What is DeFi if not a means to build your future with a community? Kitty Party 😺 Catalyst F5 proposal

Hi everyone,

Today is the last day for feedback and I would like to share my proposal which has the potential to truly decentralize money as a way to empower individuals with community support.

https://cardano.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Kitty-Party😺-zero-collateral-DeFi/352717-48088

google doc: Kitty Party! - Google Docs

The main problem today is that the only way for someone to borrow is by bank,investor or friends. Banks and investors hold all the bargaining power dictating rates and borrowing from friends has a limit.

Kitty party is a DeFi platform that acts a a lending circle where a group can pool money and take turns using it.

Impact on users

By cooperatively saving and taking turns loaning out the money, members at best get community backed loans or savings accounts with a higher interest.

Women in Kenya,Mexico, Bangladesh and all over the world already use this at the scale of a local community. Kitty Party will use the Cardano platform to scale this beyond the small circles of trust currently being used.

Impact on cardano community

This is a novel idea that has the potential to change DeFi as the first zero collateral lending platform. To build an application that can uniquely be supported by the Cardano block chain rather than a port from Ethereum will pull in adoption.

Our current conservative estimate of the total addressable market is $6.72B (based off lenders on ethereum). Currently DeFi is capital inefficient, only available to those who have disposable money. Kitty Party will provide value to people as a reliable lending tool for the community by the community.

Challenge - Dealing with fraud and virtual identities

To deal with rascals we have a few measures planned:

  • Each wallet will have to develop credit in the system (ie. cant start off with a $1M stake group). Individuals will build trust starting with low stake groups.
  • Members will also be matched with other that have similar financial needs
  • Using ‘Know you customer’ (KYC) processes users will only be allowed one wallet which can be blacklisted due to fraudulent behaviour
  • Members will be able to build trust faster if they are able to use cosigners within the same jurisdiction legally binded using OpenLaw.

Some of these methods centralize the application but we will be exploring other options to have fully a decentralized application.

Roadmap

For Catalyst F5 we are seeking funding to build a prototype ready for alpha testing. Current team size is one and will be utilizing contractors/freelancers for peripheral work.

After product market fit has solidified we will continue expansion.

  • Smart contract system (protocol layer)
    • Design + build
    • Stress test for security
    • Formal verification
  • Web application (application layer)
    • Basic user flows
    • Know your customer (KYC) onboarding and user management
    • Risk assessment

Estimated cost: $9000 USD

Please share your thoughts, it’s what makes project Catalyst valuable!