The Rules — How BeanPool Works

BeanPool is a community exchange where everyone starts at zero. You earn beans by helping others and spend them when others help you. No money changes hands, and there are no corporate middlemen — just these simple rules.

1.Beans & your balance

Beans measure the value you've given and received (roughly, time). Zero is the goal — it means you've given about as much as you've taken.

Positive balance — you've given more than you've taken. The community owes you.
Negative balance — the community has extended you credit. You owe it back by giving.
The deepest anyone can ever go is −2000 beans.

2.Getting started

You join by invitation. From day one you can browse, receive beans, and trade using beans you already hold. To give or spend on credit, you post at least one Offer (see §5). New members start with no credit line — you can only spend beans you actually have until your line opens.

3.Your credit line is earned by trading

Your credit line lets you go a little negative — spending before you've earned it back. It's earned, not given:

Trust comes only from completed marketplace trades — never from gifts.
Trading with many different people builds trust far faster than repeat trades with one person.
Your trust sets your credit limit — how deep your floor could go, from 0 down to −2000.
Your floor opens automatically after your first real trade (or if a community sponsor gives you a starter floor — see §9). No vouch is required.

Trust levels — Newcomer → Resident → Steward → Elder — are recognition badges. They unlock nothing on their own; a deeper credit line comes from real trading, not the badge.

4.To use credit, you must be actively offering

Earning a limit isn't enough to spend it — you have to be offering something back to the community. The deeper you want to go, the more live offers you keep posted:

Live offers	You can spend down to
0	0 — beans you hold only
1	−200
2	−500
3	−1000
4	−1500
5	−2000

What you can actually use is the smaller of what you've earned and what your offers unlock. So if you've only earned a −600 limit, you reach it at 3 offers and never need more.

If you drop below the offers your debt needs — you paused one, or one sold — your spending pauses until you're back in range. You can still receive, keep selling, and re-post to recover, and it un-pauses the moment you're back within range. Nothing is ever taken from you.

5.Offers (your listings)

Keep as many offers as you like — including recurring ones — and switch each one Active or Paused whenever you want. Only Active offers count toward your credit line.
Give before you take: you must have listed at least one offer before you can post a Need or buy from others.
Positive balance? Pause everything if you like — offers are only required to go negative.

6.Fees & the community pool

Two small charges, and both flow into the Community Commons — a shared pool your community votes to spend on local projects. Nothing is lost to a corporation.

a) Marketplace fee — 1.5% on completed trades. When a marketplace sale settles, the seller nets 1.5% less than the price and the difference goes to the commons. Gifts (direct sends between members) are free — as are refunds and system moves.

b) Holding tax on positive balances — monthly, and only on the part above 200. Like income-tax brackets, each band is charged only on the slice of your balance inside it:

Balance band	Monthly rate
0 – 200	Free green zone
200 – 500	1%
500 – 1000	1.5%
1000 – 2000	2%
2000+	2.5%

This gently encourages beans to circulate rather than pile up. Negative balances are never taxed — you're already carrying credit for the community. Note the +200 free zone mirrors the first −200 credit band, so the system is symmetric around zero.

7.Gifts (sending beans)

You can only gift beans you actually hold — a gift never goes negative and never uses your credit line.
You can send once you've completed at least one real trade (this stops brand-new accounts instantly forwarding beans and vanishing).
Gifts build no trust for the receiver, and are free — no fee (you can only gift beans you already hold).

8.How trades settle

Marketplace trades are held safely in escrow until the deal is done, then released to the seller (minus the 1.5% fee). If a deal is cancelled, the buyer is refunded in full.

9.Vouching (an optional head start)

A trusted, community-appointed voucher can give a newcomer a starter floor of 25, 50, or 100 beans so they can begin using credit before they've earned it. These are typically awarded — entirely at the voucher's discretion — to people whose posts and contributions the voucher finds genuinely engaging and inspiring. It's optional either way: no one needs a vouch to take part, since you also open your credit line simply by trading (§3).

10.Limits & safety

Floor cap −2000 for everyone, and no daily spending limits — your floor is the only bound.
Trust with any single partner is capped, so no one can inflate their standing by trading back and forth with one accomplice.
Holiday mode hides your offers and pauses incoming requests while you're away.
Members can report and flag bad actors; community admins can remove them.

In short: earn your credit line by trading, keep an offer or two live to use it, and let beans flow. Zero is the goal — give about as much as you take.