Civkit, a project attempting to revitalize the global peer-to-peer economy, announced the release of its first alpha version following over 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 architected around 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 bring this vision to life. "The project is funded by people in the global south. Much of the work has involved understanding their actual needs rather than imposing our assumptions," says Gregory. "Ray Youseff and Noones have provided funding for some developers, including one who lives in the global south, allowing us to test in regions where this solution is most needed."

The Civkit Node provides a UI to create P2P trade orders. You can use this to create buy/sell orders for peer-to-peer trades, pay the hold invoices, chat with the trading partner, confirm fiat received to release payment, raise disputes (in the chat app), and view other trade orders. 

Using a custom Nostr event type, CivKit allows orders to be shared among Nostr relays accepting these types to create a global orderbook. The escrow system returns BOLT11 invoices, locking 5% of the trade amount in a hold invoice which is released upon trade completion. A URL is provided to access the encrypted chat, which includes basic dispute features. 

The team expects the alpha version of the Civkit reputation system to be released in two weeks. Following this, the focus will shift to federating the order book and escrow with Fedimint, and subsequently incorporating eCash support.

"This is a very ambitious project with a long way to go, but it's exciting to see our first tangible results," Gregory adds.

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