OECD countries are aging.

While the world population is growing at a rapid pace, the vast portion of developed countries have a low fertility rate. Subsequently, for the first time in these countries histories, the population pyramid has become inverted. Throughout history, the population pyramid has been heavier on the bottom (more young people) and shallow on the top (few old people).

With advancements in medicine, life expectancies have reached a record high figure; meanwhile, as life has become busier than ever, birth rates have dropped. This shift in the population pyramid is going to pose many challenges, but one of the most striking ones will be the sustenance of social security and pension programs.

Cracks in the System

Pensions systems across the world rely on the supposition that the number of aged (retired) people in a country will always be equal to or less than the number of young people in the workforce. Fees are claimed from young members of the workforce and funneled towards the aged; the assertion is that once the young reach their retirement age, a new generation will be providing their pension, and so the cycle will continue.

Things are about to change.
As the number of young people in the workforce across OECD countries has decreased, retirement ages have been pushed higher. This, however, is just the beginning of the problem.

Population pyraminds no longer look like this in OECD countries.

As the discrepancy between the number of young workers needed to sustain pension funds and the number actually in the workforce increases, pension funds will head towards a point of unsustainability. Many economists already believe that the pension system will soon collapse and the young workforce that has fed funds to today’s pension systems won’t see a dime of it once they reach their retirement age.

There’s a dire need for alternatives to present pension systems, and a blockchain startup named Akropolis aims to leverage the benefits of decentralization to enable a new form of retirement safety nets.

A Decentralized Network of Fund Managers and Savers

Pension funds are typically managed by highly skilled financial analysts. At present, the analysts involved with pension funds help centralized, government-controlled funds handle people’s pensions. Given the fragility of the current pension system, Akropolis aims to deliver a decentralized system in which people can offer their funds to fund managers to manage their pension savings without relying on the centralized, government-controlled pensions.

Through the aid of smart contract-enabled escrows, funds remain securely within the limitations people offer to the fund managers.

Fund managers can then invest the capital to draw in returns as they would in a normal pension fund, except in this scenario, people retain their savings and the compound interest earned on those savings. Presently, the returns will be allocated to sustain the retirement plans of previous generations’ pension plans; soon, possibly even the principal would start dwindling. Akropolis aims to offer an alternative which delivers a new, decentralized pension system.

Huobi Prime

The Akropolis project launched nearly a year ago and has been focused on development, capital raise, and community growth since then.

The AKRO token will be made available to the public for the first time through Huobi Global on July 16. Huobi Prime has certain participation requirements which include account verification and a minimum token hold. Depending on the amount of tokens that have been held within an account, a pre-decided limited allocation will be made available to a buyer. A detailed explanation of participation requirements are explained in this article.

A strategic launch via Huobi Prime will enable Akropolis to expand its community and inform a wider portion of the Crypto community (and beyond) on how it intends to reshape the world’s pension system.