What 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. You earn Silva at your usual prices, 1 Silva is recorded as £1 for your accounts, and Silva stays inside the network.
- Turn spare capacity you would otherwise waste into Silva you can spend.
- Keep your cash. Pay eligible business costs with Silva instead.
- 1 Silva is recorded as £1 for your accounts. Silva is not cash-convertible.
- The operator's account cannot go negative, and members rank ahead of it if the network ever winds down.
- Start conservatively at around half of your spare capacity, then scale.
What does that mean in plain English?
You stop letting perishable capacity expire for nothing. Every business carries fixed costs that do not disappear when a slot goes unsold: the empty midweek table, the unused appointment, the hotel room nobody books tonight, the off-peak labour hour, the surplus stock on the shelf. Once that moment passes, its value is gone for good.
A Capacity Exchange puts that value to work. You sell what you would otherwise waste, you get paid in Silva, and you spend those Silva on things your business already needs. Your cash account stays where it is.
Why do busy firms feel cash-tight?
Plenty of owners are busy and still short of cash at the end of the month. Costs rise faster than prices, wages, rent and supplies among them. The timing is unkind too: you pay your bills now and get paid later.
So the growth spend gets deferred. Marketing, new systems and training wait, because cash has to cover payroll and the VAT bill first. Meanwhile the empty table and the idle van keep leaking value every week, quietly and for free. That leak is the thing a Capacity Exchange is built to close.
How does a Capacity Exchange work, step by step?
The mechanics are straightforward once the idea lands.
- List the capacity you are genuinely willing to supply for Silva. Midweek tables, unused appointment slots, unsold rooms, off-peak hours, surplus stock.
- Earn Silva when another member fills it. When they buy from you, you receive Silva at your normal price, one Silva for every pound.
- Spend Silva on expenses you already have. Marketing, professional services, maintenance, accommodation and more, wherever the network has members offering them.
Here is an illustration, not a promise. Take a restaurant with an empty midweek table. A £200 booking paid in 200 Silva might carry £80 of food and drink costs. That table would have earned nothing; instead it becomes 200 Silva of spending power for an £80 cash outlay. Your own figures depend on your own margins, so treat variable costs honestly and price accordingly.
How is it different from a traditional trade exchange?
The idea of trading without cash is not new. Traditional trade exchanges, sometimes called barter exchanges, have run for decades on the same shared vocabulary of credits, balances and reserve funds. The difference that matters is structural, and it decides what happens to your balance if things go wrong.
A Capacity Exchange builds member protection into the architecture rather than into promises. The clearest contrasts:
| Question to ask | A Capacity Exchange (Silvatree) | A typical trade exchange |
|---|---|---|
| Can the operator run a negative balance? | No. A hard zero floor stops the operator's account going negative. | Often yes. The operator usually holds its own trading account and can run a debit balance. |
| Can the ledger be altered after the fact? | No. Transactions are recorded on a cryptographically chained ledger. | Rules often permit the operator to adjust member accounts at its discretion. |
| Who matches buyers and sellers? | Algorithmic matching that earns no commission. | Human brokers, typically paid commission on completed deals. |
| How is your trading limit set? | By an analysis of the capacity you can supply and spend. | By your creditworthiness, as a maximum debit you may owe. |
| On wind-down, who is paid first? | Members rank ahead of the operator, settled in cash at par. | The operator's account may rank alongside members, and credits may stay as internal balances. |
Two of those rows do the heavy lifting. The operator here can never spend the network's value into its own account, and if the network ever wound down, positive-balance members would be paid ahead of the operator, in cash, at par. That is the point of the category name. A trade exchange spends the network's value; a Capacity Exchange monetises idle capacity without the operator ever becoming a debtor to its own members. The full comparison sits in Capacity Exchange vs Trade Exchange, and the safety structure is set out in Is a Capacity Exchange safe?.
What a Capacity Exchange is not
It is worth naming the obvious doubts and answering them plainly.
It is not a way to turn spare capacity into cash. Silva is spending power inside the network, recorded at 1 Silva to £1 for your accounts, and it is not convertible to sterling while you are a member. How that works in detail is covered in How Silva works.
It is not a bank, a loan or an overdraft, and your trading headroom is not credit. And it is not a reason to accept Silva where a customer would happily pay you cash. The model earns its keep on capacity that would otherwise have earned nothing. The honest catch is simple: only earn what you can realistically spend inside the network, which is exactly why Silvatree sizes your headroom around your spending, not around how much you could owe.
Where to start
Spare capacity is working capital you already own, and right now most of it expires for nothing. A Capacity Exchange is the structure that lets you spend it. The sensible first move is not to commit your whole diary, but to check whether the model fits the way your business actually runs.
Take the Silvatree Readiness Test. It takes a few minutes and tells you, honestly, whether a Capacity Exchange is worth your time.
Frequently asked questions
- Is a Capacity Exchange just barter?
- Not quite. Barter swaps one thing directly for another between two parties. A Capacity Exchange uses Silva as a shared unit of account, so you can sell to one member and spend with a different one entirely. You are not stuck finding someone who both wants what you offer and offers what you need.
- Can I cash out Silva?
- No. Silva is spending power inside the Silvatree network, not cash and not convertible to sterling during membership. You earn it by selling spare capacity to members, and you spend it with other members. For your accounts, 1 Silva is recorded as £1, but it stays within the network rather than being withdrawn to your bank.
- Can I mix cash and Silva in one sale?
- Yes. Many members use hybrid pricing: they take some cash to cover the hard costs on a job and accept Silva for the rest, which puts their spare capacity to work. You decide the split that suits each piece of work, so filling quiet time never means giving away the variable costs it carries.
- What if I earn Silva but cannot spend it?
- Plan your spending first. Before you list any capacity, pick the expenses you want to move from cash to Silva, such as marketing, professional services, maintenance or accommodation. Then scale your earning to match what you can realistically spend. Silvatree sizes your trading headroom around that spending capacity, not around a credit limit.
- How much of my capacity should I start with?
- A conservative starting point is around half of your spare capacity, and you can scale as you see what sells and what you can spend. You keep the rest for cash customers. The point is to fill time or space that would otherwise earn nothing, without crowding out the paying work you already have.