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Why Clear?

Organizations often need to allocate value before they need a payment rail. A community may distribute food credits, a program may allocate service units, an event may issue participant credits, or an emergency team may need a local clearing mechanism.

Conventional account systems can do this, but they place every transfer inside one application and its central account database. Clear explores a different model: the organization issues private bearer Mint Notes that people can hold and transfer, while the mint prevents double spending.

One wallet, two kinds of balance

Clear is intended to work seamlessly alongside Bitcoin- and Lightning-backed Cashu mints. A wallet can describe sat-denominated funds from those mints as one Cash Balance. These funds are general-purpose and broadly transferable: any holder can send them to another compatible wallet, and the mint connects their issuance and redemption to the Bitcoin and Lightning networks.

The same wallet can hold several Clear Balances. Each is a separate, issuer-defined credit for a particular policy domain. Clear balances are more like credits for products and in-kind services than cash: food credits may be recognized by participating grocers, service units by participating providers, or member credits by a club. The Mint Notes remain transferable bearer instruments, but acceptance and redemption depend on the issuer's published policy and participating network.

This distinction is intentional. Cash is presented as one broadly useful sat-denominated balance; Clear balances stay plural because credits from different issuers or programs must not be added together or presented as universally interchangeable.

Settlement follows policy

A Lightning-backed Cashu mint issues Mint Notes after receiving bitcoin and redeems notes to pay a Lightning invoice. Clear intentionally removes that coupling.

Clear provides the issuance, circulation and redemption machinery. The issuer's policy determines what enters the treasury, what the resulting units represent, who may use them, and what redemption accomplishes.

The organization defines:

  • who may authorize issuance;
  • why Mint Notes are issued;
  • what goods, services, obligations, or recognition they represent;
  • when redeemed Mint Notes may be retired; and
  • whether any conversion or expiry policy exists.

The software enforces Mint Note validity, double-spend protection, and supply accounting. It does not invent the policy or guarantee the issuer's promise.

Clear also separates the people who establish that policy from those who run the mint and those who authorize routine transactions. See How Clear Is Governed for the intended responsibility and key model.

Useful without becoming universal

Clear is not trying to create one universal CMU. Its value comes from making each issuer, keyset-bound Clear Mint Unit, and organizational policy explicit.

A community fund and an employee benefit program may both display CMU, but their complete cmu-<keyset-id> identifiers and issuing mints differ. They are different obligations under different rules. Keeping them separate makes the system more honest and leaves future exchange policies as explicit agreements rather than accidental arithmetic.

Community voucher networks

Clear can support a closed-loop voucher system for churches, food banks, mutual-aid groups, and networks of participating service providers. A treasurer issues voucher Mint Notes under the organization's policy, people present them to providers that recognize that specific CMU, and providers eventually redeem the notes for retirement and the reimbursement or accounting treatment promised by the program.

The vouchers are useful precisely because recognition is bounded. They do not need to be accepted everywhere, and unrelated voucher programs do not become one balance merely because both display CMU. Clear supplies the private transfer and note-accounting mechanism; the participating organizations define eligibility, acceptance, and settlement.

Clear aims to give these vouchers cash-like flexibility: people hold them locally, present or transfer them directly, and do not need a named balance at the mint. Blind signatures provide transaction privacy, although wallets, networks, and redemption locations can still reveal metadata. This is a privacy design, not a promise of perfect anonymity.

Clear vouchers are not intended to function as legal tender. They are voluntarily recognized instruments within a limited network. Ordinary money may fund the program and reimburse participating providers; Clear coordinates the purpose-specific allocation between issuance and redemption.

Read Old Function, New Tools for the broader connection between community vouchers, corporate treasury, and longstanding institutional governance.

Membership, hospitality, and service credits

A membership-based club can use Clear to issue credits that members redeem for services inside a defined community. A co-working club, for example, might issue Mint Notes for booking a desk by the day, reserving a boardroom by the hour, using printing services, renting a locker, or attending a paid event.

The club operates the mint and publishes what its CMU represents. Credits may be allocated through a membership plan, purchased separately, awarded through a promotion, or returned as a refund. A visible schedule can express prices such as 10 CMU for a desk-hour or 50 CMU for a boardroom-hour. Redeemed Mint Notes are retired by the issuing mint, providing bounded supply and redemption accounting without requiring every member to have a named balance at the mint.

Clear does not become the club's membership, booking, or facilities-management system. Those systems continue to determine membership eligibility, availability, reservations, pricing, expiry, and delivery of the service. Clear supplies the private bearer instrument, transfer mechanism, and double-spend protection. This is good boundaries, not barriers: the credit can integrate with existing club operations without turning the mint into the club's system of record.

Each club and keyset has a distinct cmu-<keyset-id>. Credits from two clubs—or from two keysets operated by the same club—remain separate unless an explicit issuer policy provides a conversion or migration.

The same pattern fits a small resort or cruise ship. The operator can issue guest credits, staff allowances, activity vouchers, meal credits, or service reimbursements that are recognized only within that property or vessel. Guests might redeem them for excursions, equipment rental, dining, laundry, printing, meeting rooms, or other onboard services. The operator's reservation and point-of-sale systems still determine prices and deliver services; Clear provides the bounded bearer credit and its clearing state.

This is especially useful where connectivity to distant infrastructure is intermittent or intentionally limited. A locally operated Clear mint can keep its own issuance, swap, redemption, and double-spend checks close to the community it serves. The CMU remains an operator-defined credit—not legal tender and not automatically interchangeable with another resort's, vessel's, or keyset's notes.

Local-first continuity

A Clear mint can run on organization-controlled infrastructure and does not need a Lightning node to issue or retire Mint Notes. Once notes have been issued, people can transfer them directly. They still need the mint to swap or redeem notes, detect double spending, or obtain final confirmation, but temporary mint unavailability does not erase the notes already in their possession.