Tempo Time Credits
Time-Based Currency·Active·United Kingdom
UK national time bank charity (founded 2008) issuing Time Credits on an hour-for-hour basis when people volunteer with partner organizations. Time Credits can be redeemed at hundreds of leisure centres, museums, theatres, and businesses across the UK.
M69 Score
Methodology →3.2
Partially aligned
Monetary Sovereignty
3.4
Civilizational Durability
2.2
Universal Adoption
3.8
Framework v0.2-alphaRated 1mo ago
M69 Verdict
Tempo Time Credits (formerly Spice) is the UK's national Time Credits charity, founded in 2008 in the Welsh Valleys as a follow-on from the Welsh Institute for Community Currencies (WICC). It is a registered charity (No. 1135143) and company limited by guarantee (No. 06593956), headquartered in Cardiff. Tempo issues Time Credits on a strict hour-for-hour basis: every hour of volunteering at a partner community organisation earns the volunteer one Time Credit, redeemable at a network of "Recognition Partners" (businesses, attractions, leisure providers) such as Cadw, Tower of London, Cornish Seal Sanctuary and Uber Boat by Thames Clippers. As of late 2024, cumulative issuance crossed 1 million Time Credits, with 17,500+ people supported, 400,000+ volunteer hours recognised, 17 years of continuous operation, 27 distinct local/regional currency variants across 6 UK regions and 122 new recognition partners added in 2024 alone. The 2024 Impact Report draws on responses from over 1,600 participants. From an M69 alignment perspective, Tempo's strongest category by far is Inclusivity. Time Credits are free to earn, designed for socially excluded and underbanked populations, and treat every volunteer's hour as equal regardless of skill or status. The unit of account is a sovereign hour of human time with no fiat reference, no fiat collateral and no fiat banking dependency in the monetary mechanism itself. Adoption is fully organic and non-speculative — credits have no monetary value in law and cannot be traded for cash. The 17-year track record, multi-region presence across England and Wales, hundreds of community organisations and recognition partners, and recurring academic/government attention (NESTA Innovate to Save, Cardiff University Y Lab, Welsh Government All Wales programme, Future Generations Commissioner) provide meaningful real-world traction. The weaknesses are architectural. Tempo is a centralised charity operating a proprietary digital platform on standard web infrastructure; there is no blockchain, no smart contract enforcement, no self-custody of credits, no published open standard for interoperability with other time-banking systems, and no constitutional protection for the 1-hour-per-credit rule beyond charity governance norms. The platform can be shut down by the trustees, the hosting provider, or UK regulatory action; user balances exist as database entries the operator can modify; censorship and account closure are operationally trivial; and long-term funding depends on Welsh Government, City Bridge Trust, Heritage Fund, People's Postcode Lottery and similar grants rather than any self-sustaining revenue model. Tempo embodies the spirit of debt-free, labour-anchored, inclusive money admirably, but its technical architecture is the same centralised-NGO pattern that limits hOurworld and earlier time-banks — strong on monetary philosophy, weak on civilizational durability.
Key Findings
Strongest categories: Inclusivity (4.1), Fiat Independence (3.9) and Traction (3.7).
Tempo's "everyone's hour is worth the same" rule is one of the most egalitarian monetary designs ever deployed at national scale; the unit is fully sovereign with no fiat reference, no fiat collateral and no fiat oracle; and the project has 17 years of operation, over 1,000,000 cumulative credits issued, 17,500+ supported people, 122 new Recognition Partners in 2024 alone, and an active institutional partner network spanning Welsh Government, NESTA, City Bridge Trust and the Future Generations Commissioner.
Weakest categories: Sovereignty (1.5) and Resilience (2.4).
Tempo runs on a proprietary, centrally-hosted platform, fully custodial of all credit balances, with no on-chain enforcement, no self-hosting option, no cryptographic privacy and no censorship resistance. A trustee decision, a hosting failure or a UK regulatory action could end the system; recovery would depend entirely on the charity's continuity. The same architectural weaknesses that constrain hOurworld constrain Tempo.
Tempo demonstrates the "global standard, local expression" pattern that M69 explicitly values (FI-07).
