KLEROS: A decentralized multipurpose court system

tonyryce95 (41)in #busy • 6 years ago (edited)

1. INTRODUCTION

The world digital economy is growing at pace and shows no sign of slowing down. From online shopping and goods delivery, to transportation ticket booking be it road ,sea or air, to any online transaction you can think of. Going by the blockchain forecast, in the very short run most online transactions will be carried out through the decentralized global platforms. Since it is a decentralized system there are bound to be a sense of cheating amongst parties, and this on a more frequent occasions leads to disputes. You ordered for a cloth with a specific size and when the seller delivered your cloth it was a different size. We all know pictures can be deceitful when checking out stuffs online so on delivery you got a liitle downgrade in quality to the quality you were expecting. So to help resolve these disputes the kleros team came up with an idea "The Kleros resolution layer".

Thinking of a platform that can resolve contract dispute between parties? then think of Kleros!!..

2.0 WHAT IS KLEROS?

KLEROS

Kleros is a decentralized multipurpose court system built to judge any form of dispute surrounding all sort of contracts based on decentralized platforms between two parties. It works as a decentralized third party that oversees dispute arising from transactions in the decentralized global digital economic system.

Kleros is a blockchain dispute resolution layer. It connect users willing to initiate a contract agreement known as smart contracts on the plartform with jurors that are specialized in the area of the kind of contract let say E-commerce contracts, Transport contracts or an Insurance contracts amongst many.These users are known as contract creators.

Worrying about what will uphold the jurors verdict? you don't need to.

Smart contracts are smart enough to automatically execute as programmed, but not to render subjective judgments or to include elements from outside the blockchainsource

3.0. HOW DOES KLEROS WORK?

Example of dispute summing up how Kleros work is shown below:

3.1. ARBITRATED CONTRACTS

The optimal functionality of kleros depends on the information provided by users. As an opt-in court system, users also known as the smart contract creators are to design the kleros to reflect the true nature of the contracts in a way for kleros to be an arbitrator. Such that the number of jurors and the type of court to rule the contract in case of a dispute will be decided by the contracts creators. The type of court is selected base on the nature of the contract. A transportation contract will choose the transport court, an insurance contract will choose the insurance court, etc.

Example of court arborescence from which smart contract creators must select a court is shown below:

3.2. OPTIONS FOR JURORS

After proper look in by the jurors into the dispute, they are to make a verdict. Options available for jurors to vote may include but not limited to:

●Payment refund
●Replacement of items
●Time extension
●Share of the spoil (50/50)

3.3 SYSTEM TOKEN:PINACOIN(PNK)
There is an economic value attach to being a juror on kleros. Jurors get an arbitration fee for doing theirwork and this draws attention of users to the idea of becoming a juror. To avoid inactive jurors flocking the system, the system makes use of a token called Pinakoin.

Majorly serves as a benchmark for drawing jurors. Candidates willing to volunteer to become a juror are requested to make a deposit using Pinakoin. The probability of been drawn as a juror is highly dependent on the amount of Pinakoin deposited.

The two major roles play by Pinakoin in kleros design are:

● They protect the system against the sybil attack.
●Pinakion provides jurors the incentive to vote honestly.

3.4. INCEPTIVE SYSTEM

At the end of dispute resolutions, jurors that voted incoherently are made to lose certain percentage of their Pinakoin to coherent voters. Voting wrongly during the process of resolving just a dispute is not always telling but if a juror consistently voted incoherently 90% of the time in 100 instances such juror will be considered incompetent and will lose a certain percentage of his Pinakoin to jurors with more coherent votes. Who wants to lose a penny!? the jurors are compelled to vote honestly.

A typical token redistribution is shown above after the vote with seven jurors.

3.5. ARBITRATION FEE

To start a dispute or to make an appeal on Kleros, the two parties involve or in other cases a single party creating a dispute or making an appeal, depending, is requested to pay an arbitration fee.The amount charged is usually affordable. Arbitration fees are used to compensate jurors for their work just as state government pay salaries to state lawyers. The amount to be paid to each juror is to be decided by the subcourt to overseer the dispute or an appeal.

