AraToken: a currency where you get built in dispute resolution if you use it.

[joeycharlesworth]

Pitch it!

Whilst stable coins such as as DAI are great for many reasons, many purchasers would still prefer to transact in fiat and/or my credit card because of the legal protections available for fiat transactions, such as transaction reversals in the event of fraud (which most credit card companies offer) or the use of small claim courts. With regards to COV19 specifically, we will likely see many scams emerge from malicious groups trying to take advantage of the situation and fraudulently misrepresent the use of donations or product offerings.

AraToken may offer a potential solution. Instead of choosing to make a donation or purchase in DAI, instead a legally assured backed equivalent of DAI may be used, integrated with both an escrow and online dispute resolution system.

Below is an example of how this might work:

• John decides to purchase 10,000 face protection masks for his local community from online Supplier Y. The cost of this purchase is 10k DAI, equivalent to 10k Aratokens.
• 10k Aratokens are transferred into an escrow smart contract and held in escrow for 14 days.
• John has 14 days to raise an online dispute if for whatever reason believes Supplier Y is fraudulent, he has not received the masks or they are not to the agreed quality standard.
  -If the arbitrators vote in John's favour, the 10k Aratokens, less the arbitration cost which could be say 1% of the transaction value, so $10, would be returned to John.
• If after 14 days, no disputes are raised, the 10k Aratokens are automatically released from escrow and transferred to Supplier Y.

Nobody has to sign any legal contracts to benefit from it, all they need to do is pay in AraToken.

Besides from being useful for the collection of funds for COV19, AraToken could also be useful for virtually every other B2B or B2C online transaction. It's stable, just like DAI, offers interest, just like DAI, and has built in legal protection in case things don't go to plan.

It also provides for a clear business model whereby income can be generated as a % of the transaction value to cover arbitration costs, that scale in line with the transaction amount. Moreover, funds held in the escrow could generate interest which could be also be utilised to provide relief funds for COV19.

NB: Further research needs to be undertaken to determine the technical feasibility of the above approach.

Team

• Joe Charlesworth - Head of Ops at Aragon - https://github.com/joeycharlesworth

Lots more hackers and shillers needed!

Skills wanted

• Engineering (Knowledge of smart contracts related to stable coins and escrow systems preferred)
• Design (Design a simple website to explain the benefits of AraToken and how to use it)
• Community builder (Help make some noise about AraToken to raise awareness that people can transact on-chain in a safer way)

Communication

Come and join the AraToken Telegram group.