27 distinct regional Time Credit variants across 6 UK regions all settle to the same hour-unit and remain transferable — a working real-world example of one underlying monetary standard supporting many local currencies. This is rare; very few systems have actually shipped this architecture.
The eliminatory anchors all clear, but barely on the architecture side.
TR-01 and TR-02 score strongly (project is 17 years old and growing); GO-01 and GO-03 are reasonable (formal charity governance, transparent at the organisational level); IN-01 scores 3 on geographic-availability grounds rather than intentional exclusion. No category is dragged below the danger thresholds, but Sovereignty and Resilience are close to "Not aligned" territory.
Funding sustainability is the existential risk.
Tempo's 17-year track record is grant-renewable but never self-sustaining — Welsh Government, City Bridge Trust and Heritage Fund grants underwrite the network, and any retreat by major funders would compress operations. Combined with the proprietary, single-point-of-failure platform, this creates the same vulnerability shared by every grant-funded community currency in history.
Big takeaway: Tempo is the most M69-aligned national-scale time-credit system currently operating, but its alignment is in monetary design and inclusivity rather than in technical architecture.
A blockchain or open-protocol fork that preserved the 1-hour-per-credit rule, the regional-currency composability and the radical-equality ethos — while adding self-custody, open standards and on-chain enforcement — would be one of the most M69-aligned monetary projects conceivable. Tempo proves the social model works at scale; the architecture is what holds the M69 score back.
M69 Score
M69 Alignment3.2
Partially aligned
1.02.03.04.05.0
Monetary Sovereignty3.4
Issuance (3x) + Stability (2x) + Fiat Indep. (2x)Civilizational Durability2.2
Sovereignty + Governance + ResilienceUniversal Adoption3.8
Traction (2x) + InclusivityIss Mod3x
3.4
Stability2x
2.8
Fia Ind & Int2x
3.9
Traction2x
3.7
Sovereignty
1.5
Governance
2.6
Resilience
2.4
Inclusivity
4.1
Scored against the Money2069 Manifesto — see methodology. Higher = more aligned.
Detailed Rating Breakdown
Issuance Model3x3.4
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| IM-01 | Is issuance permissionless?Issuance is restricted to approved community organisations ("Earn Groups") that have joined the Tempo network. Volunteers earn credits only when their hours are confirmed by a provider organisation that Tempo has onboarded. Individual volunteers cannot mint credits unilaterally; only Tempo-vetted Earn Groups can confirm volunteer hours. This is a permissioned set of issuers operating under a uniform rule (1 hour = 1 credit) but onboarding requires Tempo approval. | 2 |
| IM-02 | Is new supply created through debt?No debt mechanism whatsoever. Time Credits are minted into existence when a volunteer completes an hour of confirmed service. There is no borrowing, no collateralised loan, no interest, and no liability created by issuance. Pure service-backed creation. | 5 |
| IM-03 | Is issuance tied to measurable real-world economic activity?Each Time Credit represents one hour of confirmed volunteer labour at a vetted community organisation — a direct, measurable, real-economy signal. Hours are confirmed by the host organisation rather than algorithmically verified, but the link to productive activity is structural and unambiguous. | 4 |
| IM-04 | Does the issuance model have a supply cap or hard ceiling?No hard cap. Supply expands one credit per confirmed volunteer hour and is therefore naturally elastic with respect to volunteer participation. There is no engineered upper bound, but there is also no contraction mechanism beyond redemption. The system has no formal monetary policy ceiling. | 3 |
| IM-05 | Can supply contract (burn/redemption) as well as expand?Credits are removed from circulation when a volunteer redeems them at a Recognition Partner — a permissionless, user-initiated burn. Credits can also be gifted, which transfers but does not contract supply. There is no automatic burn beyond redemption and no expiry, so contraction depends on volunteers actively spending. The 2023/24 figures (176,881 issued vs. 30,901 redeemed) indicate redemption lags issuance significantly. | 3 |
Spending Power Stability2x2.8
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| SPS-01 | What mechanism does the protocol use to target spending power stability?2× The stability mechanism is definitional rather than algorithmic: 1 Time Credit always equals 1 hour. There is no oracle, no rebase, no rate adjustment and no automatic targeting. Stability emerges from the fixed unit definition, not from any engineered protocol mechanism. | 2 |
