KodiaCoin: Mbongo=>Nzimbu paradigm

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Context

The majority of digital coins lack several essential and key characteristics of what a true decentralized and fair token should be. Blockchains technologies and cryptocurrencies are a groundbreaking implementation of Distributed Ledger Technologies that are still in a growing phase and there is still a lot of room to welcome new paradigms. The class of solutions offered so far lack inclusion and diversity from other paradigms and specifically the African one when it comes to the notions of money and value. Most token production and distribution strategies have replicated a very old western world paradigm in banking and finance namely scarcity / rarity.  

Money production and distribution as we know it today is characterized by a profound asymmetry both spatially and temporally. This adds to another deeper issue related to the notion of value. No coins or token has offered solutions to the inflationary and deflationary nature of money as we are accustomed to. In other words, how do we make money value invariant overtime? Or how do we permanently create / co-produce money in such a way that its total quantity grows but its value is invariant. The relative theory of money, developed by Stephane Laborde, a French economist, seems to have answers to this question. 

Disruptive IT Cameron (a Wada Cameroon hub) has now received funding for a few projects and some of them have a token component. For the last few months we have been conducting deep research on the notion of money and value viewed through the ancestral African lenses and have come to the conclusion that the classic stable coins approach as we know it only scratches the surface of a deeper problem. Contextual and cultural facts as well as a more equitable money production mechanism are to be considered when implementing a local token and this has pushed us to take a moment to reflect on the findings we’ve made during our journey. 

Our connection and work with members of the Relative theory of money team [https://monnaie-libre.fr/ressources?filters=Pdf] developed by Stephane Laborde has finally given us the basic element to conceptualize and implement a token that fits the mental model of Africans starting in Cameroon.  

Fiduciary money such as the US Dollar, and the Euro as well as most cryptocurrencies present some serious limitations when it comes down to how it is produced and how value is perceived. 

Scarcity & Fear factor: 

Rarity is the common shared characteristic that most tokens exhibit. The general pattern consists of emitting a limited amount of token at once and letting the game of the offer and demand play its way. This is clearly unfair for future generations as it only reinforces the scarcity pattern: First to come first to be served! 

Spatial Asymmetry:

Since the only way to earn most tokens/cryptocurrencies is to buy them, two people willing to join the Cardano ecosystem living in different regions of the world don’t have the same chance to access ADA or any other token implemented on the cardano blockchain. Those living in the USA benefited from all the advertisements that went on during ADA launch and were able to enter the system early enough for very cheap when the token was still low in value. Most in the deep African continent might only be learning about Cardano now so they have significantly less opportunities. 

The real issue with this is the fact that there is no co-production of money. Money is created either by the code usually at the genesis block, and it only happens once making people in other geographical areas disadvantaged. There is clearly spatial asymmetry here. 

For a given time (specific instant) No individual at any geographical position (in a given economical zone ) should be favored in respect to money creation. 

Temporal Asymmetry:

In the current solutions, future generations are not taken into consideration during the money creation/production process. Once again a fixed amount of token is created at a specific moment in time and none will ever be created again. Future generation are clearly at a disadvantage 

Even if we concede that Bob, Paul and Marie all initially buy / produce the same amount of a given token at a chosen moment in time denoted T, what about Jean, Alice and Pierre who will then arrive in the economic system in the future T + dt ? They will be exchanging using tokens whose economical values will probably differ from what they were worth when Bob, Paul and Marie initially enter the token ecosystem by buying them. They do not need to suffer from a ponctuel emission in the past.  

Money production should not be ponctuel, it should be continuous overtime and co-produce by all the members within its community. 

We then understand intuitively that the notion of relativity induces the principle of symmetry. This must be formulated in a composite way taking into account the two temporal and spatial dimensions:

temporal symmetry: ΔM should be created at a relatively constant rate (c), only a function of the life expectancy of the currency area (denoted v):

ΔM = c * M where c = ln(v/2) / (v/2) = 9.2% per year in a monetary zone where v = 80

spatial symmetry: ΔM should be distributed equally and free of charge among all members in the economic zone (which would replace the monetary creation process currently carried out via punctual one time creation approach):

DU = ΔM / N where DU is the universal dividend and N the population of the currency area

This double principle of spatio-temporal symmetry concerns both the creation and monetary allocation.

