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<!doctype html>
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<head>
<title>Opentabs</title>
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<img src="https://unhosted.org/img/opentabs.png" />
<h1>Opentabs</h1>
<h2>Peer-to-peer money</h2>
<p>Opentabs is a peer-to-peer way to use money,
bypassing the Plain Old Banking System (POBS) as a man-in-the-middle.</p>
<p>Whenever one of your friends owes you money,
simply "tab it", so just write it down somewhere and accept that
situation as a natural state of peace between two peers,
instead of settling the debt. You can do this in several ways,
for instance:</p>
<ul>
<li>on a piece of paper,</li>
<li>in a text note on your phone</li>
<li>with a collaborative spreadsheet</li>
<li>in an email thread, or</li>
<li>using a specialized app like xMartin's <a href="http://grouptabs.xmartin.de/">Grouptabs</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p>Banks had their function in a time when our societies were ruled by buildings
full of paper. There was no way to administer trust other than through
these paperwork machines. But in recent decades, the upcoming power of cryptography, mobile phones
and internet connectivity have made it unnecessary to visit these paperwork buildings
each time we want to use money. Through these new decentralized tools,
it is now much simpler to simply "tab"
the things we give each other.</p>
<h2>Gift attribution</h2>
<p>Psychologically, Opentabs is a way to attribute recognition for the things
we give each other. In most social relationships, it would be rude to accept a gift
without saying thank you, and it would also be rude to spontaneously pay something for a
stranger; it brings the relationship in an uneven state. As a form of "closure" of this
uneven situation, simply writing the transaction down somewhere ("tabbing" it)
can fulfill this necessary gift attribution, without the need to add a reverse
transaction that cancels it out.</p>
<h2>Transactions</h2>
<p>When we do want to settle a tab, then we can do this through the plain old
banking system, but also through alternative money
systems like Bitcoin, M-Pesa, paypal, Western Union, or one of the
many grassroots "Bank Of Time" projects. These alternative platforms then simply take over the
man-in-the-middle role from POBS, and money stored on them is not by definition safe,
but the fact that we now have various equivalent
options is already a step towards decentralization.</p>
<h2>Mini-banks</h2>
<p>Taking the Opentabs approach one step further, a bar in a sports club could
allow its members to deposit money behind the bar, and then withdraw from this as they go.
Or equivalently, they could run a tab and settle it at the end of the month, together
with their contribution bill.</p>
<p>Once a sports club uses open bar tabs in this way, maybe using some software tool,
then members could also use their sports club as a mini-bank, making
transactions from one person's open bar tab to the other whenever this is convenient.</p>
<h2>Mutual debts</h2>
<p>If more and more people would do this, then all this would add
more liquidity to the Opentabs system. In addition, people could help the system become
more liquid by adding mutual debts with people they trust. If you
agree to owe some money back and forth with a good friend or family member, then this
becomes a series capacitor for the money circuit, which will allow alternating currents
to flow through it, up to the maximum you set.</p>
<h2>Paying a stranger</h2>
<p>Paying a stranger is still hard. A stranger will often want to receive either cash or
plastic money in exchange for something they give you. If more and more people use Opentabs
systems and connect them up to each other, making it more connected and liquid, then some
such transactions may be routable, but in general, you cannot rely on that yet. So then you
will still need to use an actual transaction, and for that you will either need to load
money onto your creditcard, or your bitcoin wallet, or get cash money out of an ATM using
a POBS bank card, or load money into a SIM-card based money system like M-Pesa.</p>
<h2>Roadmap</h2>
<p>We have been trying out Opentabs with about twenty people throughout 2012. We still need
to improve our tools quite a bit. In particular, we need ways to:</p>
<ul>
<li>generate different types of overviews from the raw activity data</li>
<li>send out notifications</li>
<li>detect cycles in the debt graph and automatically generate resolution proposals</li>
<li>import data from existing money platforms and automatically cross-reference it</li>
</ul>
<p>We will be working on these goals throughout 2013, so stay tuned. And whenever you have
to split a bill with friends, remember: just tab it! :)</p>
<h2>Discussion at Complicity'13</h2>
<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/79024018?portrait=0&color=aeb0b0" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="http://vimeo.com/79024018">COMPLICITY | Michiel de Jong & Eleanor Saitta | #bgcon13</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/berlinergazette">Berliner Gazette</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
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