| SPS-02 | What benchmark is used to measure spending power?2× The benchmark is one hour of human labour, which structurally anchors value to productive capacity (matches the rubric's level-4 description of "issuance per active participant... time-unit = 1 hour of care"). The hour is invariant and treated equally across participants. There is no external CPI or commodity reference. | 4 |
| SPS-03 | How transparent and verifiable is the stability measurement?1× The 1-hour-per-credit rule is publicly documented in Tempo's FAQs and partner communications. However, enforcement is by the proprietary digital platform that Tempo operates — there is no on-chain oracle, no public ledger and no third-party audit of credit balances or transactions. Charity Commission filings give some financial assurance but not transactional auditability. | 2 |
| SPS-04 | What is the protocol's historical deviation from its stability target?2× The 1:1 hour-to-credit ratio has been maintained for 17 years (2008–2025) across over 1,000,000 issued credits and 400,000+ recognised hours. By definition the unit cannot deviate from itself; the realised "purchasing power" of one credit at a typical Recognition Partner has fluctuated as redemption offers have changed, but the monetary unit itself has been stable since launch. | 4 |
| SPS-05 | Does the protocol distinguish between short-term volatility and long-term purchasing power drift?1.5× The system has no concept of price volatility because there is no market price; one hour is one credit regardless of conditions. Long-term purchasing power in terms of redemption offers is not actively managed — Recognition Partners decide their own credit prices for experiences, and there is no central index tracking them. No explicit dual-horizon design. | 2 |
| SPS-06 | Is the stability mechanism accessible globally?1× The 1-hour rule is uniform wherever Tempo operates, but Tempo is by charter an England-and-Wales charity and the network is geographically restricted to specific UK regions (Wales, London, Medway and Swale, Neath Port Talbot, Cynon Valley, etc.). Practical access requires being near a participating Earn Group; participation outside the UK is not supported. | 2 |
Fiat Independence & Interoperability2x3.9
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| FI-01 | What is the protocol's unit of account?2× One Time Credit = one hour of volunteering. The unit is fully sovereign — defined independently of GBP, USD or any state index. Recognition Partners price experiences in credits, not in pounds. The unit references human time, not fiat. | 5 |
| FI-02 | What is the fiat composition of the protocol's collateral or reserves?2× Time Credits have no collateral or reserves of any kind. They are not backed by GBP, crypto, commodities or anything else — only by the social commitment of Recognition Partners to honour them and the moral authority of Tempo. Zero fiat exposure in the monetary unit itself. (Tempo the charity holds GBP grants for operating expenses, but those do not back the credits.) | 5 |
| FI-03 | Does the protocol depend on fiat banking infrastructure to function?1× The credit-exchange mechanism itself does not require banking — credits are awarded and redeemed via the Tempo platform without any bank movement. However, Tempo as an operating organisation depends entirely on GBP banking (Unity Trust Bank) to receive grants and pay staff/hosting; if that banking fails, the platform stops being maintained. The monetary mechanism is bank-independent; the operator is not. | 3 |
| FI-04 | Are the protocol's price feeds and oracles fiat-denominated?1× There are no oracles or price feeds. Recognition Partners set their own credit prices for experiences; these are quoted in credits, not in pounds. No fiat-denominated data feed is used to maintain the system. | 4 |
| FI-05 | What happens to the protocol if the primary fiat currency it references collapses or depegs?1× The Time Credit references no fiat currency. A GBP collapse would not change the 1-hour-per-credit rule and would not invalidate any credit. Volunteer hours and Recognition Partner offers would continue. The only impact would be on Tempo's grant-funded operations — i.e. periphery only. The monetary unit is structurally immune. | 5 |
| FI-06 | Does the project have a credible transition path from fiat-dominated adoption to fiat-independent operation?1× The monetary unit is already fiat-independent and has been since 2008 — no transition is needed for the credits themselves. There is no published plan to make Tempo's organisational funding fiat-independent; grants and donations remain in GBP. The credit layer needs no transition; the operational layer has no transition strategy. | 3 |
| FI-07 | Can local or sectoral currencies be denominated in or settle against this currency?2× Tempo operates 27 distinct regional Time Credit variants across 6 UK regions — Wales All-Wales, London, Medway and Swale, Neath Port Talbot, Cynon Valley, etc. — all denominated in the same hour unit but with locally curated Recognition Partner networks. This is genuine "global standard, local expression": one underlying unit, many local currencies. Cross-region usage is possible because credits are fully transferable. The standard is implemented by a single operator rather than via an open protocol. | 4 |