Non existence of a universally accepted unit of measure: a Universal Dividend

A universal dividend is an individual part of a regular monetary creation which is proportional to the total monetary mass equally distributed between all the individuals of the monetary zone (the users of the token or currency). Such a concept does not exist in most cryptocurrencies and tokens.

Non Existence of a web of trust 

African communities organize themselves into tontine groups locally known as Djangui. The core idea is to create a community that can support each other and build and strengthen their relationships through group initiatives. Members accessing these groups are usually required to present endorsement from older members from the community. They form what we would call a trust web / reputation system. This societal organization serves as a reputation system in many domains, DeFi being one of them. Communities usually crowdfund for their initiative and also offer borrowing and lending within these groups. The network they build serves as what we would call credit score / credit history in the western world. Most tokens today are “permission less” which comes with some shortcomings.

Joining the ecosystem is not equitable:

The core problem here is that in order to have the token you have to first buy it. What if I never have enough to buy ADA? Shouldn’t I be able to join the ADA ecosystem and co-produced by the only fact of my presence in the System? 

If we take a deep look at all the products and services we create or offer today, they all use infrastructure, sciences, technologies, knowledge and institutions from older generations that actually belong to all of us as a collective. In other words, we are born in an economic field similar to a magnetic or electrical field hence we are born with an exchange potential. By our only presence we should be affected by the economical forces in our zone.  

Solution

Overview

The solution we are proposing aims to address the limitations we mentioned above (Temporal, Spatial symmetry and a Co-production process, the need to build a web of trust with a validation mechanism as an entry barrier to new members. The need to think of a system that is truly open to all even with no money to join ). The need to have a common referential rooted in the principle of relativity. 

The Kodia coin will take into account present and future generations by integrating spatial and temporal symmetry in the monetary creation process between all members at all times.

At the basic level we want to extend the extensive job done by Stephane Laborde with his Relative theory of money to implement a token on the cardano blockchain that meets the following criteria:

1. The entire money supply is created equally by certified members of the Web of Trust, co-creators of the KodiaCoin. Each of them therefore sees their account supplied on a daily or monthly basis by an amount namely a Universal Dividend (UD)!
2. People joining the network or web of trust (monetary and economical zone) will be required to get certified. The certification process will require signatures from at list 5 old members. You will have to meet physically for this to be validated.
3. Particularity of the Universal Dividend (UD)
4. The UD is a percentage of the total Kodia coin in circulation divided by the number of users, if we count in UD there is no inflation: 1/100 = 2/200 = 3/300 … (principle of relativity).
5. The value of the UD is such that a generation can therefore neither be advantaged nor disadvantaged compared to others (past or future) with regard to monetary creation
6. To create your UD, you must be a member of the KodiaCoin Web of Trust, which requires being certified by 5 members (having the 5 certifications available at the same time)
7. KodiaCoin generated data (transactions, certifications, etc.) will be persisted on the cardano "blockchain": each certified member can write to this shared, replicated and decentralized "account book". . For added security, private data is encrypted 

Core component supporting the web of trust:

African communities often organize themselves into tontine groups locally known as Djangui. The main idea behind it is to create a community that can support each other by building and strengthening their relationships through group initiatives. Members accessing these groups are usually required to present endorsement from older members from the community. They form what we would call a web of trust / reputation systems that is then used as a foundation to run local context DeFi functions such as lending, borrowing all within the network .

Identities: These are meant to provide way to identify members in the web of trust and any other resources 

Memberships: Each member of the web of trust will need to renew his membership every year or lose his ability to co-create money.

Certifications: This is a process that involves 5 registered members and a new member willing to be registered. 

Revocations: Membership is revoked when it is not renewed. Once revoked, they lose their ability to co-create the Kodia token and will have to undergo the certification process again. 

Transactions: All transactions: monetary or not

=>Click here for more details on the money co-creation process

=>Click here for more information about our ongoing research findings

=>Click here for more context about Disruptive IT Cameroon, A Wada Hub

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The main product for this project is a token with a totally new paradigm. The token will support many other already funded projects as a means of transacting values in the local context of Cameroon. There is a real potential for adoption

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Two potential risks are to be highlighted here. 

