# International Remittance

## 1. The Deck
[Programmable Settlement (3.2)](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IKiIq5dCy1k06VhcxuxeVFuke0baTwZy/view?usp=sharing)

## 2. The Vision
Make remittances endlessly fluid and give enterprises and individuals full control of their money.
We leverage blockchain technology to transfer crypto assets in a borderless, steady, continuous, inexpensive stream.

## 3. International remittance, a strong use case within the Blockchain space
* **A huge market valued at more than $700 billion in 2020** - Despite the impact of COVID-19, the World Bank estimates that remittances to low and middle-income countries (LMICs) will recover and rise by 5.6 percent to $470 billion in 2021.
* **High interest from Large corporations** - Big corporations are looking to partner with blockchain startups to empower the evolution of remittances (MoneyGram, Western Union, Swift…)
* **Blockchain can disrupt remittance industry** - Transfers are 388x faster and 127x cheaper than through traditional remittance channels.

### Key Market Activity
* About 40 blockchain remittance projects were created in the last 10 years.
* [Everex](https://everex.io/) (based in Singapore), stablecoin powered debit cards, raised $10.5M.
* [SureRemit](https://sureremit.co/) (based in SF), ecosystem for global non-cash remittances, raised $7M.

## 4. A Customer sends 3k EUR from Berlin to Lagos with Transferwise

| Sender | Receiver |
| -------- | -------- |
| Open the app and select 3k EUR to NGN | |
| Note the fixed cap on 2.5k EUR. Split TX | |
| Send non-automated payment via bank transfer | |
| Get charged by hidden fees | |
|| Wait for bank transfer (12-24hr) |
| |Get money and note NGN is devalued |

## 5. Highly programmable cash flow through a wallet
Investing and distributing revenues to multiple receivers over time in a constant flow agreement through:

* Highly configurable On-Prem wallet
* Ethereum + Superfluid integration
* DeFi protocols (Uniswap, Compound, etc.)
* Technical Support and Solution Architects

## 6. A Customer sends 3k EUR in crypto from Berlin to Lagos with Skytale through a Neobank

| Sender | Neobank | Receiver |
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Open the app and add the receiver to F&F |Full control of defining any policy according with local regulation | |
| Open/update an automated stream | ||
| Zero fees, no hidden costs | ||
| Continuous stable coins credit stream | |cash out / hodl /convert to services |

## 7. A Customer opens a payment stream with Skytale

| Sender |
| -------- |
| Create a receivers group and define thresholds |
| Farm DeFi tokens |
| Plan to harvest |
| Route tokens to F&F every new block |
| Close the stream anytime |
| Adjust the thresholds anytime |

## 8. Our USPs
### Full Control with Self Sovereign Identity
Self-custody solution with fast, highly accurate, remote and secure customer identity verification process

### Programmable Cash Flow
Continuous settlement handling remittance, P2P lending, periodical payments and more as streams.

### Stable Coins and Decentralized Finance
Decentralized Lending Platform allowing to use and convert stable coins into DeFi tokens

### Seamless On/Off Ramp
Buy tokens through accredited partners and convert them into local services such as video streaming, mobile money, water, electricity

## 9. The Revenue Model

### Basic - Cloud (Free)
Up to 100 active wallets, Unlimited transactions.

### On Premises (10k EURO /yr per node)
* Unlimited wallets
* Historical Data
* Analytics Dashboard
* Technical Support
* Solution Architects (100 hr)

## 10. The Market Size

| Total Available Market | Total Serviceable Market | Target Market |
| -------- | -------- | -------- |
| Remittance flow to Low and middle-income countries | Remittance flow to Sub Saharan Africa | Remittance X Crypto (Localisation) |
|Estimated at $470 billion in 2021|Estimated at $38 billion in 2021 |€550m growing to €1Bn over 5 years, driven by our ability to capture market share |

## 11. The Target Market
* As of September 2020, the number of monthly crypto transfers to and from Africa has surpassed 600,000.
* The total number of transfers under USD 10K in Africa jumped by 55% to reach USD 316 Mn during Corona time.
* In June 2020 alone, almost USD 1 Bn worth of crypto was transacted.
* Africa’s largest economy is one of the six largest recipients of remittances in the world, attracting $24 billion in 2019 (World Bank)