| FI-08 | Does the protocol define open standards for interoperability with other monetary systems?1.5× No open standard for cross-system interoperability. Tempo Time Credits cannot be settled against hOurworld, TimeBanks USA, Community Weaver, TimeOverflow or any blockchain-based time currency. There is no published API specification, no exchange-rate discovery protocol and no mutual recognition agreement with other time-credit systems. Closed proprietary network. | 1 |
Traction2x3.7
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| TR-01 | Is the project still active?2× Fully active and growing. The 2024 Impact Report (published October 2024) draws on over 1,600 participant responses; 122 new Recognition Partners were added in 2024; 182,803 credits were issued in 2023/24; and the platform continues to onboard Earn Groups across multiple UK regions. Charity Commission filings show current accounts and active trustees. | 5 |
| TR-02 | How long has the project been in existence?1× Founded in 2008 in the Welsh Valleys as Spice (formerly the Welsh Institute for Community Currencies follow-on); rebranded to Tempo. 17 years of continuous operation. | 5 |
| TR-03 | How many active users does the project have?2× 17,500+ people supported cumulatively (with one source citing 56,000+ volunteers earning credits and another 68,000+ volunteers to date). The 2024 Impact Report surveyed over 1,600 active participants. The active user base is firmly in the 10K–100K band — substantial for a charity-run community currency but not at internet scale. | 3 |
| TR-04 | How many businesses or organizations accept the project's currency?2× The Recognition Partner network spans hundreds of businesses and organisations across leisure, heritage, transport, learning and family activities — Cadw (all Welsh heritage sites), Tower of London, Cornish Seal Sanctuary, Uber Boat by Thames Clippers, Wales Millennium Centre and many more. 122 new Recognition Partners were added in 2024 alone. The total acceptance network is in the 100–1,000 range across multiple sectors. | 3 |
| TR-05 | Is the currency used as a unit of account?3× Within the Tempo network, Recognition Partners price experiences in Time Credits ("2 credits for entry", "1 credit for a coffee"), and Earn Groups quote volunteering opportunities in credits-per-hour (always 1:1). The currency functions as a unit of account inside its defined community network. External pricing remains in GBP. | 4 |
| TR-06 | Is the founder or core team still actively working on the project?1× Tempo has an active CEO (Mark Froud has presented publicly for Tempo) and a board of trustees governing day-to-day operations. The original founders have stepped back as the organisation has institutionalised, but mission continuity through professional leadership and a working board is strong. | 4 |
| TR-07 | What partner organizations or institutions support or integrate the project?1× Welsh Government (national funder), Cadw, City Bridge Trust, Heritage Fund, Medway Council, People's Postcode Lottery, Unity Trust Bank, NESTA / Y Lab Cardiff University (research partner), Samaritans, Keep Wales Tidy, Future Generations Commissioner for Wales — over 10 institutional partners across government, philanthropy, research, banking and NGO sectors. | 5 |
| TR-08 | Is the project covered or recognized by credible external sources?1× Health and Care Research Wales funded a Time Credits as Social Prescription study evaluating the Cardiff Y Lab/NESTA pilot; the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales has cited Tempo in policy guidance; multiple academic write-ups exist of the Spice/Tempo model; UK media including charity sector and local press cover it regularly. Academic attention and significant independent recognition. | 4 |
| TR-09 | Is adoption organic — not dependent on subsidies, incentives, or mandates?1× Volunteer participation is genuinely organic — credits have no monetary value and cannot be sold. Volunteers participate for the recognition, the community connection and the redeemable experiences. However, the network's existence is grant-subsidised: Welsh Government funding underwrites the All Wales programme, City Bridge Trust funds London expansion etc. Volunteer demand is organic; supply-side network depends materially on subsidies. | 3 |
| TR-10 | What is the growth trend over the past 12 months?1× Strong recent growth: credits issued grew from 176,881 in 2023/24 to 182,803 in 2024/25; redemption grew from 30,901 to 46,061 (+49%); 122 new Recognition Partners added in 2024; cumulative issuance crossed 1,000,000. Clear positive trend across users, partners and redemption. | 4 |
