Can you tell us a bit about you and the team?
George Li | Product
George is an ex-Googler who previously co-founded CottonBrew, a Stanford StartX computer vision company. Prior, he held roles in Corporate Strategy and Infrastructure at Google, and was a consultant at McKinsey. He holds a M.S in Management Science Engineering from Stanford and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University.
Patrick Long, CPA | Strategy & Operations
Patrick previously worked in Finance at RMS, and Ernst and Young in Assurance Services where he earned his CPA. In his spare time, he manages a crypto-currency fund raised from friends and family and is always scouting for new opportunities. He holds a B.A. in Economics from UC Berkeley.
Ron Merom | CTO
Ron previously worked at Google as a Software Engineer where he specialized in voice recognition, emerging markets and social interactions. Ron has a strong interest in blockchain technology and wants to use his technical expertise to make a social impact on the lives of those less fortunate. He holds a M.Sc. in Computer Science from the Weizmann Institute of Science and a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Environmental Science from The Hebrew University.
An Zheng | Principal Engineer
An previously worked at Sandora as a Senior Software Engineer. An holds a M.S. and B.S. in Systems Engineering from a highly ranked, world renowned university.
Tom Nash | Front End Developer
Tom previously worked at Hydrant as a Junior Web Developer, but recently has taken a sabbatical to travel the world and work on freelancing. He is a quick learner and an ambitious individual capable of taking on any task thrown at him. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Lancaster University.
Shine Lee | Smart Contract Developer
Shine is a entrepreneur at heart. After graduating from UC Davis about a year ago, he created his own Ethereum mining farm which generates enough passive income for him to be self-employed. He joins WeTrust as a developer working on Solidity smart contracts and brings his cryptocurrency domain experience. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from UC Davis.
Justin Zheng | Marketing Associate
Justin is a marketing guru. He was one of the marketing masterminds behind FirstBlood.io’s record breaking $6 million crowdfunding campaign that was completed in less than 15 minutes. We welcome him as part of our marketing machine to bring WeTrust known to the greater public.
Fanli Ji | China Community Manager
Fanli previously worked at various startups (CottonBrew, GWC Inc, and Career Tu) heading up their China division and being the point of contact for all matters. She understands business well and can communicate effectively and efficiently. She holds a B.S. in Information Management and Finance from Syracuse University.
Jessica Aharonov | Graphic Designer
Jessica is a graphic designer with extensive experience in branding, editorial design, and motion graphics. She created Arodesign Studio, an international graphic design agency that has worked on projects spanning the globe, including the United States, Singapore, UK and New Zealand.
Benedict Chan | Blockchain & Security Advisor
Benedict is the Platform Lead at BitGo and has vast experience in creating blockchain and wallet platforms. He created Ether.Li - first multi-signature web wallet. Ben advises the team on smart contracts, wallets, and security matters. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from University of South Wales Australia.
Daniel Cawrey | Marketing Advisor
Daniel previously worked at Velocity as Chief Communications Officer and ZapChain as Chief Operating Officer. He brings marketing and strategy expertise from years of experience running crypto-currency projects. He holds a B.S. in Information Science from Central Michigan University.
Fennie Wang | Legal Advisor
Fennie is currently working at MONI Limited as General Counsel and previously Wilmer Hale as an associate. She holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Legal Studies from UC Berkeley and a J.D. from Columbia University.
Leon Di | Product Marketing
Leon has 9 years of experience in Silicon Valley technology firms in Hardware Engineering and Technology Marketing roles. As a Product Manager, he has managed accounts with Intel, Apple, and other major tech companies. He holds MS and BS degrees in Electrical Engineering.
2. What is WeTrust?
WeTrust is a collaborative savings and mutual insurance platform built on the blockchain. Our mission is to leverage cutting edge technology to enable financial inclusion and improve access to market priced capital. Ultimately, we want to be seen as an alternative to traditional finance and provide a community based form of credit scores, insurance, and banking.
