Picture this

Who it is for

Grace tutors maths for two hours and spends the credits on Ben fixing her bike. Open Hours records each exchange with both sides confirming, so the town's time economy is visible and nobody can mint free hours.

Two ways to own it

What you get

Base$149

$37 deposit to reserve

Member directory, offer and request board, two-sided confirmation, soulbound hour credits, community stats.

You choose: chain
You choose: name and logo
You choose: accent color
You choose: membership gate

Customfrom $1,000

Built around you

Reshape it entirely: new features, your flows, your brand end to end, integrations you need. We scope it with you.

Everything in Base
Custom features and design
Priority build

Why it is new

What exists today, and what this does differently

What is new

Onchain time banking has been piloted but no widely used consumer app was found.

Closest things out there

Blockchain time banks exist mainly as research pilots (IEEE Ethereum prototype, MultiChain elder-care study, ixo Hong Kong vouchers); TimeBanks USA and Ying run offchain.

Checked with web searches in October 2026. A search is not proof that nothing similar exists, and the market moves fast, so we recheck before every build.

What it unlocks

The human in it

Mines your time and skills as currency.

The Regatta Board

Races it can enter

grant · Gitcoin · upcoming

Gitcoin Grants rounds

quarterly-ish rounds; next round dates unknown

Official page ↗

Local public goods; open source required

Their rule on existing code: Existing open-source projects OK (generally required)

What you own

The whole app, not a starter kit.

The complete Open Hours app: a community time bank where every hour given earns an hour credit to spend on anyone's help, minted only when both sides confirm, with a paywall, owner console and matchmaker built in.

Base price · $149

The user app, complete

Every buyer gets the same finished app. Basic branding and copy changes come through a quick form.

Three step onboardingHome

Shown once: everyone's hour is worth the same, both sides say yes, hours are never money.

Progress and next actionHome

Posted, gave, spent and Saturday, with hours to spend, hours given and streak.

Saturday boardBoard

Offers and requests filtered by kind, with a post form and private messaging.

Two sided swapsSwap

Log hours, the receiver confirms, then credits are minted; a cap sends big swaps to a steward.

Spend hours on helpSwap

Spend credits on another member's help with both signatures and a share card.

SMS confirmationsSwap

Members without smartphones reply YES by SMS. Gated behind Town.

Hour book and receiptsBook

Soulbound credits, history and what is onchain versus kept private.

Town boardTown

Hours this week by kind of help, with no names. Gated behind Town.

Vouching and stewardsTown

New members join with two vouches; stewards co-sign big swaps. Gated behind Town.

Plans and settingsMe

The hall's plan from the owner paywall with crypto checkout, reminders and private phone numbers.

Open the full app demo

Add-on

Owner console

Your admin side: revenue, paywall editor, users, rules and the agent log.

Revenue and paywall editorRevenue

MRR from Town and Network, payouts, incoming USDC, payment methods and live editing of tiers, prices and gates.

Halls and flagsHalls

Open new halls from the template, decline ones that sell hours, resolve claims over the cap.

Rules, agent log and roadmapRules

Join gate, swap cap, starting hours, matchmaker question and gas; plus the Agent log and priced Roadmap.

Top-up

Growth and referrals

Referral and growth mechanics, switched on when you are ready to grow.

Hall open days and referralsGrowth

Run an open day, see loops and simulate hall to hall referrals.

The money path, built in

How it earns for you

Members never pay and hours are never money. Halls pay a small monthly fee when they outgrow the free plan, and councils or funders pay for multi hall networks and reports.

HallFreeOne community up to 40 members, board, two sided swaps

Town$8 a monthUnlimited members, vouching, stewards, SMS confirmations, town board

Network$59 a monthSeveral communities, reports for councils and funders, exports

No fees on swaps. Gas on Celo is a fraction of a cent and sponsored by the owner.

Prices are yours to set. Illustrative, not a promise of income.