| TR-11 | Does the project have a coherent narrative and cultural identity that drives long-term commitment?1.5× Strong narrative: "everyone has something to give; everyone's hour is worth the same; recognise time, build community". Rooted in 17 years of identifiable culture, with Welsh-valleys origins, an explicit mission/vision/purpose statement, branded annual impact reports and a member network that engages well beyond financial incentives. Cultural identity is real but expressed in NGO-charity terms rather than as a movement-scale memetic artefact. | 4 |
Sovereignty1.5
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| SO-01 | Can any single entity shut down the project?2× Yes. Tempo Time Credits Limited, the registered charity, controls the platform; its trustees can wind it up, the hosting provider can terminate service, and the UK Charity Commission can intervene. A single organisational decision or regulator action could shut it down. | 2 |
| SO-02 | Is the project's core infrastructure permissionless and self-hostable?1× Fully proprietary. The Tempo Time Credits platform is closed-source software run by Tempo. Earn Groups and Recognition Partners cannot self-host an instance, fork the system or run an alternative network on the same standard. No public API or open codebase. | 1 |
| SO-03 | Is the project subject to the jurisdiction of a single nation-state?1× Tempo is a UK charity registered in England & Wales, headquartered in Cardiff, regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales and Companies House. The entire operation is in one jurisdiction; UK regulatory action would materially impair the project. | 2 |
| SO-04 | Does the project control or custody user funds?2× Fully custodial. All Time Credit balances are stored in Tempo's centralised database. Members do not hold private keys; they have an account login. If Tempo's platform goes offline, members lose access to their balances. Members must trust Tempo to hold and honour the credits. | 1 |
| SO-05 | Is the project resilient to key-person risk?1× Operational knowledge is distributed across a professional staff (CEO, regional managers across Wales / London / Medway), a board of trustees and a Senior Management Team. The Charity Commission filings show multiple trustees and a working governance structure. No single individual is critical, though the small-charity size means a few key staff departures would be disruptive. | 4 |
| SO-06 | Does the project depend on any third-party service that could be revoked?1× The platform runs on standard web hosting, depends on Unity Trust Bank for fiat banking, and relies on individual Recognition Partners honouring credits. Any of these could be revoked or terminated. No documented multi-provider redundancy. | 2 |
| SO-07 | Can the project be censored — can specific users or transactions be blocked?1.5× Earn Groups and Tempo administrators have full control over membership and credit issuance. Tempo can suspend a member, void credits, or remove an Earn Group from the network. Censorship is operationally trivial and has been exercised as a routine partnership-management function. No censorship resistance by design. | 1 |
| SO-08 | Does the protocol protect transaction privacy as a monetary right?1.5× Tempo holds member personal data (name, contact, volunteering history) and full transaction logs in its database. Data protection is via UK GDPR, not via cryptographic privacy. The operator can see every credit issuance and redemption. No privacy-preserving design. | 2 |
| SO-09 | Does the technology enforce the project's monetary rules such that governance cannot silently override them?2× No technological enforcement. The 1-hour-per-credit rule is a policy enforced by Tempo's proprietary software; an administrator could silently change credit balances, alter issuance rules, or modify history with no public auditability. No smart contracts, no immutable ledger, no cryptographic proofs. | 1 |
Governance2.6
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| GO-01 | How are decisions about the project made?2× Tempo follows formal UK charity governance: a board of trustees, regular board meetings, working groups for major strategy reviews (e.g. revised Vision/Mission/Purpose), inducted trustees with documented duties, and an executive Senior Management Team led by a CEO. Major decisions follow standard charity-sector formal procedures with documented roles. | 4 |
| GO-02 | Who has voting or decision-making power, and how is that power distributed?1× Decision power sits with the trustee board (typically 6–12 trustees per Charity Commission filings) plus the Chief Executive and Senior Management Team. Members and volunteers have no voting rights over the platform. Power is distributed across a small board of unpaid trustees, not across the user base. | 2 |