The first product being built at WeTrust is a Rotating Savings and Credit Association (ROSCA) platform running on a decentralized blockchain. WeTrust ROSCA allows users to save and issue credit as a group, at self-determined and fair interest rates.
3. What problems does WeTrust solve and who benefits the most from it?
For many years, reciprocal aid organizations (mutual insurance, ROSCAs - comparable to a 100% reserve ratio type of credit union that has a history of ~2000 years, and investment clubs) have had troubles scaling and providing security and transparency in their fund management.
Individuals in India, Latin America and China participate in non-traditional financial services despite the availability of formal institutions. However, the presence of high fees, dearth of transparency, and lack of scalability has limited the benefits of these financial services.
Blockchain technology provides a solution by reducing the friction of accounting/ tracking payments through the use of smart contacts, and secures funds with multi-signature wallets. Our software also enables useful features such as credit scores, which allows individuals to build a self-sovereign identity/ credit reputation through time, creating stickiness for our platform. Lastly, the decentralized manner of our platform and the incentive structure we design will incentivize local organizers to grow the network, since they will participate equitably in the success as adoption increases.
Ultimately, any individual who uses financial services will benefit from our innovation.
4. How did you come up with the idea for WeTrust?
I have a background in finance/ accounting and noticed many inefficiencies within the financial world, particularly within the remittance (e.g. Western Union) and fund management markets. I had heard about Blockchain technology from a few friends and after doing a bit of research and investing, learned about many of the benefits that this technology brings, namely: automation through smart contracts, significantly lower transaction fees, and elimination of a single point of failure. For me, this was extremely exciting and made me realize that Blockchains would be the perfect tool to revolutionize the financial industry.
5. Mainstream adoption has always moved slowly for cryptocurrencies, do you think WeTrust can help with this. and if so, why?
Our goal is to create a product that solves problems for our end users: people who are looking for better ways to save and access credit. While our initial product might spur some adoption and interest in the cryptocurrency, the goal is to make a product that abstracts as much of the cryptocurrency aspects as possible, so that people do not need to understand the underlying technology. Just as M-Pesa is now used by 70% of people in Kenya, we believe that by demonstrating value, people will adopt and use WeTrust, whether it is implemented using a cryptocurrency or not.
6. The first product of WeTrust is a decentralized ROSCA platform. How does it work?
Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCA) have been used by communities around the globe for thousands of years, as a grassroots form of financial institution. A ROSCA is “a group of individuals who agree to meet for a defined period in order to save and borrow together, a form of combined peer-to-peer banking and peer-to-peer lending.” ROSCAs are commonly built along clan, geographical, social, or professional networks. In countries around the world, ROSCAs have a variety of different names such as: susus (Ghana/ Caribbean Islands), tandas (Latin America), hui (China), chits (India), cundinas (Mexico), etc.
Individuals contribute a fixed amount at regular intervals for a set duration of time, and the money is distributed in each interval to individuals via either a lottery or a bidding process (the example below shows bidding, whereas a lottery is a random selection). ROSCAs produce results where all participants are individually better off (or no more worse off) than not participating in the group (pareto efficient).
The lack of modern credit scores is substituted efficiently by reputation, trust, and social ties. Throughout history, ROSCA funds have been successful because they are formed around personal reputation and circles of trust.
7. WeTrust chose the Ethereum blockchain to develop its ROSCA platform. Why? And is this decision final?
Currently, the code being written is in Solidity and the MVP will be on Ethereum. We chose Ethereum because of its wealth of code documentation, relative maturity and strong community support. While the MVP is built on Ethereum, we plan to be “blockchain agnostic” and will be building in such a way that we can port our code to another platform if see it is more promising for our use case.
8. This project is currently self-funded. Are you planning on doing a crowdsale for WeTrust or any of its products?
We will be planning a crowdsale for WeTrust contingent on a successful deployment of our MVP and strong community support and demand for our future products.
9. When can we expect the ROSCA platform to be launched?
Our MVP has a targeted completion date of January 8th, 2017. The ROSCA platform should be ready mid-late 2017 contingent on a successful crowdsale and continued full time development from our team.
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WeTrust interview