Growth loops, built in

How it spreads

Every swap creates two happy people and a share card
Churches, halls and schools start their own bank from a template
Members invite the people they want to swap with
Hall open days that pair everyone before lunch
Hall to hall referrals worth a free Town month

Roadmap · build the next phase with us

Where it goes next

v1 included

The full time bank

Member directory and Saturday board
Two sided confirmation and soulbound credits
Vouching, caps and stewards
Town board and hour book
Paywall, owner console, matchmaker

Included

Councils and funders

Reports for councils and funders
Multi hall networks
WhatsApp confirmations
Swahili and Luo interface

Add-on from $400

Partner perks and schools

Local businesses honour hours for small perks
School service hours for students
Care hours for elders
Open data for researchers

Add-on from $900

For investors and grant reviewers

The pitch, ready

A time bank where every hour counts the same and nobody can mint hours alone.

Problem: Communities are full of skill and short on cash. A retired teacher can tutor and a young mechanic can fix bikes, but neither can easily pay the other. Paper time banks work but are hard to run and easy to fake.

Solution: Members post what they can give and need. An hour is minted as a soulbound credit only when giver and receiver both sign, with caps and stewards for big swaps. A town board shows the time economy without names.

Why now: Phone number wallets on Celo make onchain records free and invisible to members, and SMS reaches people without smartphones.

Market: Community halls, churches, schools and councils, starting with East African towns and expanding through templates.

The ask: Pilot with three Kisumu halls and grant support from community and public goods funds.

Funding is never guaranteed. Check each program's rules.

For hackathons and demo days

Your 2 minute demo

Home: meet Grace in Kisumu with time to give and a slipping bike chain.
Board: see Ben's bike repairs and Akinyi's request, post an offer.
Swap: log two hours with Mercy, her mum confirms, two hours are minted.
Swap: spend two hours on Ben fixing the bike and share it.
Town: hit the Town paywall, upgrade the hall with USDC, see the town board.
Owner Agent: the wrong match and the fake 6 hour claim, both fixed.
Owner Revenue and Halls: change the Town price, open a church hall, decline the one selling hours.
Owner Growth and Roadmap: run an open day, then request council reports.

Many hackathons require code written at the event. See the Regatta Boardfor each race's rule.

Make it entirely yours

Custom work from $1,000: local languages, a council branded deployment, WhatsApp or USSD flows, or partner integrations. Scoped on a call.

Custom from $1,000

BLUEPRINT

Why it matters and how it really works

The need

Communities are full of skill and short on cash. A retired teacher can tutor, a young mechanic can fix bikes, but neither can easily pay the other. Paper time banks work but are hard to run and easy to fake.

What exists and what is new

Time banking is old and proven offline: TimeBanks USA and Ying run offchain time banks. Onchain versions exist mainly as research pilots, such as the IEEE Ethereum time banking prototype, a MultiChain elder care study and ixo community vouchers in Hong Kong. What is new here is a simple consumer app where every hour needs both sides to confirm, credits are soulbound so they cannot be traded, and a community sets its own join and cap rules. Research verdict: rare, medium novelty.

The data it runs on

Member profiles and skills (offchain, in the app), offers and requests, two-sided swap confirmations, soulbound hour credit balances and a public town total. Phone numbers, names and what exactly was done stay offchain.

1.The mission

Make everyone's time count the same, so a town can trade help even when it is short of money.

2.Why people can't resist it

Your hour is worth an hour Algebra, bike repair and a ride to the clinic are equal. People who are rarely paid well feel seen.

Two yeses, every time Hours only exist when giver and receiver both confirm, so the book is trusted.

Saturday board A weekly moment: post one thing you can give and one thing you need.

3.How it works for real

Login and wallet: Phone number login with Privy, creating an embedded wallet. Celo first for low fees and mobile reach, Base or Polygon as options.

Hour credits: A soulbound, non-transferable credit contract. A swap is minted only with signatures from both giver and receiver; above a cap, a steward co-signs.

Membership gate: Optional vouching: two existing members sign for a newcomer. Stored as attestations (for example EAS) so the rule is checkable.

Matchmaker: A small model tier (for example Claude Haiku or a comparable OpenRouter model) suggests matches from past confirmed swaps and asks one clarifying question. It cannot confirm or mint.