| GO-03 | Is the governance process — and the monetary mechanism itself — transparent and publicly auditable?2× The governance process is publicly transparent at the charity level: trustees, accounts, governing documents and annual reports are all on the Charity Commission register, and Tempo publishes an annual Impact Report. However, the monetary mechanism (issuance database, redemption ledger, credit balances) is a proprietary black box; there is no public ledger and no way to independently audit credit issuance. | 3 |
| GO-04 | Can governance be captured by a small group or hostile actor?1.5× Governance is structurally a small-board model — capture would require influencing the trustee selection process or replacing the leadership. UK charity law (Charity Commission oversight, fiduciary duty, public benefit requirement) raises the cost of hostile capture significantly. No token, no plutocratic vote — capture risk exists but is constrained by external regulator. | 3 |
| GO-05 | How are upgrades and changes to the protocol or project proposed and executed?1× Platform and policy changes are decided by the executive team and trustees, with input from Earn Groups and Recognition Partners. There is no formal user-facing proposal process, no on-chain vote and no time-lock; the operator implements changes unilaterally after internal review. Community can comment but has no binding power. | 2 |
| GO-06 | Is there a separation between governance over monetary policy and governance over operational decisions?1× No structural separation. The trustee board can change the issuance rule (1 hour = 1 credit), the redemption rules, or the operational platform with the same process. There is no constitutional protection differentiating monetary parameters from operational ones. | 1 |
| GO-07 | Does the project have a constitution, charter, or set of immutable principles?1.5× Tempo has Memorandum and Articles of Association (the formal charity-law constitution) and an explicit Vision/Mission/Purpose statement. Core values ("everyone has something to give", "1 hour = 1 credit", "everyone's hour is worth the same") are stated but are not formally protected from override; trustees could amend the Articles via standard charity-governance procedures. | 3 |
| GO-08 | Can the project's issuance rules be changed, and are monetary policy changes subject to stronger constraints than operational changes?2× The trustee board can change the 1-hour-per-credit rule, partner credit-pricing rules, or any other monetary parameter with no special protection beyond standard charity governance. No time-lock, no community vote, no constitutional firewall around monetary policy. | 2 |
Resilience2.4
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| RE-01 | Has the project survived a major crisis or adversarial event?2× Tempo has operated for 17 years through the 2008 financial crisis (during its founding), the COVID-19 pandemic (with shifts to digital delivery), the cost-of-living crisis (cited explicitly in the 2024 Impact Report), and the rebrand from Spice to Tempo — all without mechanism failure. The 1-hour rule has held throughout. Moderate stress, no catastrophic crisis. | 3 |
| RE-02 | Does the project have redundancy in its critical infrastructure?1× Standard UK charity IT infrastructure: a single hosted platform (tempotimecredits.org), single banking provider, single charity entity. No multi-region redundancy, no documented failover. Members not on email can use a physical membership card, providing a thin paper-based redundancy layer. | 2 |
| RE-03 | Can the project recover from a catastrophic failure?1× The codebase is proprietary; backup processes are not publicly documented. If Tempo as an organisation ceased to exist and the platform went offline, recovery would depend on the trustees' wind-up plan and any assets transferred to a successor charity. No published disaster-recovery plan or open-source fallback. | 2 |
| RE-04 | Is the project's design simple enough to be maintained and understood long-term?1× The core monetary rule is exceptionally simple: 1 hour of volunteering = 1 Time Credit. Anyone can understand it in a sentence. The technology stack is standard web/database — well-understood and widely supportable. The simplest possible monetary design at the conceptual layer. | 5 |
| RE-05 | Is the project dependent on a specific technology that could become obsolete?1× Built on a generic web-application stack which is unlikely to become obsolete in the near term, though dependent on standard hosting, browser and email infrastructure. Migration path between web stacks is well-trodden in industry but undocumented for Tempo specifically. | 3 |
| RE-06 | How does the project handle economic stress (bank runs, liquidity crises, collateral crashes, inflation/deflation shocks)?2× The Time Credit unit is structurally immune to inflation, deflation and depegging because it has no peg and no collateral. There is no liquidity to drain and no bank run pathway against the credits themselves. The 2024 Impact Report specifically discusses how Tempo is helping communities through the cost-of-living crisis — passive resilience demonstrated. However, redemption depends on Recognition Partners offering credit-priced experiences; if partners withdraw under economic stress, real purchasing power could erode without any formal stabilisation mechanism. | 3 |
