Introduction
The advent of blockchain technology is fast changing the way we handle our financial resources which makes the blockchain a viable hunting ground for businesses who look to add value to their customers and reach a far and wider market through another medium which thrives on being built without a single point of control to offer its users high level of security.
Inspite of the positives of using a more secure blockchain technology, Businesses transitioning on this platform still have to share some of the problems associated with online transactions; One of the prime issues is the lack of a legal structure to protect both businesses and their customers carrying out different transactions.
Just like in the real world where a court is an epistemic engine for ferreting out the truth about events from a confusing array of clues, there is need to have a similar structure to keep in check transactional activities or any activities that might bring about dispute after an agreement has being broken.
Until now, there is no platform that offers online users the protection they need when it comes to meeting their needs via the same route. Let me introduce you to the first ever dispute resolution protocol on the decentralized ethereum blockchain. Krelos!
Krelos is an ethereum autonomous organisation that works as a decentralised third party to arbitrate dispute in every kind of contract from very simple to highly complex ones
Kleros Decision Protocol
In the event of a dispute, Kleros tries to use the evidence provided by both parties in the dispute to give an honest judgement by leveraging the anonymity of its jurors.
In Kleros, Jurors are chosen randomly from a pool of experienced jurors having shown interest by commiting the PNK(Pinakion) token.
Once selected, the jurors only have access to view the evidences, weigh the facts and vote in favour of either party or reach a decision to consider a more lenient judgement based on the options available to him.
Things to note in Kleros
- Both Parties MUST be aware of the terms and conditions before the contract was integrated into Kleros
- Funds MUST be locked into the Kleros contract
- The Contract initiator MUST choose Kleros as their arbitrator incase of dispute
- Both parties will pay a small arbitration fee (In PNK) before submitting their evidences
- The MAJORITY votes is declared the winner
- The arbitration fee is shared by all the voting Jurors
- The Incoherent Jurors, those who voted against the majority lose their PNK commit
- The Coherent Jurors share the PNK commit of the Incoherent Jurors
The votes will only be revealed once all the Jurors have casted their votes and consequently the votes with the highest Majority is declared the winner. The smart contract consequently deploy the decision of the court accordingly.
Say,
**Reimburse** the Client
**Pay** the designer
**Give** the designer 1 week
A Sample court hierarchy in Kleros
The Kleros Technology
The Kleros decision protocol leverages 3 major technologies
- Blockchain
- Crowdsourcing
- Game theory
The Blockchain offers users the security and control of their funds, Crowdsourcing helps Kleros to source for Jurors randomly while Game theory deals with the cryptoeconomic nature of the Kleros decision protocol and this begins from their inventive token distribution which was carried out with a view to ensure fair distribution of PNK token to every class of investor.
By organising the first ever Interactive Coin Offering, IICO; Kleros ensure fair token distribution and avoid one party from controlling the court system because the PNK token serves a major purpose of determining the Jurors;meaning the higher the PNK commit, the higher the probability of a bigger vote weight, see the chart below.
Features of Kleros
Kleros has an easy to use features which makes the blockchain more comfortable for different transactions in various sectors of human endeavour
- Privacy
- Smart Contract driven
- Inexpensive legal framework
- Oracle framework
- Escrow services
- Dispute Resolution tool
- Justice for the Unjusticed
- A reward-based ecosystem for individuals/Jurors
These has the potential to present different use cases for kleros, see the chart below
A simple use case For Kleros
In Freeelancing
I remember my friend who use to work with a notable freelancing website writing for diferent clients on different. On one of such occasion , he was ask to write a 40 page project on gate control system. So after making so many research, he get down on work and few weeks to completion he got sick and couldnt complete the work on time. So the freelancing couldnt give a proper measure of workdone and so the client paid him far below the intended fee even though he commented he liked the work he has done so far
Assuming the freelancing website were to choose Kleros as their arbitrator, Kleros would have taken the evidences and maybe majority of crowdsourced Jurors would have deemed it savagery to not give my friend some time to complete the work.
A similar krelos decision protocol would have worked in this case
Till today, my friend has delisted from the platform and this experience has left him with sour taste of what it feels like to not have someone to fight for you.
This shows that Kleros can really save a lot of freelancers and online users from hassles like this.
Now am planning to tell my friend about Kleros!
Wow!!
Conclusion
Kleros has as many use cases as any businesses will need to thrive on a blockchain platform. I think this is why Kleros will be a hunting ground for organisations who are looking to do business in a secure and comfortable manner on the blockchain.
Team Kleros
Roadmap
- July, 2018: Launch on Main Net and Early Pilots
- October, 2018: First Version with Real Enforcement
- April, 2019: Multiple subcourts and governance mechanism release
- July, 2019: Abstraction Release
- September, 2019: Complex Disputes Release
Other Helpful Resources