Silvatree vs BBX: How Do the Two Models Compare?

In short

• Both are mutual credit networks where UK businesses trade spare capacity without spending cash. Both have run for years.
• The differences are structural, and they sit in each operator's own published rules, not in the sales pitch.
• Under BBX's Rules the Manager can trade on its own account and controls the number of Trade Dollars. Silvatree's operator cannot run a negative balance and does not issue Silva units to itself.
• BBX grants credit lines, and its Rules and Terms build personal guarantees in, with a charge or mortgage over property for larger limits. Silvatree has no credit lines and no personal guarantees.
• Before you join either, ask what the rules say happens to your balance when you leave, and if the exchange winds down.

Why compare the rules, not the pitch?

Most owners judge a trading exchange on whether it works. It usually does, for someone. The harder question is what happens to the value you earn if the operator makes a decision that suits it and not you, or if the network winds down, or you run into financial difficulty. That answer is not in the brochure. It is in the rulebook you sign.

So here is the single idea to hold onto. The difference between Silvatree and BBX is not the pitch. It is what each operator's own rules allow it to do with the currency, with your balance, and with its own account. Both companies publish those rules. You can read them before you commit, and you should.

Silvatree is a Capacity Exchange. A Capacity Exchange is a B2B network where UK SMEs sell spare capacity (unsold time, unfilled rooms, empty seats, surplus stock) for Silva instead of cash, then spend Silva on real business expenses. BBX operates a trade exchange, the older model, using an internal unit its account pages now call the Digital Trade Credit, or DTC. Its Rules of the Trading Program, quoted throughout this piece, call the same unit the Trade Dollar. The rest of this piece sets the two side by side on the facts that matter.

How do Silvatree and BBX compare, line by line?

Every row below is a structural fact. The Silvatree column traces to Silvatree's published Terms and Conditions and fee schedule. The BBX column is drawn from BBX's own published documents, as at its Rules of the Trading Program (Version 2, October 2021) and its account pricing page as of 23 July 2026. Terms change, so read the current rules of any exchange before you join.

Why does the operator's own account matter?

This is the row most buyers skip, and it is the one that decides the rest. It is worth working through in plain economics, because it applies to any trade exchange whose rules permit what BBX's rules permit.

Start with what the documents allow. A trade exchange's rules typically let the operator trade on its own account and control the supply of trade units. BBX's Rules do both: the Manager may participate "as if it were a Member" (Rule 12.1) and may "regulate and control the number of Trade Dollars" (Rule 13.4). That is a description of what the rules permit, nothing more.

Now follow the economics of using that permission. When an operator spends units it has issued to itself, it takes real goods and services from members, and the total of member accounts is pushed correspondingly into credit. Members sitting on large unspent balances have less reason to sell for more of the same, so sellers start asking premiums and prices in the internal unit drift upward. Liquidity dries up. Balances become hard to spend at honest value. And leaving means forfeiting value, because the exit rules put fees and time limits in the way. Dissatisfaction quietly turns into retention.

That chain is why the operator-account question is decisive. So the fair thing to ask any exchange is simple: what is your own account balance, and do your rules let that balance go negative at all? Silvatree's answer is a published non-negative rule the software enforces. The company earns Silva by giving real value, the same as any member, and it can never spend the network into itself.

What do the rules say happens on wind-down?

The most revealing test of any exchange is what its own rules leave you with if it fails. Here BBX's Rules speak for themselves, so we quote them rather than characterise them.

On the operator's cash: "In the case of termination of franchise or license agreements in any country the cash balances of all members accounts will vest with BBX International Ltd" (Rules 13.3(c) and 15.5).

On the reserve: "The adequacy of the Debt Reserve Fund is not guaranteed by BBX International Ltd" (Rule 22.3), and "any shortfall in the debt reserve fund remains vested equally with all current members of the exchange" (Rule 22.4).

On what you could claim from the operator: the Manager's liability "shall be limited to the lower of: (i) the total aggregate value of any Fees paid by the Member to the Manager in the previous calendar year to the year in which a claim is brought; and (ii) £25,000" (Rule 27.11), with consequential and economic loss excluded on top.

Set those clauses beside each other and the fair question to ask any exchange writes itself. If it wound down tomorrow, what do its own rules say happens to your balance, and what is the most you could recover from the operator itself? Read the rules and ask it of every network you consider, Silvatree included.

Silvatree answers it this way. Under the published wind-down protocol, positive-balance members rank ahead of the company. Members in negative positions settle their balance in pounds at par, which funds the pot that pays positive balances at par where the pot supports it. The company subordinates its own Reserve Fund holding behind members (T&Cs Clauses 30 to 31). The protection is written into the structure, not promised alongside it.

What does it cost, and who sets the rate?

Two things matter with fees: the number, and who controls it.

BBX publishes tiered account pricing. As of 23 July 2026 its Micro account carries a setup fee of £497 and a transaction fee of 14% in cash plus 1% in Digital Trade Credits, its Gold account a £997 setup and 10% plus 1%, and its Black account a £997 setup and 6.5% plus 1%, each with a monthly fee and a credit line rising by tier, all before VAT (source: bbxuk.com/bbx-accounts, archived 23 July 2026). Those are the published tier rates. The Rules themselves reserve a wider discretion: the Transaction Fee is "such percentage of the value of the Trade as the Manager determines" (Rule 15.1).

Silvatree's Transaction Fee is fixed in the schedule you sign: 6% GBP commission plus 1% Silva routed to the Reserve Fund, paid by the seller, plus VAT on the combined commission. It is the same rate whether a trade settles in Silva, cash or a blend.

Silvatree's joining fee and monthly subscription are set for each member rather than banded. That is deliberate. They follow a smooth sliding scale sized to the capacity you actually bring, so a business at the bottom of a band is never charged the same as one with ten times the capacity to trade. Banded tiers are simpler to print. A sliding scale is fairer to the smaller member, which is the point of it.

What does BBX do well, and who might it suit?

A fair comparison names strengths plainly. BBX publishes its account tiers openly, which lets a prospective member see the headline numbers before a sales call. It offers a money-back guarantee on setup and access fees for the first year if agreed business volumes are not met (Rule 36). And it operates an established international network with human brokers who make introductions across borders.

That combination genuinely suits some businesses. If you want a large, ready-made cross-border network, value a broker who will pick up the phone and match you personally, and you are comfortable with a credit-line model backed where required by guarantees, a trade exchange in the BBX mould may be a reasonable fit. The honest test is not which company is louder. It is which structure you want your balance to live inside, once you have read what each set of rules allows.

The one question to carry into any sales call

Silvatree and BBX both let you turn spare capacity into spending power without cash. They diverge on who issues the currency, whether the operator can run its own account negative, whether you must sign a guarantee, and what your balance is worth on the way out. Each of those answers is in a document you can read today.

Two of those answers have a page of their own, because the clauses take some setting out: which company you are actually contracting with, and under whose law, and whether you have to sign a personal guarantee.

Work through the rest with a short, structured checklist rather than a pitch. We have written one up in How to choose a trade or capacity exchange, a set of questions you can put to any exchange, including this one. Put both rulebooks side by side, an AI assistant will do it in minutes, and ask specifically about personal guarantees, the wind-down procedure, and what each operator's own account is permitted to do.