Payment of arbitration fees can be categorised on two instances:

● In first instance, each party will deposit an amount equal to the arbitration fee in the smart contract. If one party fails to do so, the smart contract will consider that the court ruled in favor of the party who deposited the arbitration fee (without even creating a dispute in the court). If both parties deposit the funds, the winning party will be reimbursed when the dispute is over.

●In appeals, both parties have to deposit the arbitration fees. The appellant also has to deposit an extra stake proportional to the appeal fees which will be given to the party winning the dispute. This way if a party makes frivolous appeals to harm the opposing party, the opposing party will get a compensation for the time loss, while if the appeals are finally ruled to be legit, the stake will be returned to the appellant.Source

3.6. APPEALS

Just as the state court of law is, if a verdict of the jurors goes against one party of the two parties involved in a dispute, the party being ruled against have the right to appeal the outcome of the hearing. For an appeal, the number of the initial jurors that arbitrated the dispute in the first hearing is doubled, this is done to ensure free and fair hearing of the appeal case.

4.0. USE CASES AND APPLICATIONS

4.1. USE CASES

Case 1:

Bolby bought a pair of shoe from an online shopping mall.

The shoe has a specific online description that suit Bolby's taste.

On delivery Bolby doesn't love what he gets as online specifications can be deceitful at times.

Thank goodness there was a smart contract between Bolby and the online shopping mall so Bolby was able to start a dispute via Kleros stating what he saw online is quite different from what he gets and providing online specification compare to the physical properties of the shoe.

With Kleros, the shoe was returned and Bolby's money was refunded in full.

Case 2:

Sarah was able to secure a job online as a marketer.

The minimum number of customers requested of her monthly is 100.

If she can meet her target she goes home with $3000 monthly.

Sarah was able to meet up with her target but the company is reluctant to pay because they didn't expect her to be able to get up to 100 customers monthly. They thought she is going to get like 50 and give up the chase.

Smart Sarah! she had a smart contract in place with the company before taking up the job. All she needs to do is start a dispute via Kleros and she was able to get her $3000.. Cool cash you say!! thanks to Kleros.

4.2. APPLICATIONS

Some applications of Kleros includes :

●Escrow
●Micro tasking
●Insurance
●Social networks
●Curated lists
●Oracle

5.0. HOW KLEROS CAN BENEFIT SMALL BUSINESSES AND LARGE CORPORATIONS

5.1. SMALL BUSINESSES

Since it is a small business, we expect the money to be involved in the dispute around this situation to be insignificant enough to not warrant a court case file. But to a small business owner the amount is not so small to let go so the idea of Kleros comes handy in situations like this since the fee to be involved is affordable and time efficient. Kleros will be a great avenue to solving dispute in small businesses.

BENEFITS

●Time efficient
●Cost friendly
●Fair hearing

5.2. LARGE CORPORATIONS

Kleros comes handy in the scenario of dispute that has to do with large corporations in the sense that large corporations like online shopping mall say Amazon, can adopt Kleros as a customer dispute resolution platform. It will help resolve issues faster and eased the work stress on already thin stretched workers.

BENEFITS:
●It will help clear customer dispute resolution desk as it offers faster approach to resolving dispute.
●It helps to ensure both parties respect contract details.
●It helps promote growth as it instill trust in customers they will get a fair hearing on their orders in case of a dispute.

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SUMMARY

Has explained in the article above, Kleros is a decentralized multipurpose court system built to judge any form of dispute surrounding all sort of contracts based on decentralized platforms between two parties. It works as a decentralized third party that oversees dispute arising from transactions in the decentalized global digital economic system.Kleros is a blockchain dispute resolution layer. It offers quick resolution to contract dispute between two parties using the blockchain technology.It is effecient and unique with it kind of design and features that also include the bribe resistance mechanism.. The assuredness and fairness that comes with the verdict of Kleros blockchain dispute resolution layer gives hope to the global digital economy.

In as much as dispute is inevitable between parties, so also is Kleros in resolving any form of dispute.

Thinking of a platform that can resolve contract dispute between parties? then think of Kleros!!..

You can watch the short video below for more information:

Also for more information follow my YouTube link to watch a short introductory video on kleros:

you can also participate in the contest by following the link:
https://steemit.com/crypto/@originalworks/940-steem-sponsored-writing-contest-kleros

twitter link:
https://mobile.twitter.com/adebanjotemita1/status/1031964050798854144