## 12. The Traction

| Individuals / Companies | Answers | Meetings | Potential Partners |
| -------- | -------- |-------- |-------- |
| 250 /90 | 50 |20 |3 |

Conversion Rate: 3.7%

## 13. The Competitors
### Non Crypto
* Transferwise
* Moneygram
* WorldRemit
* Western Union
### Crypto Local
* [Patricia](https://www.mypatricia.co/)
* [First Kudi](https://firstkudi.com/)
* [Bundle Africa](https://bundle.africa/)
* [Bitsika](https://bitsika.africa/)
* [Yellow Card](https://www.yellowcard.io/)

## 14. The Product Roadmap

| | MVP | 1.0 | 1.1 |1.2 |
| -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |-------- |
| **Description** | A bare-bones self-custody Ethereum Wallet API able to program cash flow streams. | On-Ramp/Off-Ramp, Mobile Money, Uniswap investment, Stable Coin | Local Off Ramp services, decentralized KYC, Compound |Earn money by staking Ethereum (Polkadt?) node |
| **Main Features** | Programmable cash flow | Analytics, investments |The Product Roadmap Streaming credit support, Self Sovereign Identity | Proof Of Stake node |
| **Blockchain** | Ethereum | | |Polkadot?|
| **Integrations** | HashiCorp, Superfluid, Alchemy | Moonpay/Paxful, Dune |Flutterwave, Evernym/Nym | |
| **DeFi** | | Uniswap | Compound | |
| **Currencies** | ETH | UNI, USDC | |DOT? |
| **Off Ramp** | | M-Pesa, NGN, GHS, EUR, GBP |Airtime, Netflix ||

## Appendix

### A Product Overview

#### The Product Strategy
Lower the barrier of cryptographic assets by providing an enterprise-grade wallet able to mimic the same access control granularity of a bank, to continuously stream payments around the globe and significantly reduce the costs.

#### The Product Principles (A Clear Statement Of What We Believe)
- We give policies ownership to the customers and full wallets ownership to the end users.
- *My Keys, My Coins*. We give full control to end users by recovering their wallets anywhere through seed words.
- We support new ways of cashing out, e.g. converting crypto asssets to mobile money (M-Pesa), local goods or services such as water, electricity, streaming credit (Airtime, Netflix, etc.) able to meet real necessities of individuals.
- We allow customers and end users to passively invest on collaterals, earning interests just by converting their crypto assets in tokens.
- We offer [programmable cashflow](https://www.superfluid.finance/) to continuously send money across address books meanwhile user harvests their tokens.
- We empower our clients to run our containers by their own. We ship the containerized application to the client, to run on premises in any private cloud infrastructure. However we support a service for demonstration purposes.
- The platform is API-driven, having in mind engineers' needs.
- Gas is nearly free.
- We take care of identifying and verifying the identity of our clients through a Known Your Business ([KYB](#KYB--KYC)) process to check if any new customer meet the legal requirements.
- We don't like frauds. We are not responsible for the activity of the end users, though we force our clients to run a very rigorous KYC and AML process before allowing their users to operate.
- We take the responsibility to suspend and eventually close an enterprise account if we notice any misbehavior.

#### A typical Customer Journey
* The [customer](#Customer) send a registration request to Skytale, providing all the necessary information required by the [KYB](#KYB--KYC) process.
* Once the request is approved, the [customer](#Customer) install the product on their infrastructure by themselves, or by asking support to the [solution architects](https://hackmd.io/BHByB-nITe6nQ3MGB7tb_Q?both#Solution-Architect) provided by Skytale.
* The [customer](#Customer) defines their own user hierarchy, the internal wallets structure, selecting how many wallets, who is owning what, roles and permissions.
* The [customer](#Customer) can define any [policies](#Policy) within which their end users can operate.
* The [customer](#Customer) decides which [DeFi](#Decentralized-Finance-DeFi) protocols to enable, so that a user can choose on what protocol to invest such as [Uniswap](#Uniswap), rather than [Compound](#Compound).
* The [customer](#Customer) checks of the Analytics dashboard how many users are currently active and what is the volume of their transactions.
* The [customer](#Customer) onboards new [users](#User) and revokes permissions to specific users who don't fit their criteria anymore.

