Why shouldn’t I trust everyone in the Circles network?

Hint: you definitely should not! 🙂

There might be people out there, who create many accounts so they can unfairly claim many basic incomes at once. If you trust these (fake) accounts, you risk getting stuck holding a bunch of Circles tokens (CRC) that you can’t spend anywhere, because the tokens belonging to these fake accounts won’t have any value. All the while, these accounts can send payments to others using your CRC, potentially swapping you out of your own, real CRC.

If other people in your network see that you trust people recklessly, they might revoke the trust they gave you, because they also run the risk of receiving fake tokens from these fake accounts through you.

You can think of this like an immune system, walling off parts of the network that aren’t healthy.

Where there is trust, there is value. Trusted people are credible people, that's why you should give your trust only after considering the risk you, your business, or your community is taking.

The last economic crisis happened because credit was created and spread without considering the consequences. When people realized these credits didn’t have any value, the whole system collapsed. This was an irresponsible way of issuing money and this is exactly what we want to avoid at Circles.

In our system, it’s your responsibility to use your trust carefully with those around you, and develop a value-based culture that also cares for everyone, who’s involved.

If you are careless with trust, it doesn’t hurt the whole system, it mostly hurts you, personally.