The Trustlines App Is Out Now!

Reclaim your power to create money! The Trustlines App is now out of beta and available at the stores for Android and iOS devices.

We're thrilled to announce that the Trustlines App is now available to everyone directly in the Play Store and the App Store. With this release, we bring Trustlines People Powered Money one step closer to the whole world.

No more extra steps are required, you can get started in a matter of seconds! The beta version of the app has already been used by hundreds of people over the past months. During this time, people have created trustlines and provided us with feedback that helped to improve the app.

Over these months, many new features have been added. One of them is a bill splitting feature that allows selecting multiple recipients. Besides, we improved the UI, enriched push notifications, provided better onboarding of new users, and made other smaller changes.

Leveraging Trust for Financial Inclusion

We believe that everyone, including the 1.7 billion unbanked, can be a part of the economic system.

The Trustlines App is your key to start creating value based on the idea of mutual credit. Mutual credit is an organic and accessible form of money that consists of credits and debits between two mutually trusted parties. Even if someone does not have access to traditional financial tools and systems, the credit created on Trustlines can be used in their place.

You Only Need a Friend to Get Started

Once you have your account set up, you can start creating trustlines in seconds.

The Trustlines app enables opening an informal bilateral credit line, referred to as a "trustline." After creating a trustline, you and your friend set a credit limit - the highest amount that can be borrowed.

With the updated onboarding, you can send trustline requests to people with a single link. If that person isn’t already using the Trustlines App, this link will prompt them to install the app and then directly create a trustline with you. The currency network that you’re suggesting is also included. A single action from you, a few small steps from your friend, and you both become a part of the Trustlines Network.

You only need this one friend to start using the app and exploring its opportunities.

The network effect isn’t something you can find in traditional payment apps. With Trustlines, you can ripple payments across chains of friends. These are called ”multi-hop payments.” The multi-hop payments enable you to send and receive payments with total strangers while still only trusting your friend with the credit. To send a payment to someone you don't know yet, you can use the app to scan their payment request or ask them to send the payment link via a messaging service.

Check out our User Guide for Trustlines App for a more detailed walkthrough on using the Trustlines App.

First Use Cases

Payments are the core use case for the Trustlines app but as there are different types of payments in various denominations, we would like to give some examples.

Bill splitting and Time Credits are one of the first examples of use cases for the Trustlines App. We have guides and samples of these use cases that you can find at the Trustlines Docs.

Why use Trustlines for bill splitting

Trustlines is an excellent way to keep track of debts without the need to handle cash. For example, it is useful when splitting the bill at restaurants or for similar group activities. If you go out with your friends often, these payments will go back and forth for a long time. Using Trustlines helps create a friendlier environment for recording debts between people.

Traditional apps for bill splitting often require users to connect a bank account and assume users will settle debts via cash or bank transfer. They do not provide a general accounting system in which users can instead take advantage of credit clearing within the complete network of users, without necessarily settling in cash.

Why use Trustlines for time credits

If you happen to be already using a time credit system or interested in creating one, Trustlines might be for you.

Timebanking is a widespread use case - for a local community, volunteer work, or something similar. Using and exchanging time credits on Trustlines is easy. Just create a trustline using the Hours currency network. Then start expanding that network.

The advantage of using Trustlines is the interoperability with other timebanking communities. Everyone, including individuals, using the same currency network, can connect to just by creating new trustlines.

Read more about Time Credits on Trustlines at the Docs.

We're Only Getting Started

This release is only the beginning of the Trustlines App. We will be working heads down, adding more features and use cases. Using the Trustlines app does not require any specific knowledge, anyone can get on board. The community and users of the app shape the Trustlines Network, and we are excited to be a part of this change.

It is essential for us to also hear about your experiences, the good and the bad, anything you had trouble with, and any feedback you might have.

The Trustlines Forum has sections for Support as well as for Feedback about the Trustlines App. Come and tell us what you think!

Building Your Implementation of a Trustlines Mobile App

One important aspect for the community is that the Trustlines App is our implementation of a mobile app for the Trustlines Protocol.

While the Trustlines App will remain as something that we at Auxiliary GmbH will be developing, others will also be able to work on their implementations. The reference codebase for the mobile app that brainbot technologies ag has developed will be open-sourced later. This will allow anyone to build more things using the Trustlines Protocol and expand the reach of the Trustlines People Powered Money.

Try the Trustlines App

Start creating People Powered Money today! Download the app and show your friends how much you trust them.

Note: If you have the beta version Trustlines App installed on an iOS device with TestFlight, you will have to uninstall the beta version before installing the production version. First of all, you need to securely back up your passphrase, uninstall the beta version, and install the production version. You also need to do a backup of your account’s data and content before uninstalling the beta version.

Follow for More to Come

Subscribe to the Trustlines Blog for all the latest news as they happen. And be sure to follow @trustlines_app to see all that we're bringing to you in the future.