Notifications: SMS or WhatsApp style messages for confirmations and the Saturday board, with web push for smartphone users.

Town board: A public page with totals by category and week, read from contract events by a simple indexer.

4.Cost per use and pricing

Per swap on Celo: two signatures and one mint cost a small fraction of a cent, sponsored by the owner. A match suggestion with a small model costs well under 1 cent. SMS is about $0.01 to $0.08 per message by country. A hall with 50 active members and 200 swaps a month would cost roughly $5 to $25 a month to run.

Hall Free

One community up to 40 members, board, two-sided swaps.

Town $8 a month

Unlimited members, vouching, stewards, SMS confirmations, town board.

Network $59 a month

Several communities, reports for councils and funders, exports.

5.Growth loop

Each swap creates two happy people and a share card. Churches, halls and schools start their own banks from a template, and members invite people they want to swap with.

6.Risks and guardrails

Fake hours: Two-sided confirmation, new member caps and steward co-signing above the cap. Unconfirmed claims never show on the board.

Turning hours into money: Credits are soulbound and the charter forbids selling them, so it stays a time bank and not a currency.

Safety: Meeting strangers carries risk. Vouching, public venues for first swaps and a report button to stewards.

Tax and benefits: Some countries treat time bank hours differently. The owner should check local rules and share guidance.

Privacy: Names, numbers and what was done stay offchain. Only hashed swaps and totals are public.

7.Build order

Phone login and member profiles
Offer and request board
Two-sided confirmation flow
Soulbound hour credit contract on Celo
Caps and steward co-sign
Matchmaker suggestions
Public town board

8.Where this is going

Now
One hall in Kisumu where 50 people trade tutoring, repairs and rides.
Next
Neighbouring halls connect, so an hour earned in one can be spent in another.
Later
Councils and clinics recognise hours for care work and volunteering.
The big one
In every town, nobody's time is worthless, and help flows even when money is short.

Costs and tools are estimates at the time of writing. General information only, not legal or financial advice.

OWNER PLAYBOOK

Own it, then chart your voyage

Nine routes from one vessel. Tap a port to open its chart.

Why own Open Hours

Open Hours is a time bank for your community: give an hour of help, earn an hour credit, spend it on anyone else's help. Running it on someone else's platform puts your neighbours' records in their hands; owning it means your town, your rules, your membership gate and an hour ledger nobody can fake because both sides confirm every exchange. It makes a local time economy visible.

What’s stopping you?

“Will people actually join?”

Not if you open with a blank board. Start with 10 people you know, each posting one offer and one request, and broker the first five exchanges by hand. Time banks grow from a small trusted core outward.

“My neighbours don't use crypto.”

They do not need to think about it. Members sign in, post offers and confirm hours. Credits are soulbound, so there is nothing to buy, sell or lose value. Keep the language about hours, not tokens.

“What if someone does a bad job?”

Both sides confirm each exchange, so a disputed hour is not credited. Members can see each other's history. Add a simple community agreement and a membership gate if trust is a concern.

“Is it really mine?”

Yes. The contract and member records are deployed from your wallet. The community keeps its history even if you hand over running it.

“Are hour credits taxable or regulated?”

In many places traditional time banks are treated as non-taxable because an hour equals an hour and credits cannot be cashed out. Rules differ by country, so check how local time banks are treated before you launch.

The million-dollar ladder

Open Hours itself is not a money machine for members, and it should not be. You earn by hosting time banks for councils, housing associations, schools and NGOs, charging a monthly fee to run their instance, plus setup and training. This is a target to aim at, not a promise.

$250

$4,800

$18,000

$85,000

First 10 organisations

10 small community groups hosted

$25 per month

Known in your region

60 groups and neighbourhood associations

$80 per month

Institutional contracts

45 councils, housing groups and NGOs

$400 per month

Time banking platform

170 institutions on a managed plan

$500 per month

Run your own neighbourhood bank first and publish its hour count.
Sell to institutions with care or volunteering goals: elder care, schools, housing.
Offer training and setup as a paid package.
Publish an annual community hours report each client can show funders.

Illustrative stages, not a forecast. Results depend on you and the market; nothing here is guaranteed.