#### A Typical User Journey
* The [user](#User), once onboarded can easily create one or multiple wallets. A walle
* The [user](#User) manages their own wallet by sending and receiving any transactions according with the [policies](#Policy) defined by the [customer](#Customer).
* The [user](#User) opens [stream](#Stream) of investment with any of the [DeFi](#Decentralized-Finance-DeFi) projects selected by the [customer](#Customer).
* The [user](#User) plans how to spread their investments across multiple [DeFi](#Decentralized-Finance-DeFi) protocols by defining different thresholds.
* The [user](#User) plans how to distribute their earnings across multiple receivers by defining different thresholds.

#### Set Up
We aim to deliver containerized components to be installed [on-premises](#On-Premises). We aim also to run a copy of our software within our cloud for demonstration purposes only.

#### The Business Case Validation
Identify a niche market and a practical business case to validate, driven by data and potential business opportunities. Main factors are: the volume of transactions, the regulation, the competitors, the user needs stage.

#### Feature Parity Matrix
| Features | SkyTale | Transferwise | Western Union | MoneyGram |
| -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
| **Send** | Ethereum / ERC20 deposit. More crypto adoption through partnership with exchanges. FIAT supported by integrating with local partners | 50+ currencies supported with at least 3 transfer types and fee layers | | |

#### Currency Conversion
| Fee | SkyTale* | Transferwise | Western Union | MoneyGram | WorldRemit |
| -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
| **EUR/NGN** | 3.8% | Debit/Credit 10.43 Fee, 1.00 EUR = 447.699 NGN, recipient gets 446,020.97 NGN | Debit/Credit 3.90 Fee, 1.00 EUR = 417.3717 NGN, recipient gets 417,371.73 NGN | Debit/Credit 0.00 Fee, 1.00 EUR = 441.5576 NGN, recipient gets 441,557.62 NGN | |

`*` by integrating with [Flutterwave](https://flutterwave.com/us/pricing)
#### Exchange Partners

| Conversion | [Flutterwave](https://flutterwave.com/us/pricing) | Binance | Paxful | ... |
| -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- | -------- |
| **Send** | Ethereum / ERC20 deposit. More crypto adoption through partnership with exchanges. FIAT supported by integrating with local partners | 50+ currencies supported with at least 3 transfer types and fee layers | Text | Text |

## Side Notes

### Key concerns in cross border payments
> [According to a SWIFT and EuroFinance joint survey](https://www.finextra.com/blogposting/18637/blockchain-and-european-payments-banks-in-the-defensive-mode), lack of payments traceability, invisibility on banking fees, and amount discrepancies are the key concerns in cross border payments. It can take days to clear traditional cross-border wire payments, which carry fees as high as 10%. According to a McKinsey Research, cross border-payments take 3–5 days, which is quite long for corporates seeking to receive money. In the event of a dispute or investigation, the duration can be longer.


### Remittance global trend
> [Key trends](https://migrationdataportal.org/themes/remittances)
> Remittance flows in 2020 to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are projected to **fall by 19.7 per cent** to USD 445 billion, one of the sharpest declines in recent history (World Bank, 2020). According to the World Bank, this fall is largely due to the economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; for migrant workers, the pandemic has meant a fall in wages and employment (ibid.).
>
> The World Bank projects a decline of remittance flows across all regions: Europe and Central Asia (-27.5%); **Sub-Saharan Africa (-23.1%)**, South Asia (-22.1%), the Middle East and North Africa (-19.6%), Latin America and the Caribbean (-19.3%), and East Asia and the Pacific (-13%) (World Bank, 2020).

