Sarafu Network

A community currency and mutual credit system operating primarily in Kenya, founded by Will Ruddick through his organization Grassroots Economics. Sarafu tokens are used by local communities to enable exchange, mutual support, and resource sharing outside formal banking systems. The network represents a practical instantiation of functional sovereignty in the economic domain — communities governing their own exchange mechanisms.

Sarafu demonstrates that Web3-adjacent tools (community tokens, distributed ledgers) can enable mutualization in contexts far removed from the crypto-libertarian mainstream, and that the principles of commons-based resource sharing can be implemented at the grassroots level in low-income communities.

Referenced in: Ep 3