Submissions
The project that I propose consists of automating and increasing the reliability of a tontine system thanks to the Blockchain. I live in a community where an activity called “tontine” is frequently practiced. This activity takes place in families, villages, companies, etc. Its principle is as follows: a group of people (who know each other) wishing either to save or to launch an income-generating activity meet and decide to contribute at very specific time intervals a sum of money, the total of which will be given to the beneficiary of the period. The order in which one benefits is fixed at the beginning of the tontine by unanimity between the members. To make it clearer, let's take for example a tontine of $500, with 10 participants (Franck, Dumas, Ezekiel, Olga, Jessie, Alfred, Bertrand, Hermann, Martha and Minerva) who decided to contribute this amount each week. At unanimity, they decide to benefit in this order: - First week: Hermann - Second week: Jessie - Third week: Ezekiel - Fourth week: Martha - Fifth week: Alfred - Sixth week: Bertrand - Seventh week: Minerva - Eighth week: Franck - Ninth week: Olga - Tenth week: Dumas In this case, each week the beneficiary will benefit from 500 x 10 = $5,000. We therefore understand the usefulness of this system for those who have a project and want to have enough funds to finance it immediately (they usually benefit first. In this case we have: Herman, Jessie, Ezekiel, etc.) and use the dividends to repay during the other tontine periods; and also, for those who do not need money immediately (they usually benefit at the end. In this case we have: Olga, Franck, etc.) and use tontines as a way of savings not monitored by the government and therefore difficult to tax. The weakness of such a system is the need for a third party, usually a treasurer whom everyone “trusts” and who receive all the members contribution. It is up to the latter to monitor the evolution of the contributions and pay the final amount to the beneficiary for the current period. This is a weakness because the individual in question does not receive all the contributions the same day. Receiving these in a deferred way, he can face an emergency to spend this money, putting in harm all the members of the tontine. He can also claim to have been assaulted and appeal to the good hearts of the members not to hold it against him. For a fairly high contribution amount (a total of $1000, 000 per month for example), the treasurer taken by the lure of gain can take to their heels, pocketing the contribution for a period with him. These are the problems that members of a tontine often face. Contributions can be made more reliable by making them through a cryptocurrency in which everyone trusts (and can accept it against fiat currencies) and by setting up a platform on which, once a tontine has been created with its various parameters (name of the tontine’s members, contribution amount, contribution space and food(1) order), members will be able to contribute by just clicking on a button. The funds will be saved by a smart contract who will therefore, after everyone has contributed, automatically transfer the food(1) to the beneficiary for a specified period. The reliability of the smart contracts and the security of the Blockchain will ensure the integrity of the data, the traceability of the transactions carried out by the members and the reception assured to the beneficiary of his food. This system may consist of a web and/or mobile application on which a tontine can be created and configured. This application communicates with a deployed smarts contracts which will take care of stocking datas, traceability, security and automation of the tontine. Food (1) : total contribution of a period, act of receiving the total contribution of a period.
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