E-Bill
An e-bill is an electronic bill of exchange: a dated, transferable order to pay, of the kind in commercial use since the Middle Ages, issued and passed on without a bank in the middle.
A bill is not a message. It is a chain of signed blocks. Every action a participant takes, whether accepting, endorsing, offering to sell or recoursing, appends a block, and the chain is what proves who owes what to whom. Reading a bill means replaying that chain and checking it.
The three types of bill
A bill is issued by its drawer. Which type it is depends on who ends up paying whom:
| Type | Value | Who pays | Who is paid |
|---|---|---|---|
PromissoryNote | 0 | the drawer | the payee |
SelfDrafted | 1 | the drawee | the drawer |
ThreeParties | 2 | the drawee | the payee |
A promissory note has no drawee at all: whoever signs is whoever pays. A self-drafted bill names the drawer as their own payee, so two parties settle one instrument. ThreeParties is the classic draft: the drawer orders the drawee to pay someone else.
In every case the drawee and the payee cannot be the same entity, and neither the issuer nor the payer may be an anonymous identity.
Who can do what
Roles are positions in a bill, not accounts. The same person is the drawer of one bill, the payee of another and a recoursee in a third; and within a single bill a role can change hands as the bill circulates.
- The holder is whoever holds it now: initially the payee, afterwards the endorsee of the most recent endorsing action. Requests, endorsements, sales and mints are theirs to make.
- The drawee, or payer, is the side the bill is drawn against. Acceptance and payment, or the refusal of either, are theirs.
- A buyer or a recoursee exists only while an offer or a recourse request is open.
See Roles for the full table, and Operations for what each role may do and when.
How a bill ends
Exactly three ways:
- Paid. The drawee pays at maturity. No further action is possible by anyone.
- Recoursed to the end. Payment or acceptance was refused and the loss travelled back up the endorsement chain until no earlier holder was left to recourse against. The bill is permanently blocked and only a court can resolve it.
- Minted. The holder sells it to a Wildcat mint before maturity, which turns it into e-cash. The bill itself then settles between the mint and the drawee.
Where to start
- Concepts: roles, states, and the conditions that gate every action.
- Identifiers and keys: how identities and bills are named and signed.
- Content of a bill: what a bill actually holds.
- Operations: one page per action, with its preconditions and deadlines.
- Transport: how bills move over Nostr.