• The community perceiving the Kodia token as a scammed having witnessed multiple similar situations
• The difficulties related to the acceptance of a new monetary system by both the local community and the government

Our response to the first issues will consist of running marketing campaigns on public TVs, local radio channels and social media in contrast with scammers that tend to avoid them. 

Our second strategy will consist to educate the public on the utility to detach themselves from the CFA local fiat currency focusing on the harm it has brought about in the local communities The community perceiving the Kodia token as a scammed

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

As mentioned above, we have made great connections with the pioneers of this idea: The team behind the relative theory of money who have now deployed a fully functional solution in many localities in France. They are eager to work with us to create a similar solution (using Cardano) in Africa. One of their core motivations was the harm caused by the CFA, the current local currency in use in Cameroon imposed by France, they aim to re-polish France reputation in helping repair all the harm they have done through their financial colonization.

We have divided our work into 3 main phases

Phase 1: Consolidation and refinement - 6 months

Phase one is about consolidating and refining our findings with the work done at the local level on the notion of money and value by prominent African historian and writers such as Philip Omutunde, Kimuntu and more. More specifically, we will be organizing work sessions with those experts to refine our project making sure crucial element from their work are taken into consideration in the design an implementation of the Kodia token.

Phase 2: Design and Architecture - 6 months

This phase will be about dividing our problem space into sub-problem that will lead to several bounded contexts, each of them focusing on one responsibility of the overall system, then determining how they integrate and communicate back together to solve the big puzzle. This is more of a logical and functional division of the problem space which will bring about the solution to the problem as well. During this phase, we will work with all stakeholders to sketch out logical units each of them focusing on solving one issue at a time.

This phase will conclude with the production of both the specification document and a white paper detailing all the components of the Kodia token and how they interact.

Phase 3: Implementation, Deployment and Marketing - 12 months

This phase will leverage the documentation produce in phase 2 to implement and deploy both the Kodia token and the Web of trust components on the Cardano blockchain incorporating Cardano scalability solution (Hydra). We will then need to reach out to the local communities through TV, Radio advertisements and in local markets.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Total Budget $30k

Project coordination & Management: $3k

Research completion & Documentation: $3k

• Subject mater expert fees

Design & Architecture: 3k

• DLT research upgrade
• Platform architecture design
• Search engine design and modeling

Implementation & Testing: $18k

• Subsystem implementation
• Subsystems integration
• Web and mobile clients

Deployment: $1k

Marketing: $2k

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Nkalla: Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (Haskell), Mathematics teacher (Education Systems Engineering), Multilingual (French, Italian, English, Mbo)

Nkalla: Lead software architect of the platform.

Manfo: Cameroon Team Co-Lead, Senior software architect & developer, 12+ year of experience programming, 3+ years in functional programming paradigm (F#, Haskell, Elm), Multilingual (French, English, Italian, Ngiembo)

Manfo: Lead software developer.

Kamwa: Senior Software developer in Closure 7 + years experience, Project manager, Multilingual (French, English, Medumba)

Kamwa: Software developer.

Mermoz: Researcher in African Crypto communication, writer, farmer, poet and engineer. 

Mermoz: Domain expert, also in charge of reaching out to potential authors, advertisers, sponsors, and securing contracts.

Megan: Wada Cameroon Hub Co-Lead, Central Africa Coordination Lead, Wada core team member (Education and Event Lead), Maths & Physics teacher, bilingual (French & English) 

Megan will take care of the administrative tasks including coordinating events and meetings

Full Support from the Relative Money Theory team

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

No

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Our project extends to 3 main phases with deliverables that are easily measurable:

• Consolidation and refinement
• Number documentation produced while we work with local subject matter experts on consolidating and refining our findings
• Number of trips and encounters or working session organised with subject matter experts
• Design & Architecture & implementation
• Number of bounded context each focusing on one aspect of the problem identified
• Their integration
• Adoption
• Number of advertisement and number of people reached
• Number of people joining our network (Web of Trust)

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

This project is at the core of liberating Cameroon and later west and central Africa in general from French financial colonization through the CFA.

• The first success will result in the local community realizing that they will not be development if they continue to use the CFA as money
• The next element of success to us will be massif adoption and abandoning of the CFA

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is a new proposal