The oldest bank in the world, the savings circle, with the notebook and the treasurer taken out: shares stream by the second, the pot pays itself, being short is on the record, and a turn can be bought.

Hundreds of millions of people save in circles: esusu, tanda, chit, stokvel, hui, chama. A few people put in the same share every round and take the whole pot in turn. It is the most successful financial product ever built for people banks ignore, and it runs on one person's notebook. The treasurer holds the money, chases the late ones, and is the one everyone blames when it goes wrong. It goes wrong often enough that every circle is limited to the people who can be found and shouted at.

A pot nobody holds. Each member keeps a jar. Their share streams out of it by the second into the round's pot, a hundredth of a cent at a time, so there is no payment day to miss. When the round's time is up the pot goes to whoever's turn it is, in one payment, in under a second. Being short goes on a record that follows you to the next circle. A friend can vouch: money behind someone that streams only when their jar is empty. A turn can be bought: anyone with an earlier turn names a price; pay it and you trade places. That last part is a market for time, and nobody has one.

A share of fifty dollars a week is a hundredth of a cent a second. It can only stream if a payment that small costs less to settle than it is worth, and a pot can only pay itself if the payout is final the moment the clock says so. Arc gives both, in the dollars the circle already saves in, and the record lives on the same chain as every circle that reads it.

• One percent of every pot, taken when it is paid. Already in the contract, already flowing to the deployer.
• The turn market. A small fee on each turn bought. A circle of twelve with a lively market trades a few turns a round.
• The record. Lenders and other circles read it for a fee: the first credit history most of these savers will ever have.

A million circles of eight at fifty dollars a week is twenty billion dollars a year through the pot, and two hundred million in fees, before the market and the record.

Savings circles move hundreds of billions of dollars a year across Africa, South Asia, Latin America and the diaspora, entirely off any ledger a lender can read. Every one of them is a group of people who already trust each other and already save; the only thing missing is the notebook that cannot lie.

• Round, live on Arc mainnet
• The record
• Open a circle
• Round.sol: open, join, leave, start, fund, vouch, settle, close, price, swap, reclaim. Deploy it from your wallet
• The twelve, on Subsecond

1. Live nowThe pot that fills by the second, six worked circles, the record, the people board, the turn market, vouching, and Round.sol with every function on a screen: open, join, leave, start, fund, vouch, settle, close, price, swap, reclaim, fees.
2. 90 daysA push to your phone when your jar runs low and when the pot is yours; invite links so a circle fills from a WhatsApp group in a minute; the record readable by any other app.
3. 6 monthsCircles that go round more than once; a lender’s view of the record; vouching pools for whole families and streets.
4. 12 monthsCredit against a clean record: a member with twenty rounds in full can borrow the pot before their turn, from the circle itself.

A developer grant of USD 60,000 over six months funds the phone push, invite links, the record API, and the first thousand real circles, with milestones at a hundred live circles, ten thousand pots paid, and the first lender reading the record. Draft figure, to be set with the programme.

Built by one person, in the open, on a foundation that puts a new product on Arc in under an hour. Name your price, or free.

WhatsAppTelegram