The JASIRI protocol

A Crypto-economic primitive for flat, below-zero, fast, and liquid frictionless transfer and settlement of value among communities, businesses, and individuals in Africa.

Official Whitepaper version 1.1 of the JASIRI Protocol

The JASIRI Protocol is a protocol-based incentives system, fueled by a digital token and programmable smart contracts, that wholesomely enables the coordination and allocation of capital to achieve a shared goal via the use of various economic models and cryptographic primitives. It is a self-sustaining system that uses agency-based cash commitments for instant cash liquidity, the Layer-1 out-of-MIT Algorand Blockchain for its underlying open financial infrastructure(enabling 46,000 TPS for borderless remittances and payments), and an open, fully decentralized, global database(enabling 100% transparency), and a flat coin digital asset bootstrapped to stable floor price via locked liquidity pools on an Automated Market Maker(What Is an Automated Market Maker? - CoinDesk). Users access the protocol through a 17 MB cross-platform non-custodial mobile wallet, where they can send JASIRIs online to their peers' accounts identified by user-friendly nickname addresses, and offline using QR Codes. Users can also tokenize community assets, by navigating, using an in-built browser, to a Multi-step form in Formik coded in React.js. Users can visit chartered agents to withdraw. There is a flat fee of 0.01 USD for all money transfers, 40,000 TPS+, and 24/7 availability. 

JASIRI Protocol is the Real Financial Inclusion! See one-pager comparison matrix infographic[https://drive.google.com/file/...]

Withdrawing 100 KES from my mobile money account costs me 27% of the amount i.e 27 KES. Sending 200 KES to my father in rural central Kenya to top up on his balance for buying diabetes insulin drugs cost me 15 KES per tx[Personal Account]... This is the problem that stirred me up to work on JASIRI, however, JASIRI also ends up solving these problems or rather, having use cases in the following problems:

1) Cost of remittances global average is 6.38% of the amount being sent, Sub-saharan Africa has the highest costs in the world, 7.5%-8.0%[Source: World Bank/Quartz 2018]. Evaluating this research paper[The impact of remittances on economic growth: An econometric model - ScienceDirect] shows that remittances have a positive effect on economic growth. This verifies that a high cost of remittances has a negative effect on economic growth in Africa, meaning low capital inflows, and costly business transactions which hamper ease of trade.

2) Africans have some of the lowest levels of access to formal financial services in the world. Even when they are able to open accounts, usage rates often remain low because transactions are too costly, insecure, or inconvenient. The most underserved are women, youth, and those living in remote areas[Source: Mastercard Foundation, Expanding access to financial services]

3) The World Bank estimates that as of 2020 only 24.8% of African adults in Sub-saharan Africa have a bank account[Source: Daniel Makina et .al, An overview of financial services access and usage in Africa - ScienceDirect]

Our target population to serve, and arguably the pilot market of our product is communities that live in peri-urban and satellite towns in Kenya. We are aiming to set up shop in these towns next year because we(living in these towns as well) lack banking facilities and general inclusive financial services. In fact, my residence is in a satellite town off Nairobi, and my countryside home is in a rural town called Meru. On a macro level, we aim to roll out branchless agency networks in each of our target satellite towns and rural towns all across Africa through the support of our African entrepreneur network. We also are working on our non-custodial, borderless mobile application where anyone anywhere can download the application and access the services without any fear of data manipulation or censorship. The mobile application also gives access to Africans in urban centers enjoying internet access. The mobile application plus our agency network rollout ensures we win the offline game of trust and the online game of convenience.  With our web application, users can also visit us and tokenize their assets, generating much-needed liquidity in the shortest time possible to aggregate capital for local community projects and small businesses. Financial inclusion in Africa has always been a problem, and we have the conviction that our solution covers a lot of mileage in this as it has been conceptualized by native Africans, for native Africans, and uses technology that is building the future of finance(The Algorand Blockchain).

I(Celestine Kariuki) have done research with potential users. Also, the problem I am solving is something personal that I have endured through, and as such, I understand a lot about it. Let me detail what I have for you on the problem and its potential users:

1) Personal Interviews with Mr. Leroy Mwasaru, Mr. Dennis Mburugu, Trajectory Change Grant Africa x Intrepid Afropreneurs group

2) Personal Experience

3) Legal Research

Please see below-attached dossiers on details in the above three:

1) Personal/User Stories on JASIRI: https://docs.google.com/docume...