### Remittance survey
> [We conducted a survey of 226 representatives of African diasporas](https://www.ifad.org/en/web/latest/blog/asset/41965266) in Europe and North America between 1 and 17 May 2020. Most countries in the North were under lockdown at the time, with movements restricted, money transfer agencies closed and parts of the economy shut down, penalizing part-time and informal workers.
> A survey generated four major findings:
> For many, remittances are a vital and virtually untouchable expense: 80 per cent of respondents continued to send money to Africa despite the lockdown and its consequences.
> Forty-six per cent of respondents managed to either maintain (34 per cent) or increase (12 per cent) the amount of their remittances. In order to do so, most respondents (76 per cent) reduced their own consumption. A smaller number had to dip into their savings (15 per cent) or borrow money (3 per cent). These sacrifices could lead to greater financial vulnerability in the future, or even jeopardize family solidarity if the crisis persists.
> **Fifty-four per cent of respondents had to either reduce (34 per cent) or suspend (20 per cent) their remittances**, often due to a combination of reasons. First and foremost was a drop in income (63 per cent), followed by their usual transfer method being unavailable (33 per cent) and higher expenses as a result of the lockdown (27 per cent). As it is likely that families’ need for support increased during this period, the gap between diaspora remittance capacity and actual needs undoubtedly grew wider.

> **Digital money transfer services are the big winners of the lockdown. They were the preferred transfer method for 70 per cent of respondents.** Closed agencies and travel restrictions reduced the volume of cash remittances and the use of informal networks. Among respondents in the Senegalese diaspora, 30 per cent either stopped sending money or reduced the amount sent when these latter channels became unavailable. **Still, only the sending of money is digitalized: remittances are still predominantly received in cash, and the hierarchy of operators remains largely unchanged despite the emergence of new actors.**
>
> Some operators made significant cuts in their rates during the crisis, while taking advantage of problems affecting informal players. As the crisis may last for an extended period of time, will the changes in habits persist as well? A decision to change operators is often taken after consulting a family member or learning about other people’s experiences through social networks, so word of mouth carries a lot of weight – both positive and negative.


> To make remittances more resilient to shocks and render diasporas less vulnerable financially, this study – although just a snapshot of a small sample – suggests encouraging the following steps:
>
> **Lowering transfer fees** so that families receive the maximum amount of funds
> **Digitalizing remittances**, for the sake of convenience and to minimize cash handling, in both North and South
> **Providing financial education** at both ends to enable people to identify options, either to build savings or to seek more advantageous solutions

##### Geography
~~We aim to target Sub-Saharan Africa, especially Nigeria, Kenia and Ghana. In the last year the Sub-Saharan Africa had the biggest jump in terms of transactions volume, moving from 382 Mn to 544 Mn (+42%) becoming the second market in the world.~~ to validate.

##### The Market Analysis

##### Total Addressable Market - Market Sizing (TAM)
Africa is one of the six largest recipients of remittances in the world, attracting $24 billion in 2019 (World Bank).

As of September 2020, the number of monthly crypto transfers to and from Africa has surpassed 600,000. The total number of transfers under USD 10K in Africa jumped by 55% to reach USD 316 Mn. In June 2020 alone, almost USD 1 Bn worth of crypto was transacted.
`Volume of FIAT <> Crypto transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa`

`In the last year the Sub-Saharan Africa had the biggest jump in terms of transactions volume, moving from 382 Mn to 544 Mn (+42%) becoming the second market in the world. `
##### The Go-To Market Strategy
Identify the potential corridors to validate, talk with as many potential customers as possible, understand their needs and pain points, to validate if our solution could solve their problems. Identify the buying personas. Understand the buyer's journey. Follow-up with them inviting the decision maker. Pitch the deck. Agree on a pilot to build together.

##### The Time-To-Market (TTM)

#### The Value Proposition

#### The Unique Selling Point

#### Wardley Map
To identify the things that are changing - as well as the things that likely won't be changing - in the time frame of the product vision.

