SERIES 2026 · NO. CM-000001 · PAYABLE TO THE BEARER IN COMMUNITY
Everything that costs too much and hurts people, we counter together. Trade what you have for what you need, keep the money in the neighborhood, and own the thing you use.
The premise
The drill you used once. The truck seat that sits empty. The neighbor who fixes brakes and needs a website. Banks, dealers and insurers make money from the gap between what we have and what we need. CounterMint closes that gap directly, between people, and keeps a public record of every dollar that moves.
SCHEDULE A · THE COUNTERS
Every counter runs on the same membership, the same Mint Credits, and the same open ledger. You join once.
Against: buying new what someone nearby already owns
A barter network that finds trade loops. You don't need the person with the bike to want your guitar. We find the three or four people who complete the circle.
Try the matcher →Against: overdraft fees, payday loans, money that leaves town
Community credit you earn by trading, giving and helping. Any real dollars that come in feed a Community Fund that pays hardship grants and dividends back to the people who give the most.
How the money works →Against: dealer markups, add-on packages, finance-office games
A semi-direct auto broker. Tell us the car and we bid for you at dealer-only wholesale auctions. You pay the hammer price plus one flat, published fee. Every car gets inspected, and nobody upsells you in a back room.
See the flat-fee math →Against: premiums that rise while claims get denied
Local mutual cover where your neighbors are the risk pool. Claims get reviewed by people who live near you. Surplus comes back to members instead of going to shareholders.
Join the county list →Against: surprise bills, hidden prices, medical debt
Crowdsourced cash prices from real receipts, health-share circles, and group bargaining with local clinics. Pooled funds buy medical debt and cancel it.
Add a price →Against: charity overhead and giving into a black box
Philanthropy where every dollar is visible from the moment it's given to the moment it lands. Members propose and vote on grants, and every one is published in the open ledger.
Vote on what's next →EXHIBIT B · THE LOOP
Two-way trades rarely line up. Loops do. When you list what you have and what you want, CounterMint looks for a ring of neighbors where everybody gives one thing and gets one thing. No money changes hands.
Demo network · 14 sample neighbors
SCHEDULE C · THE MONEY
Mint Credits are how we keep score without turning neighbors into customers. Here's where the value goes.
Earn credits by trading, gifting, lending tools, giving rides and fixing things. The suggested values are a starting point. You and your neighbor settle the deal.
Short a few credits? You can add real dollars, but they don't go to the other person. They go to the Community Fund.
The Community Fund pays hardship grants (rent, car repairs, prescriptions) and quarterly dividends to the members who gave the most. Many of them send their dividend back into the pool.
Every dollar in and out is public, with personal details redacted. We start with a plain published ledger. If an on-chain version ever earns its keep, we'll add it later.
EXHIBIT D · COUNTERAUTO
Dealers buy most of their used cars at wholesale auctions you can't get into. CounterAuto bids there on your behalf. You see the hammer price, the inspection report and our fee, all on one page.
Illustrative example only. Real results depend on the vehicle, the market and the auction. The flat fee is published before you approve a bid.
SCHEDULE E · THE COMMONS
Members propose, vote, and volunteer. The top proposals become the next counters. Insulin, funerals, childcare, rent application fees: if it extracts, it's on the table.
Preview: votes stay on this device until the Commons opens to members.
EXHIBIT F · THE SQUARE
CounterMint's community runs on Mastodon, the open social network nobody owns. Your @you@countermint.social handle can follow and talk with people on any Mastodon server, Threads, Pixelfed, Lemmy and thousands of other sites that speak ActivityPub.
ARTICLE I · THE SIDE DOOR
“We were sold a building with one staircase. Climb up and you're lonely. Fall down and you're lonely. Up and down are the same prison. The side door is how we walk each other out.”
CounterMint started as a rubber stamp, a small protest you could ink onto a dollar bill when the money itself turned into somebody's billboard. The question behind it was bigger than the stamp. If money stopped working for people, why keep running everything through it?
So we're building the side door. It's a bank that isn't a bank, a market that doesn't extract, and a network that belongs to the people on it. It isn't a startup that cashes out or a charity that runs on guilt. It's a commons with a ledger, and the ledger is public.
FINE PRINT, IN LARGE PRINT
No, and we say so on purpose. We don't hold deposits, make loans or offer FDIC insurance. CounterMint is a member network for trading, mutual aid and transparent giving. When members need real banking, we point them to credit unions that are member-owned too.
No. Mint Credits are community points for keeping trades fair. You can't redeem them for cash, and nobody can buy them to get rich. Real dollars only go into the Community Fund, which is published on the open ledger.
CounterAuto starts as a small pilot with licensed broker partners. CounterCover and CounterCare launch county by county, and only where they meet the state's rules. Join the list for your county and you'll hear first.
We don't want to own your social life. Mastodon is open source and federated, so your account works across thousands of servers and apps, and nobody can sell your attention. The trading tools plug into it, so you won't have to manage another login.
Members. The goal is a cooperative structure where governance, the budget and every rule are published and voted on. The founding 1,000 members help write the bylaws.
ENDORSE HERE
Reserve your handle, pick your county, and help write the bylaws. It's free.