Trustlines Network Whitepaper

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Abstract

Currently there are multiple issues limiting broad adoption of cryptocurrencies. They do not fit into the current economic reality where money is mainly created as debt by banks and the capital cost incurred when people provisioning cryptocurrencies is prohibitive. Moreover, the requirement of upfront deposit money, having a bank account, dependency on centralized, often non-regulated, cryptocurrency exchanges, lack of user-friendly user experience and the necessity to deal with cryptocurrency transfers are hindering adoption. 

As a solution we offer the Trustlines Protocol - a decentralized, permissionless and open platform to host currency networks. The value in these currency networks is represented in IOUs (abbreviation for 'I owe you') issued by its participants. The design extends on the original Ripple idea with a strong focus on ease of adoption. The platform is designed in a way that there is no need to interact with any centralized services such as banks or exchanges. Besides, it comes complemented with a reference implementation of a mobile application.