currency veterans with web3/blockchain builders — exactly where FOAF sits with the Radix implementation.
Last updated: March 2026