Trade Exchange vs Capacity Exchange
Barter and trade exchanges have existed for decades, and a great many of them have failed. The usual explanation is that the model does not work. That is not what the ledgers show.
Both systems in this simulation let 400 businesses trade without cash, and both work perfectly — right up until the exchange manager is allowed to spend money it never earned. Run the healthy ledger first, then break it, and watch unbacked credit double year on year until nobody can spend what they hold. Then run the same four years under a manager that cannot go below zero.
This is the same story a Capacity Consultant would walk you through on a suitability call. Figures are illustrative.
What this story shows
- A balanced exchange always nets to zero: every credit is somebody else’s debit.
- The failure mode is not barter — it is an operator issuing credit to itself that no goods or services stand behind.
- A Capacity Exchange constrains the operator’s own balance, so unbacked credit cannot enter the system in the first place.
- An illustrative simulation using round numbers to make the mechanism visible.
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