2) Official JASIRI Whitepaper version 1.1, see sub-title 7: Official Whitepaper of The JASIRI Protocol: Version 1.1 by Celestino(e) Kariuki:: SSRN

We are at mid Concept-to-Prototype stage. Already, we have published the official whitepaper, incorporated in Kenya a legal vehicle as a PLC(Private Limited Company) known as Safariblocks Ltd., and we are also assembling the core team. We signed partnerships with Intrepid Afropreneur Community, Trajectory Change Grant Africa, and we are moving on(on 11/4/2021) to sign a grant partnership with the Algorand Foundation Ltd. We have also formally filed legal contracts through our legal partner, which may limit us from sharing finer details until consensual signatures are made. We are gradually moving to the prototype stage at the time of this writing, working with several developers to develop our mobile wallet(first product) in an agile process as we continue engaging on the ground with potential users. We are also constantly doing research(we are a research-first company), and we will continue publishing papers and writing code. Our research is mostly open-source, here is our GitHub org: JASIRI (github.com). So far, we have done research and simulated the Dutch Auction process for price discovery on JASIRI, done an awareness model, and lastly, a Market Cap model. 

The JASIRI Protocol leverages these technologies:

1) Layer-1 Algorand - Invented by MIT Professor Silvio Micali, it's a pure proof of stake, decentralized, secure, and scalable Layer-1 infrastructure written in Go Lang. The native digital asset of JASIRI is an Algorand Standard Asset. The backend of JASIRI is written in the Algorand Javascript SDK. 

2) Smart Contracts - Specifically, there are 3 smart contracts. A rekeyed Asset Contract, that independently mints, and distributes JASIRIs based on aligned incentives of the project. It rekeys to several project stakeholders to ensure an autonomous, and decentralized organized process. The second is a smart signature contract that pays the gas costs in ALGOs, and signs transactions. The third is a smart contract that atomically swaps JASIRI's community assets originated on the platform. These smart contracts are written in PyTeal/Teal, & audited.

3) React Native - addresses for online sending/receiving JASIRIs. Figma-designed UI/UX. QR Codes for offline transactions

4) React.js - Asset Origination and Tokenization form are hosted on a React.js web application, as well as the digital verification process. The forms are coded in Formik, input validation is done by Yup, transactions are consumed in JSON, and executed in the Algorand JS SDK

5) WalletConnect - ensures secure signing of transactions from the mobile wallet to smart contracts and the asset origination process through a trustless bridge.

6) Tinyman AMM - helps set initial flat price through issuance of locked liquidity Pool tokens.

We intend to launch our solution next year(mid-2022) after the successful building, testing, auditing, and deployment of our solutions.

We are aiming and expect to tokenize an average of 3500 real-world assets in our launch year. This, however, blunts the exact number of specific people we will serve since a person may bring more than one real-world asset, and we do not intend to discriminate on the number of assets you want to tokenize, it hurts us and hurts you. 

We also aim to serve a mass market(mostly rural), and in all honesty, we cannot estimate to fine detail the exact number of people we will serve. For instance, 80% of the Kenyan population financially excluded live in rural areas. We aim to go and set up in these rural areas. However, research[Who Are Kenya’s Financially Excluded? (cgap.org)] shows that 67% of people financially excluded say they are comfortable with their lives, now, even you yourself, how are you going to estimate the exact number of people who will use your product in this case? Your numbers will not be accurate. Succeeding in such a scenario needs well thought out localized trade secrets, getting physical offices, using promotion and leveraging on Metcalfe's Law, and lastly tapping on local expertise which we all have in order. This piece[Strategies & Risk Management, Innovation:Africas-consumer-market-potential.pdf (brookings.edu) sheds more light on how hard it is to especially estimate and get users in rural Africa. There's also the problem of access to workable quantitative data.

Currently, the JASIRI protocol's legal vehicle is a business-oriented entity, a PLC(private limited company) registered under Kenyan law as Safariblocks Ltd., as of early November 2021. It is too much pain registering a non-profit in Kenya, takes 1 year and you will most likely have to bribe government officials, that is what we understood from our legal partner. As such, we have resorted to making Safariblocks Ltd. focus on business solutions on the JASIRI Protocol, and custom software development especially in the blockchain/fintech space. Thus, we had to innovate our social impact proposition through these methods:

1) We will launch a DAO(Decentralized Autonomous Organization), a separate organizational entity aimed to deal with the distribution of JASIRIs for social impact(e.g tokenizing carbon credits for climate change tracking, offering JASIRIs as e-vouchers redeemable for goods and services especially during disasters, and scenarios where national currencies become scarce, supporting community projects)

2) We also have low transaction fees for payments for general users, at 0.01-0.1 USD at a flat fee.

3) We will have on/off USSD payments(for those with no internet access) as a feature end of next year.

4) Our non-custodial wallets mean global, non-discriminatory access. 30% of Africa has no access to identity services. 

5) Our Tokenization program is built to enable the poor of the developing world to realize the value of the little they have & legitimize their extralegal legitimate property, positioning them to transcend Western aid & Kafkaesque institutions, and rival the markets of the Global North.

