Abstract

We disclose a design criterion for peer-to-peer gift, reciprocity and gratitude systems (pay-it-forward schemes, time banks, complementary currencies, peer-recognition ledgers): classify each transfer by where the recipient's next transfer goes. A transfer passed onward to a third party is generalized reciprocity, a gift that circulates; a transfer returned to its source in a return that settles the account is balanced reciprocity, an exchange, to be named as one. The criterion is applied to one institution's mechanisms (an earmarked, forward-only, non-withdrawable money balance; funded time together; tagged physical gratitude artifacts; gift codes; a common pool emptied on a fixed annual date), each shown to instantiate one operation across money, time and objects, from person to civilization, in digital and physical substrates; biological cases are treated as resemblance only. Also disclosed: a six-way taxonomy of gift flows by relational scope (self, pair, bounded group, open chain, shared site, future time); a bounded relay in which a non-redeeming intermediary carries a gift's identity and provenance to a terminal recipient; donor anonymity as a second, independent removal of the obligation to reciprocate; a three-tier classification of transferable value by hoardability (unhoardable, self-expiring, hoardable) that predicts how much lifecycle machinery each requires; and a three-condition test for when two events are one operation. Stated limits: the evidence is one project's design and a small pilot; the gift/exchange boundary is contested; anonymity removes the creditor but not always the felt debt; and the forward rule does not fit self-gifts or two-person mutual giving.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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