| RE-07 | Does the project have sustainable funding for long-term maintenance?1.5× Funding is grant-based: Welsh Government, City Bridge Trust, Heritage Fund, Medway Council, People's Postcode Lottery and similar. There is no protocol-fee revenue, no endowment and no self-sustaining income stream. The 17-year track record shows funding has been renewable, but each grant cycle requires fresh fundraising. Funded for the next 1–3 years on rolling grant commitments; long-term sustainability depends on continued external grant success. | 3 |
| RE-08 | Can the system operate across extreme latency, disconnected networks, and multi-century timescales?1× The system requires internet connectivity to function — credits live on a centralised platform. Members can hold a physical membership card but cannot exchange credits offline at scale. No asynchronous design, no disconnected-network capability, and multi-century operation depends entirely on charity continuity. | 1 |
| RE-09 | Is the system designed for a world where AI agents are primary economic actors?1× The system is explicitly human-only: credits are earned for human volunteer labour, confirmed by humans at Earn Groups, redeemed by humans at Recognition Partners. There is no machine-readable issuance API, no smart-contract interface, and AI agents cannot meaningfully participate in the core mechanism (which is by design — the unit is human time). | 1 |
Inclusivity4.1
| Code | Question | Score |
|---|---|---|
| IN-01 | Can anyone in the world participate regardless of nationality, wealth, or status?2× Open in principle to anyone with no minimum balance, no wealth or status requirement and no credit check. Practical access requires (a) being in a UK region where Tempo operates and (b) joining an Earn Group, which is gated by the local community organisation rather than by Tempo. Geographic and approval barriers exist; intentional exclusion does not. | 3 |
| IN-02 | What is the minimum cost to start using the project?1× Zero financial cost. No fees, no minimum balance, no purchase required. The volunteer earns credits by giving time. Even the membership card is free; the platform is free to use. | 5 |
| IN-03 | Does the project actively serve underbanked or financially excluded populations?1× Tempo's explicit mission targets people excluded from the cash economy — older adults, low-income communities in former mining valleys, isolated volunteers, people with health barriers, and communities navigating the cost-of-living crisis. The model was designed in deprived Welsh Valleys to recognise contributions the market under-values. Documented adoption by socially excluded populations. | 5 |
| IN-04 | Does the project distribute economic benefits — including seigniorage — broadly, or concentrate them among insiders?1.5× The system is designed for broad benefit distribution. Trustees are unpaid (per Charity Commission filings: "no trustees receive any remuneration, payments or benefits from the charity"). Credits flow directly to volunteers; there is no founder allocation, no token, no equity. Operating revenue (grants) covers staff and platform costs, not insider profit. Seigniorage flows to the volunteers whose hours create the credits. | 5 |
| IN-05 | Does the project treat all participants equally under the same rules?2× Foundational principle of radical equality: every volunteer's hour is worth exactly one credit regardless of skill, profession, age, education or status. A consultant's hour = a teenager's hour = a retiree's hour. No tiered access, no preferential rates, no special privileges. One of the most egalitarian monetary designs in operation. | 5 |
| IN-06 | Does the project require identity documentation or surveillance to participate?1.5× Sign-up requires basic personal data (name, contact details) and association with an Earn Group, but not government ID or KYC. The Earn Group acts as a community vetting layer rather than a bureaucratic verifier. UK GDPR governs personal data. Light identity touch, but the operator can see all transactions and member identities are linked to all activity within the system. | 3 |
| IN-07 | Does the project have mechanisms to prevent wealth concentration over time?1× The 1-hour-per-credit equality rule is a strong structural anti-concentration mechanism — high-value-per-hour participants cannot accumulate disproportionate credits. There is no demurrage and no expiry, so passive accumulation is possible, but credits cannot be sold for cash and have no investment yield, which removes most concentration incentives. Anti-concentration is structural rather than active. | 3 |
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Tempo Time Credits and what problem does it solve?