From the get-go, we were impact-oriented, for example, we chose to build on the Algorand Blockchain because it is certified as a green blockchain. The CEO of Algorand Foundation, Mr. Sean Lee, echoed that any solution built on Algorand inherits the climate-friendly characteristics of their infrastructure. No heavy mining like Proof of Work networks, just staking capital to secure the network. This makes the JASIRI Protocol, a green, climate-friendly crypto protocol. For starters, we have achieved SDG goal no.13.

By enabling low-cost payments and remittances solutions, through our low-income client solution, we are working towards SDG goal no.10. High cost of payments limits capital inflow into developing countries as evidenced by this research report: [The impact of remittances on economic growth: An econometric model - ScienceDirect] Capital is needed to bootstrap economic growth, and by enable low cost and fast movement of money in Africa and across Africa and the world, we are reducing inequality through low flat fees of 0.01 USD. The international poverty line is $1.25, so a poor person can use JASIRI to make payments, receive aid, or receive capital to start a business at below zero charges without his/her income is a hurdle.

Through our agency networks, our solution centres around the creation of jobs and increase of income among African entrepreneurs. This ensures we are tackling SDG 8, by sustainably creating jobs through our regenerative financial system that gives back rewards to agents, who are locally sourced partner entrepreneurs and small business owners.

1) Financial

We lack financial resources to support our launch operations and subsequent pre-revenue operations. Most of the costs not covered at the moment on our site are related to office operations, on-the-ground sales, continuing research, and legal & compliance costs. We currently have 0 cash on our balance sheet, and a negative runway rate.

2) Technical

We lack advisors and partners to collaborate with on the research and development of specific features in our technology to enhance the security, and scalability of our protocol. These features are a) Consensus-driven MPC(Multi-party Computation) & vault technology for a secure, keyless, non-custodial, mobile/web finance wallet b) Integration of Binary SMS and background USSD to ensure real-time, peer-to-peer transfer of financial assets without internet access c) Implementation of zk-snarks to minimize trust and counter-party risk in offline-enabled, USSD mobile wallets. These features are instrumental in us providing secure financial infrastructure for the millions of financially excluded Africans. We aim to both open-source the work we generate with our partners, and others make proprietary(new discoveries or methodologies) so that we can be investable. We currently have open-sourced some of our work on Github.

Celestine Kariuki, Head of Strategy, Execution & Research - Trajectory Change Grant Africa winner, Web3/Blockchain Developer since 2019, Active Algorand Blockchain Community(Community Champion Candidate) for 2021, Camp Buni 3.0(CampBuni | Nurturing Makers) Most Creative Social Impact Solution & runners-up winner, personal experience in dealing with expensive payments solutions (see sub-section 7, in Official Whitepaper of The JASIRI Protocol: Version 1.1 by Celestino(e) Kariuki:: SSRN). Celestine equally worked on several solutions in Web3 hackathons, presenting blockchain-based solutions like Tenderbox at the Celo Mobile DeFi Hackathon(Make It Mobile Hackathon With Celo Projects | Gitcoin), and Exitor at The Next Top Blockchain Startup Hackathon(Exitor | Devpost). During his free time, Celestine also does research and study in economics, specifically the works of economists Hernando de Soto, Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter, Friedrich Hayek, and Thomas Sowell. The JASIRI Protocol's research is also partly inspired by the work of the latter economists.

Allan Mang'eni, Head of Product & Technology - Blockchain/Web3 developer since 2017. Software engineer by profession, specializing in blockchain-based solutions. Hacker, with active participation in Web3 & crypto hackathons like ETHGlobal. Active developer community member at Filecoin. Worked through libp2p, IPFS & Filecoin. Completed Gitcoin bounty programs, & hackathons that focus on building open-source web3 infrastructure. Allan is also an entrepreneur at heart, having participated at Emax 2020 with Celestine, a program sponsored by Innovation Norway & Strathmore Business School, to support African entrepreneurs & innovators.

Both Allan & Celestine are native Kenyans, and Africans by birth, & passion. This enables them easily understand the problems that JASIRI seeks to solve as they themselves experienced and continue to experience these problems. They are also blockchain & cryptography nerds, meaning that they easily iterate on cryptographic protocols & primitives to model solutions that solve problems in their community. 

1) Trajectory Change Grant Africa

- A partnership program between Trajectory Change Grant x Intrepid Afropreneur Community. Promised overall 2500$ in total grant, with 750$ disbursed in the first installment.

2) Algorand Foundation Ltd

- Grant contract partnership to support initial product development. Still ongoing on contract negotiation. They are using their funds to support us in building, testing, and auditing our product.

3) Intrepid Afropreneur Community

- Supporting us as a pre-launch community through their network of Afropreneurs(African entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs focused on solving problems in African communities). They endorsed our solution for foundational support through the Trajectory Change Grant partnership