ICO: Kora, Banking the Unbanked

Overview - What is Kora?

Kora network has the grand aim of building an INCLUSIVE financial infrastructure catering specifically for the unbanked. Not only will it help provide a universally accessible and low-cost financial services solution to a huge swath of the global populace currently lacking in such services, it will also help facilitate the creation of a community-based, self-sustaining ecosystem on this front.

Use Case! What are the Existing Problems?

Problem Statement 1:

It is extremely costly for firms or emerging nations’ governments to develop banking infrastructure in non-urban areas. The high cost of infrastructure maintenance, i.e., both labour and capital costs, will usually be passed on to customers via higher banking fees.

Problem Statement 2:
Residents in emerging countries usually find it hard to keep clear, usable records of their identification or administrative documents.

Problem Statement 3:
The average financial risk associated with lending etc. to each member of the current unbanked populace is usually higher, and it is difficult to assess the exact extent of credit risks in each case. Hence, the financial industry often overlooks the economic and social value of providing financial services to this underserved segment of the population.

Problem Statement 4:
Despite rapid social and economic growth in many parts of the world over the past two decades, the level of tech- and financial literacy among the under-privileged or low-income segments of society remains relatively low. This leads to poor financial decision-making etc.

Problem Statement 5:
Class divides or social tensions can lead to a sense of distrust of banks or other financial institutions among residents of rural communities etc.

Solution? What do we do now?

Leveraging on the technological potential of blockchain, Kora aims to build a fully-functional financial service infrastructure on Ethermint, which is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain with Tendermint consensus. It is a Delegated Proof-Of-Stake (DPOS) consensus algorithm model that can support a much higher transaction capacity as compared to the Ethereum blockchain, making it a more scalable blockchain. This is actually a rather pragmatic approach in ensuring that their network adoption is scalable.

It will also aim to incorporate four fundamental operational layers:

1. Identification System and Ease of Network Entry:
   Kora will utilise a hybrid on-boarding process, which allows users to process their entries into the network via various forms of identification information. Users can prove their identity and the validate their activities using even the most basic mobile phone.

2. Transferring $:
   Monies can be transferred among users fairly securely and in a fast/efficient manner. Kora supports the use of electronic versions of national currencies (eFiat) on top of its KNT tokens. This can be done via text/USSD tech from any available mobile account.

3. Secure Storage:
   Fund protection—from theft and devaluation—are of the utmost importance. The white paper mentions that that users’ identity data would be secured using a form of Shamir’s Secret Sharing protocol. Financial information will also be secured by leveraging the aforementioned DPOS model.

4. Marketplace:
   Community Value Networks (CVN) is a key part of the Kora ecosystem, serving as digital avenues for the exchange of goods, services and capital. For instance, monies can be pooled by participants for the purposes of lending, infrastructure investment, bulk purchases, social assistance etc.

What is the role of the KNT?

The usage of KNT tokens involves 3 KEY functions:

1. It acts as the staking unit for selecting block producers.
2. It entails voting rights for KNT holders
3. It enables the payment of costs incurred for using the Kora Network
   In Kora’s DPOS consensus mechanism, candidate block producers would be incentivised to stake their KNTs (as collateral) to take on the role of a “block producer”. In the meantime, holders of KNT would be able to “vote” for their preferred block producers using their tokens. As transaction fees collected from the blocks will be divided amongst the block producers and their voters, this means that holders of KNT stand to generate returns on their staked coins.

What now? How’s things on the ground?

Kora has already launched a beta app on the Android app store—interested parties can download and take a quick look at the app setup and design.

As a trial pilot project, Kora is also cooperating with a Nigerian farming aggregator in Nigeria (with a network of 25k farmers) to resolve some of the pending financial/operational challenges in agricultural communities. As members of such communities are often exposed to theft and have to struggle with inefficient manual accounting and cash collection or distribution systems, they are presumably a good fit for the Kora project. The insights gleaned from the project will hopefully propel Kora forward in its stated mission.

Tokenomics?

Notwithstanding the softer sentiments in the broad ICO market recently, Kora has a rather pragmatic softcap of US$10 mil and hardcap of US$24 mil. The project also seems to have gained a good amount of traction in its presale, raising its full presale cap of US$4 mil in just a few weeks. At the time of writing, there are tentative signs that markets are starting to recover (+20% in 3 days woohoo!), and if the timing is right, we might see firmer investor interest in projects with solid fundamentals and use cases going forward.

Misc Details

Public Sale begins on April 23rd. KYC is needed—register now at https://token.kora.network. Due to the rise of telegram scams, gentle reminder that the only way to purchase KNT is through the token portal on their website. The Kora team will never message you privately about this in telegram.

More resources can be found at:
Site: https://kora.network/
Whitepaper: https://kora.network/downloads/Kora-White-Paper.pdf
FAQ on contribution: https://medium.com/kora-network/how-to-contribute-to-the-kora-network-token-pre-sale-249d63e55352

By: AlbertLee (Bountyhive ID)
bountyhive.io/r/AlbertLee