Informal Trust Ledger (ITL)
A mobile-native reputation and coordination protocol for the African informal economy.
The formalization friction
The African meta-region possesses the most dynamic economic network in the world: the informal economy, accounting for roughly 80% of continental employment. However, current Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) initiatives often attempt to force these actors into rigid "formalization" (mandatory tax IDs, centralized banking) as a prerequisite for digital coordination.
A Layer 2 Reputation Oracle
The Informal Trust Ledger (ITL) provides the missing architectural layer. It is a USSD-native, zero-knowledge protocol that allows informal actors to build verifiable reputational capital beneath the threshold of formal banking systems.
By functioning strictly as a reputation oracle (it does not hold currency or process financial transactions), it sits cleanly alongside existing mobile money infrastructure like M-Pesa. It formalizes trust without prematurely formalizing the actor.
Core briefing materials
Technical documentation
Full protocol specification and sandbox deployment matrix.