## The Objectives and Key Results
*The Airtable boards below are commented out since it is still unclear what would be the OKRs for the next Sprints.*

`<iframe class="airtable-embed" src="https://airtable.com/embed/shrq4ZvQp51OFyXsK?backgroundColor=green&layout=card&viewControls=on" frameborder="0" onmousewheel="" width="100%" height="533" style="background: transparent; border: 1px solid #ccc;"></iframe>`

`<iframe class="airtable-embed" src="https://airtable.com/embed/shryKm3XgwsjQ4Myi?backgroundColor=green&viewControls=on" frameborder="0" onmousewheel="" width="100%" height="533" style="background: transparent; border: 1px solid #ccc;"></iframe>`

#### The Product/Market Fit validation
#### The Revenue Stream
#### The Customer Persona
#### The Competitors
#### The Sales Force
#### The Key Milestones

## Vocabulary

### Crypto Asset
>[A crypto-asset](https://medium.com/babb/what-is-a-crypto-asset-1f0fcc517887) is a digital asset which utilises cryptography, peer-to-peer networking, and a public ledger to regulate the creation of new units, verify transactions, and secure the transactions without the intervention of any middleman.

We aim to handle different crypto assets such as Ethers, Stablecoins, Tokens ERC20/ERC(?):

#### Ether (ETH)
> [Ethereum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethereum) is the second-largest cryptocurrency platform by market capitalization, behind Bitcoin. It is a decentralized open source blockchain featuring smart contract functionality. Ether (ETH) is the cryptocurrency generated by Ethereum miners as a reward for computations performed to secure and add blocks to the blockchain.

#### ERC20
>[ERC20](https://cryptodefinitions.com/dictionary/erc20/) is the standard protocol for Ethereum tokens. It defines the set of rules that all Ethereum tokens must follow; thus allowing developers to accurately predict how newly created tokens will function within the blockchain.ERC20 protocol allows cryptocurrency projects to be created and launched without having to undergo development from scratch.

#### Stablecoin
[Stablecoins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stablecoin) are cryptocurrencies designed to minimize the volatility of the price of the stablecoin, relative to some "stable" asset or basket of assets. A stablecoin can be pegged to a cryptocurrency, fiat money, or to exchange-traded commodities (such as precious metals or industrial metals).

#### EOS
> [EOS](https://coincentral.com/what-is-eos/) is a blockchain platform for the development of decentralized applications (dapps), similar to Ethereum in function. It makes dapp development easy by providing an operating-system-like set of services and functions that dapps can make use of.

#### Dapp
> A [Dapp](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/what-is-a-dapp-a-guide-to-ethereum-dapps/), or decentralized application, is a software application that runs on a distributed network. It's not hosted on a centralized server, but instead on a peer-to-peer decentralized network.

#### Smart Contract
> A [smart contract](https://www.kaleido.io/blockchain-blog/what-are-smart-contracts-and-how-do-they-work) refers to a piece of computer program that gets executed by a quorum of blockchain nodes independently in order to record the latest program state.

#### Smart Contract Vs Dapp
> [A Dapp is a 'blockchain enabled' website](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-smart-contracts-and-dapps?share=1), where the Smart Contract is what allows it to connect to the blockchain.

> [DApp](https://blockchainhub.net/decentralized-applications-dapps/): applications that runs on a P2P network of computers rather than a single computer. The smart contract represents the core logic of a decentralized application. Smart contracts are integral building blocks of blockchains, that process information from external sensors or events

### On-Premises
> [On-premises](https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/O/on-premises.html) is the software and technology that is located within the physical confines of an enterprise - often in the company's data center - as opposed to running remotely on hosted servers or in the cloud.

### Neobank Vs Challenger Bank
> [Neo banks](https://medium.com/@amandajames19868/neo-bank-vs-challenger-bank-the-talk-of-the-town-53238a5dfe22) do not have a banking license but rely on a partner bank to operate. A Challenger bank has a full banking license to operate the full suite of banking operations.

