Zeitvorsorge
Zeitvorsorge is a Swiss time bank built around care rather than cash. People over 50 give hours of companionship and practical help to older neighbours, and every hour is credited to a personal account they can later redeem when they need support themselves. Participating municipalities, starting with St. Gallen, guarantee that banked hours will be honoured, giving the currency the stability of a public commitment. Since 2014 volunteers have provided roughly 100,000 hours of care, and the model has since expanded to further Swiss towns.
A debt-free, labour-anchored, genuinely non-fiat time currency guaranteed by public institutions — exemplary on monetary design and stability, held back only by its deliberately local, small-scale, institution-run footprint.
M69 Score
Scored against the Money2069 Manifesto — see methodology. Higher = more aligned.
Detailed Rating Breakdown
Issuance Model3x4.0
Credits are minted only by performing an hour of real care work, so issuance is fully debt-free and anchored directly to verifiable real-world labour. Supply expands with hours given and contracts as they are redeemed. Participation is open to residents over 50 rather than fully permissionless, and issuance is administered by the foundation.
Spending Power Stability2x4.0
The unit is one hour of care, redeemable for one hour of care indefinitely — a labour-anchored benchmark the framework explicitly recognises. It has held that meaning stably since 2014, giving strong long-term purchasing-power preservation; the main limit is that the mechanism is local rather than globally accessible.
Fiat Independence & Interoperability2x4.0
The unit of account is an hour, defined with no reference to any fiat currency, and the system holds no fiat reserves — it is backed by a municipal guarantee of future care. It is structurally immune to fiat shocks, but is monolithic and not composable or interoperable with other monetary systems.
Traction2x3.0
Active since 2014 with municipal backing and continuing to expand (Gossau joined in 2024), roughly 100,000 hours banked, hours used natively as the unit of account, and external recognition including a public-excellence award and press coverage. The absolute participant base (a few hundred members) keeps the score mid-range.
Sovereignty2.0
Run by a foundation with municipal partners that hold and guarantee the hour ledger; the foundation and cities could wind it down, and it operates within a single national jurisdiction. It is a trusted public institution rather than a censorship-resistant or self-custodial system.
Governance3.0
Formal foundation governance with municipal contracts and published statutes provides clear, accountable decision-making, though deliberation is institutional rather than broadly participatory or on-chain.
Resilience3.0
Backed by municipal guarantees and a self-evidently simple model that any town could re-implement from a single page of rules; funding is institutionally supported. It has run steadily for over a decade without a major stress event, and depends on continued municipal commitment.
Inclusivity4.0
Free to join and participate, treats every member's hour identically, and is designed to serve older and socially isolated people, with structural resistance to wealth concentration since hours are non-tradeable for profit. Access is bounded by an age floor and the participating municipalities rather than open to anyone worldwide.