Superfluid – exchange goods, services or simply favors…

Superfluid’s Quids are a stand-alone, non exchangeable currency intended to facilitate the trading of goods, services or … favors. The aim seems to be to build a community around a currency, rather than to impose an alternative currency on an existing community. Superfluid has created a commercially oriented currency, in the sense that it’s privately owned, not property of the community that forms around it.

Here is a simple video explaining how things work in principle:

How superfluid works from Nathan Solomon on Vimeo.

It’s also viewable below.

What is a Quid?

The value of a Quid is determined by users of the superfluid systems. It’s not equivalent to a dollar, and you can’t buy them with dollars, or sell them for dollars. Quids simply represent a tool to help you collaborate most efficiently, in the absence of dollars. When deciding how many Quids to charge for any offering, you’ll want to look at comparable offerings already online. If you see nothing comparable, you might derive it from our expectation that the median price will be about 60 Quids per hour.

There are three ways that participants can use Quids:

  • Buy and sell Services and Products (the latter only on superfluid:business).
  • Borrow a few Quids; based upon the number of Quids you hold.
  • Earn a few extra Quids by being an active participant; there’s periodically a small monthly dividend provided to users in bonus Quids (expiring after four months, unless used), based in total upon growth of the community, and distributed based upon the number of transactions (purchasing or selling) each participant transacts within the system.
  • As an active business participant in the superfluid:business community, you add specific value to the system, so you’re given 200 Quids to get you started when you join. superfluid:p2p is built for a broader audience, and users here begin with a balance of zero quids.

    The value of Quids derives from two elements: The first is the basic premise that Quids always represents a swap of services or things into the system. The second is that we are fully transparent about the model, and limit the use and number of Quids. We maintain total currency at an aggregate level such that the average user balance is about 400 Quids (including bonus Quids). Your individual balance will, of course, depend on the transactions you have completed in the system. And while we don’t plan on increasing this limit, we will notify community members of any changes that may affect the value of each Quid.

    We (the owners and employees of superfluid), do not take credits out of the system except as individual participants. That is, we do not harvest Quids to operate the business. We are currently in an open beta period, and are not charging users the membership fee. superfluid:business users will be given at least 90 days prior notice before we move out of beta and begin to require payment.

    If this information has piqued your curiosity, there is more in the FAQ section of superfluid’s site.

    Since the system is in public beta, you can also join in and try it out…

    Update: In shareable magazine, co-founder Nathan Solomon gives details about the project.

    Watch the video here:

    How superfluid works from Nathan Solomon on Vimeo.

    Related article on Shareable:

    Is Your Community Superfluid?

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