CivKit Alpha Released with P2P Order Book, Escrow and PGP Chat for Trades

• "Version 1 (very alpha) of CIVKIT is out today. Download and explore now. This version supports a p2p order book with escrow over the Lightning Network and includes PGP chat for trades," announced Nicholas Gregory.

"The project is funded by people in the global south. Much of the work has involved understanding their actual needs rather than imposing our assumptions. Ray Youseff and Noones have provided funding for some developers, including one who lives in the global south, allowing us to test in regions where this solution is most needed," Gregory told Bitcoin Magazine.

• The Civkit Node offers a user interface to create and manage P2P orders. It allows users to create buy and sell orders, pay hold invoices, chat with trading partners, confirm fiat receipt to release payments, raise disputes, and view available offers.
• CivKit uses a custom Nostr event type to share orders across Nostr relays, creating a global order book. The escrow system generates BOLT11 invoices, holding 5% of the trade amount in a hold invoice released upon trade completion. Users can access an encrypted chat via a provided URL, which includes basic dispute resolution features.

"In two weeks, the alpha version of the Civkit reputation system will be released. After that, we'll focus on federating the order book and escrow with Fedimint, followed by eCash support," added the developer.

The alpha release includes the following components:

• Civkit Chat. A demo PGP chatroom with very basic functions to create keys, decrypt and encrypt messages for P2P trade.
• Civkit API. An API that uses c-lightning and a PGP chat app to handle basic payment functions for P2P trades.
• Civkit Frontend. This is a frontend for the civkit-api and civkit-chat application.

Announcement
Bitcoin Magazine Article / Archive
GitHub Repo (Chat)
GitHub Repo (API)
GitHub Repo (Frontend)