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Operations

How MPowerUP works in practice: the Circle model, the mutual-aid flow, and the grassroots economic direction that recognises peer care without pricing it.

Circles

A Circle is a small (≈8-member), trusted, end-to-end-encrypted group. It is the unit of trust and the unit of data isolation — each Circle is its own encrypted document, and the encryption boundary is also the data boundary. A user can belong to several overlapping Circles.

Concept What it is
Member A person in the Circle, identified by a did:key keypair, not an account
Facilitator An elevated role on a specific Circle (a property of the membership edge, not a separate identity) — one person can be a plain member in one Circle and a facilitator in another
Verified organisation A shelter, social worker, or mutual-aid org with a verified badge, held to a higher trust standard
Help request A request for material or social help, posted into a Circle

Circle membership is sensitive: knowing who is in someone's Circle, when they message, and where they are can endanger a user even when message content is encrypted. Metadata is treated as a first-class threat. See Security → Threat Model.

The mutual-aid flow

  1. A member posts a help request into a Circle (a ride, a meal, a place to stay, a benefits question).
  2. Other members see it and respond — offering help, information, or a vouch.
  3. Trust accrues through reciprocity. In the Cahn co-production frame the platform is moving toward, every member has both an "offers" list and a "requests" list — there is no "needy member" category.
  4. In emergencies, the Circle can vouch for a member's identity (e.g. to recover a lost device) or revoke a compromised device's access. See Security → Revocation.

This flow is deliberately not priced. The economic model below explains why.

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