> [Neobanks](https://www.mobiletransaction.org/what-is-a-neo-bank/) fundamentally try to be different from traditional banks, usually to be more convenient for those deterred by the long-established banks dominating the high street. That is why neobanks are also referred to as 'challenger banks'

### KYB / KYC
>[Know Your Business](https://www.electronicid.eu/en/blog/post/know-your-business-kyb/en) (KYB) process is not so different from the most widely known and standardized Know Your Customer (KYC) process. The difference lies in the purpose and intentionality of the process, focused on identifying companies and suppliers in the first case and consumers or customers in the second one.

### Self-Custody Wallet
>[In order to transact on blockchains](https://support.linen.app/en/articles/3558728-why-does-linen-app-use-self-custody-non-custodial-wallets), such as to supply funds to the Compound liquidity pool, you need to sign blockchain transactions using your unique key stored on your mobile device.That is why you need to have a self-custody wallet. Only you have access to your funds and only you can sign blockchain transactions from your mobile device.

> [Self-custody wallet](https://linen.app/articles/what-is-a-self-custody-non-custodial-wallet) providers cannot access your funds, even if they make the wallet because the private key is generated on your device and is accessible only by you. Even if the provider stops supporting the wallet or goes out of business, your funds are still in your possession if the wallet backup and recovery mechanisms are in place.

### Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
>[DeFi](https://defiprime.com/) and Open Finance Decentralized Finance (DeFi) is the movement that leverages decentralized networks to transform old financial products into trustless and transparent protocols that run without intermediaries.

### Compound
>[Compound](https://decrypt.co/resources/compound-defi-ethereum-explained-guide-how-to) is a company that allows people to earn money on the crypto they save. The project is part of Ethereum and more broadly, DeFi; Users can also borrow crypto from Compound by putting up collateral above a threshold defined by the project.

### Uniswap
>[Uniswap](https://blog.coinmarketcap.com/2020/08/25/anyswap-uniswap-or-trustswap-which-swap-protocol-is-best-for-defi-users/tps://) allows users to swap between different ERC20 tokens in addition to Ether (ETH) through an automated liquidity system. Uniswap is decentralized, and unlike Anyswap, it does not have any utility or governance token. It is currently one of the most used and popular DeFi tools according to DeFiPulse, with more than $96M in locked value.

### Stream
>[Handle subscriptions, salaries, rewards and any composable stream of value](https://www.superfluid.finance/), with continuous settlement and per-second netting for extreme capital efficiency.
Once a stream is opened, it keeps flowing every second without needing additional transactions.

### Policy
* transaction threshold: maximum amount of a sent/received transaction without confirmations
* daily threshold: maximum volume of transactions per day without confirmations
* monthly limit: maximum volume of transactions per month without confirmations
* Number of confirmations required: how many users have to confirm a transaction before being executed or received
* Invite or remove users
* DeFi protocols pre-selection: by choosing what DeFi protocol to show to their users.

### Customer
Our potential customer is a [neobank, or challenger bank](#Neobank-Vs-Challenger-Bank) who wants to allow their end users to hold and transfer their [crypto assets](#Crypto-Asset). We onboard our customers through a [KYB](#KYB--KYC) process.

### User
A user is the owner of one or multiple [self-custody](#Self-Custody-Wallet) wallets. Our potential user is someone who is willing to open automated stream of payments across multiple countries through crypto assets. A user is onboarded by the customer through their [KYC](#KYB--KYC) process.

### Solution Architect
A solution architect is an seasoned engineer proposed by Skytale who understand deeply the architecture of the product and can understand user needs, helping them to sort out any challenged related to the architecture and how to install Skytale under their environment.

# Why Skytale
> /ˈskɪtəliː/; [is a tool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytale) used to perform a transposition cipher, consisting of a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which is written a message.
The Skytale has already been used more than 2500 years ago and therefore it is the oldest known military ciphering method.


> [When a king or general left Sparta](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:entry=scytale-cn), the ephors gave to him a staff of a definite length and thickness, and retained for themselves another of precisely the same size. When they had any communication to make to him, they wound round their staff a narrow strip of leather (whence the name), and then wrote upon it the message which they had to send to him. When the strip of writing material was taken from the staff, nothing but single or broken letters appeared, and in this state the strip was sent to the general, who, after having wound it around his staff, was able to read the communication.