A decentralized cooperative lending protocol for africans
CoopiFi is a decentralized lending platform designed to digitize and modernize traditional African cooperative savings groups such as ajo, esusu, and thrift circles by bringing them onto the blockchain. It provides a secure, transparent, and community-governed environment where borrowers and lenders interact directly.
- Community-Based Lending: Users create or join digital cooperatives that pool stablecoins to form lending liquidity pools.
- Decentralized Governance: Cooperative members vote on loan approvals and governance decisions, ensuring fairness and community control.
- Crypto-Collateralized Loans: Borrowers use crypto assets in their wallets as collateral to access loans without needing to sell their holdings. Collateral is returned once the loan is repaid or liquidated if repayment terms are not met.
- Transparent & Automated: Smart contracts handle loan disbursement, repayments, interest calculations, and collateral management in a trustless, tamper-proof way.
- NFT Membership: Each cooperative member receives an NFT representing membership and voting rights, supporting governance and access control.
CoopiFi connects crypto traders and stablecoin holders providing liquidity with African communities reliant on informal savings groups. This creates:
- Respectful Borrowing: Borrowers access fair loans without harassment or exploitation.
- Safe Yield: Lenders earn returns protected from inflation and volatility by stablecoin-backed loans and enforced collateral.
- Fraud Reduction: Digital cooperatives eliminate cash leakages and fraud risks common in informal lending.
- Smart Contracts: Written in Cairo and deployed on Starknet, an Ethereum Layer 2 zk-rollup network offering low fees and fast, scalable transactions.
- Frontend: React.js-based web platform optimized for ease of use in African markets.
- Blockchain: Starknet supports growth with composability, security, and minimal transaction costs.
- African cooperative groups transitioning from informal savings to blockchain-based cooperatives.
- Crypto traders and stablecoin holders seeking sustainable yields through peer-to-peer community lending.
- Entrepreneurs and everyday users desiring transparent, nondisruptive access to credit.
Aligned with Starknet’s technology roadmap, CoopiFi plans to incorporate Bitcoin onto its platform due to Starknet's upcoming integration as a Layer 2 scaling solution for both Ethereum and Bitcoin. This will enable:
- Use of Bitcoin as collateral and liquidity source leveraging tokenized wrapped BTC assets (e.g., WBTC, tBTC).
- Supporting the growing Bitcoin staking ecosystem on Starknet, which allows BTC holders to earn yield while participating in consensus.
- Expanding asset options to appeal to a broader crypto user base and increase platform liquidity.
CoopiFi empowers traditional community finance by combining trusted cooperative cultural models with blockchain technology, creating a safe, inclusive, and efficient lending ecosystem. Its integration with Starknet’s advanced Layer 2 capabilities, including the planned Bitcoin support, positions CoopiFi uniquely to scale across Africa and beyond.
Address:
0x079e44174141753a6ba9f0a25df423f59ee292fbb5e5eae316f4b278aca07b92
Sepolia Starkscan Link:
https://sepolia.starkscan.co/contract/0x079e44174141753a6ba9f0a25df423f59ee292fbb5e5eae316f4b278aca07b92#read-write-contract-sub-write
NFT Contract Link:
https://sepolia.starkscan.co/nft-contract/0x079e44174141753a6ba9f0a25df423f59ee292fbb5e5eae316f4b278aca07b92