Tempo Time Credits (formerly Spice) is the UK's national Time Credits charity, founded in 2008 in the Welsh Valleys as a follow-on from the Welsh Institute for Community Currencies (WICC). It is a registered charity (No.
How is money created in Tempo Time Credits?
Issuance is restricted to approved community organisations ("Earn Groups") that have joined the Tempo network. Volunteers earn credits only when their hours are confirmed by a provider organisation that Tempo has onboarded. Individual volunteers cannot mint credits unilaterally; only Tempo-vetted Earn Groups can confirm volunteer hours.
How does Tempo Time Credits maintain stable spending power?
2× The stability mechanism is definitional rather than algorithmic: 1 Time Credit always equals 1 hour. There is no oracle, no rebase, no rate adjustment and no automatic targeting. Stability emerges from the fixed unit definition, not from any engineered protocol mechanism.
Is Tempo Time Credits independent from fiat currencies?
2× One Time Credit = one hour of volunteering. The unit is fully sovereign — defined independently of GBP, USD or any state index. Recognition Partners price experiences in credits, not in pounds.
Who controls Tempo Time Credits and can it be shut down?
2× Yes. Tempo Time Credits Limited, the registered charity, controls the platform; its trustees can wind it up, the hosting provider can terminate service, and the UK Charity Commission can intervene. A single organisational decision or regulator action could shut it down.
How widely adopted is Tempo Time Credits today?
2× 17,500+ people supported cumulatively (with one source citing 56,000+ volunteers earning credits and another 68,000+ volunteers to date). The 2024 Impact Report surveyed over 1,600 active participants. The active user base is firmly in the 10K–100K band — substantial for a charity-run community currency but not at internet scale.
Is Tempo Time Credits still active and growing?
2× Fully active and growing. The 2024 Impact Report (published October 2024) draws on over 1,600 participant responses; 122 new Recognition Partners were added in 2024; 182,803 credits were issued in 2023/24; and the platform continues to onboard Earn Groups across multiple UK regions. Charity Commission filings show current accounts and active trustees.
What are the main risks or weaknesses of Tempo Time Credits?
Weakest categories: Sovereignty (1.5) and Resilience (2.4).: Tempo runs on a proprietary, centrally-hosted platform, fully custodial of all credit balances, with no on-chain enforcement, no self-hosting option, no cryptographic privacy and no censorship resistance. A trustee decision, a hosting failure or a UK regulatory action could end the system; recovery would depend entirely on the charity's continuity. The same architectural weaknesses that constrain hOurworld constrain Tempo.
What makes Tempo Time Credits unique from an M69 perspective?
Strongest categories: Inclusivity (4.1), Fiat Independence (3.9) and Traction (3.7).: Tempo's "everyone's hour is worth the same" rule is one of the most egalitarian monetary designs ever deployed at national scale; the unit is fully sovereign with no fiat reference, no fiat collateral and no fiat oracle; and the project has 17 years of operation, over 1,000,000 cumulative credits issued, 17,500+ supported people, 122 new Recognition Partners in 2024 alone, and an active institutional partner network spanning Welsh Government, NESTA, City Bridge Trust and the Future Generations Commissioner.
How is Tempo Time Credits's M69 Score calculated?
Tempo Time Credits scores 3.2/5.0 overall. Pillar scores: Monetary Sovereignty 3.4, Civilizational Durability 2.2, Universal Adoption 3.8. Strongest: Inclusivity (4.1). Weakest: Sovereignty (1.5).