You don't really need to. In IOU systems you extend credit to someone you know, based on ones reputation or credit score. How back in the day your local milk man would just keep a tab of what you owe.
In a way everyone has something to barter: you owe the milk man, your employer owes you. Identities form a web of trust in the physical world.
But how would you eventually reconcile and settle balances?
Would all payments be just non-fungible bilateral agreements? So if I paid the milkman for some milk, but there was no good or service I could later provide to him, he would be unable to take my payment to the butcher to buy some meat (unless the butcher was also willing to enter into a new bilateral agreement with me)?
You don't really need to. In IOU systems you extend credit to someone you know, based on ones reputation or credit score. How back in the day your local milk man would just keep a tab of what you owe.
In a way everyone has something to barter: you owe the milk man, your employer owes you. Identities form a web of trust in the physical world.
But how would you eventually reconcile and settle balances?
Would all payments be just non-fungible bilateral agreements? So if I paid the milkman for some milk, but there was no good or service I could later provide to him, he would be unable to take my payment to the butcher to buy some meat (unless the butcher was also willing to enter into a new bilateral agreement with me)?