Terms
By using MercyChain — Pearl Shell, R2E, Anvil, the SONO Card service, or the People directory — you agree to the terms below. They are written to be read, in plain language, by the person they apply to. Where a sentence here does not match how you have understood the product so far, this page is the controlling answer.
Who can have a shell
Anyone aged eighteen or older, who has been invited, and who is using MercyChain for themselves. A shell belongs to a single human being. You may not register a shell on behalf of another person, share your shell with another person, or give your sign-in credentials, your PIN, or your biometric to anyone else. If you need to act on behalf of someone — a parent, a relative, a colleague — that is a separate question, and we are happy to talk through it; today the platform is built around one shell, one person.
Your shell, your pearls
Your shell is yours. The pearls inside it are yours. We hold the records that describe them, but the meaning of each pearl belongs to the person who chose the verse, took the photograph, or made the act it represents. We will not move a pearl out of your shell without your authorisation. We will not freeze a shell except in the narrow circumstances described under "How you may use MercyChain" below — and even then, your pearls remain yours.
DNA.M is not a currency
Pearls carry a denomination called DNA.M. DNA.M is not a national currency, a security, an investment, a cryptocurrency, or a regulated financial instrument. It is a record of meaningful action inside MercyChain — a count of small notes, each rooted in a specific human act. DNA.M cannot, today, be redeemed for cash, deposited into a bank account, or exchanged on any external market. We may, in the future, introduce ways to translate DNA.M into other forms of value; if and when we do, we will say so clearly, and the rules will apply only on a forward-looking basis.
Pearls, sacred and knowledge
A pearl from a sacred page carries a denomination of ten DNA.M; a pearl from a knowledge page carries five. Every pearl is locked for thirty days from the moment it is minted — during that time it cannot be moved, gifted, or marked spendable. After the lock ends, knowledge pearls may be given to other shells, while sacred pearls remain in the shell of the person who kept them. These rules are part of how the system holds its meaning; if we change them in any material way, the change applies only to pearls minted after the change.
Gifting a pearl
When you gift a knowledge pearl to another shell, the transfer is final. We cannot reverse it on your behalf. When you gift a knowledge pearl to a person who does not yet have a shell, the pearl waits in a small treasury for twenty-four hours, while the recipient is invited to claim it. If they claim it, the pearl moves into their new shell. If they do not claim within twenty-four hours, the pearl returns to the treasury — not to you. We make this rule clear at the moment of gifting; please read it before you press send.
Sending, requesting, and the network fee
When you move a pearl between two shells, a small network fee is taken from your collection so the system can carry the pearl. Today this fee is five DNA.M per transfer. We may adjust this fee; we will not adjust it retroactively, and we will tell you in advance through the app when a change is coming. Requesting a pearl from another shell is free; the recipient can accept, ignore, or decline, and you cannot compel them to answer.
Contracts and loans
Inside MercyChain you can create small written agreements with another shell — contracts — and you can lend or borrow pearls between shells. These features carry their own rules and fees, set out within the app at the moment you use them. Contracts and loans inside MercyChain are bilateral records of what two people have agreed; they do not, on their own, create rights or obligations under any external legal system. If you intend to enter into a legally binding contract or loan, you should also document it the way the law of your jurisdiction requires.
How you may use MercyChain
For yourself, and for the people in your circle. You may not use MercyChain to send unsolicited promotional messages, to harass another shell holder, to organise abuse or coordinated harm, or to commit any criminal act. You may not register more than one shell, attempt to bypass the invitation system, scrape another shell’s data, or impersonate another person. You may not reverse-engineer or attempt to reverse-engineer the systems that protect the integrity of the network. If a shell is found to have done any of the above, we may suspend the shell while we investigate, and — in clear cases — close it. The pearls inside a closed shell remain the property of the person who held them; we will work in good faith to return them, where lawful, to a successor shell.
The SONO Card
The SONO Card is a physical card associated with a single shell. It is not a payment card, a credit card, or a debit card; it does not work outside MercyChain. If you lose your card, mark it lost from inside the app; the card will be permanently disabled, and any subsequent attempt to use it will fail. If you replace your card, the previous card remains active for twenty-four hours so that an in-progress day is not interrupted.
Content you upload
Photographs in Anvil, notes on lists, verses chosen in R2E — these belong to you. By uploading them, you give MercyChain a limited, non-exclusive licence to store, transmit, and display them inside the service so the service can work for you and for the people you have chosen to share with. You retain copyright. You can delete your content at any time; we will remove the corresponding records, with the small exceptions described in our Privacy page (records of transfers and so on, which involve another person).
Service availability and changes
We try to keep MercyChain running well. We do not promise it will be available at every moment, free from interruption, or without bugs. We may take it down for maintenance, for security, or because something has gone wrong, and we will work to bring it back as quickly as we can. If we have to take it down for longer than a day, we will say so on this domain. We may add features, retire features, or change how features behave; where a change affects something you have already done, we will explain it in advance and give you a way to act.
Limits of our liability
MercyChain is offered "as is" and "as available." To the maximum extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary damages — for example, lost time, lost opportunities, or emotional distress arising from the temporary unavailability of the service. Our total liability to you for any direct claim, in any twelve-month period, is limited to the greater of fifty US dollars and the amount you have paid us during that period. Today, the amount you have paid us is zero. None of these limits override consumer-protection rights you may have under the law of where you live; where they would, the law wins.
Ending the relationship
You can stop using MercyChain whenever you want. You can close your shell from inside the app, or by writing to us at mercychain@snoxfedc.com. We can end your access if you have done something that puts the service, the integrity of pearls, or other people at risk; if we do, we will tell you why, in plain language, and we will give you a reasonable opportunity to retrieve what you can retrieve. We do not freeze shells for inactivity, and we do not charge a fee to close a shell.
Disputes between shells
A pearl that has been transferred from one shell to another belongs to the receiving shell. If two people disagree about whether a transfer should have happened — for example, in the case of a mistaken send — we will, where possible, contact the receiving shell on your behalf and ask. We cannot compel the return of a pearl. Where a transfer was caused by fraud, write to us, and write to your local authority; we will cooperate with both.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which SNOXFEDC Inc. is registered. Disputes that cannot be resolved between us will be handled in those courts. Where you are using MercyChain from another country, local consumer-protection laws may also apply, and they will take precedence wherever they do.
Changes to these terms
When we change these terms in a meaningful way, we will update the effective date at the top of this page, notify you inside the app, and — for changes that affect ongoing rights — give you a reasonable window before the change applies. Continuing to use MercyChain after the window has passed means you accept the new version; if you do not, you can close your shell at any time, with what you have built remaining yours under the prior terms until you remove it.
Contacting us
For anything written here — to ask a question, to make a request, to dispute a decision — write to us at mercychain@snoxfedc.com. A real human reads, and a real human answers, usually within a few days.