Civkit, a project attempting to revitalize the global peer-to-peer economy, announced the release of its first alpha version after more than a year of dedicated development. The protocol aims to enable peer-to-peer trading in a decentralized manner, eliminating the need for a centralized order book. The design is based on Nostr and Lightning, with a reputation system at its core.
A team of anonymous developers, led by Nicholas Gregory (Commerceblock, MercuryLayer), has been working behind the scenes to make this vision a reality. “The project is funded by people from the global south. Much of the work has involved understanding their real needs rather than imposing our assumptions,” Gregory says. “Ray Youseff and Noones have provided funding for some developers, including one based in the global south, allowing us to test in regions where this solution is most needed.”
Civkit node provides a user interface for creating P2P trade orders. You can use this to create buy/sell orders for peer-to-peer trading, pay held invoices, chat with the trading partner, confirm the received order to release payment, raise disputes (in the chat app) and view other trade orders. .
By using a custom Nostr event type, CivKit allows sharing orders between Nostr relays that accept these types to create a global order book. The escrow system returns BOLT11 invoices, locking 5% of the transaction amount in a held invoice that is released upon completion of the transaction. A URL is provided to access the encrypted chat, which includes basic dispute functions.
The team expects the alpha version of the Civkit reputation system to be released in two weeks. After this, the focus will be on federating the order book and escrow with Fedimint and subsequently incorporating eCash support.
“This is a very ambitious project that has a long way to go, but it is exciting to see our first tangible results,” adds Gregory.
