AFRI: An open-source distributed ledger (PoS/DAG hybrid)

Due to personal reasons completely unrelated to politics this project will be abandoned. We would like the two users who have sent us btc and eth to contact us ASAP so we can return the funds by giving you the private keys.

Thank you everyone for having watched this project and asking questions.

BR, Lueji, Abdirrahim, Hassan

Logo

Hello everyone and welcome to the public beginning of a project that a small team of enthusiasts has been working on for the past 8 months. This announcement will serve to let community members become familiar with the project at a philosophical, design, and technical level, and will mark the beginning of the crowdsale for the public.

Who

We are three political activists, hacktivists, and coders, from three different African countries. We have been harassed, persecuted, jailed, and humiliated in our individual countries for trying to expose the existing political corruption, and the government manipulation of the national currencies. While some of you may be aware of the famous Zimbabwes one hundred trillion dollar note as an example of hyperinflation, the truth is that different levels of currency manipulation (to the sole detriment of its citizens) exist in both North-African and Sub-Saharan African countries. These examples include a strong collusion between banks and governments to use collected taxes for illegal and unhumanitarian enterprises, as well as altering the de facto supply in order to steal from savers.

Working in the project full time, and in the interest of transparency, are:

Lueji da Silva, Abdirrahim Galaid, and Hassan Maghrubi.

Part-time contributors to our pre-release code include Clóvis Viega, Keven Radke, and Juan Freire.

Anyone that wishes to help us code is encouraged to join our Github repository for our future wallet release. Having a bigger community of active contributors creates better and more useful code to meet our needs, and we look forward to all the suggestions put forth.

Why

While we have paid a price for our whistleblowing and exposure, we have learned many things. We have learned that everyones identity is precious and must be protected at all costs. And we have learned that whistleblowing only brings attention to the issue, but it does not undermine the existing infrastructure. Though we welcome and encourage the use of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in our respective countries, we also realize that they are not equipped with the necessary tools to triumph over the long term, and that these tools (such as scalability) may come too late for a great deal of people that see their wealth be stolen in front of them. Every year, month, day, even second that we can undermine the current system will be a victory in our view. Additionally, we aim to create a network for Africans by Africans to directly fight the Abuja Treaty (concerning the creation of an African single currency by 2023, and an African Central Bank by 2028), which will only make our citizen efforts to expose the corruption and manipulation less effective.

What

And this brings us to our project. Our project is called Afri, both short for Africa and the old Latin name for its inhabitants. Afri is a cryptocurrency for Africans and all those that wish to support our struggle. It is a PoS/DAG hybrid cryptocurrency, with an initial release as an android app. Each individual app on each users smartphone will work as an effective full node when connected to the internet. Users will be able to quickly and effortlessly send value regionally, nationally, and internationally, without any fees, while each app maintains a copy of the distributed ledger, which is shortened at regular milestones to save internet data costs and phone space on each users phone.

(Preview) Creating a seed in the Afri wallet (English)
(Preview) Creating a password lock in the Afri wallet (Portuguese)
(Preview) Afri wallet main page (Afrikaans)
(Preview) Afri claiming tab (French)

Shortly after the first release of the app, we will be releasing a Windows and Linux desktop wallet as part of our roadmap. These desktop nodes will work to maintain the bigger ledger size, enabling smartphone nodes to use lighter ledgers as more transactions are performed by the Afri network and user adoption increases.

In Afri, the DAG enables parallel validations without transaction fees and is easily scalable for a growing user base. At the same time, each participant in the network making a transaction also actively participates in the consensus by referencing three transactions directly, without the need for mining operations to delegate trust to. Instead of using PoW for each transaction, which would require more processing power in each users smartphone, this is instead replaced by PoS which uses randomization to look for the lowest hash value in combination with the size of the stake (which is public information in the network, and visible in-app to the users through a DAG explorer).

Since we have run several successful testnet pilots with over 100 nodes, and we are in the final stages of polishing and debugging the auto-node discovery feature that we coded, we are finally confident we can bring it to the public at a specific timeframe without major bugs or performance issues. However, we encourage all users to report bugs that they encounter once we release the alpha. All technical details on the inner workings of the Afri protocol will be released as open source code in our Github repository under an MIT license, and presented in our technical whitepaper, due for release on the 30th of November 2017.

Specifications

PoS/DAG Hybrid (no minting)
4 000 000 000 (Four billion) total unending supply
Initial release: Android app only
Max app size: 50MB
Max DAG size stored in users phones: 0.5GB
Estimated peak network synch time during use: 18Mbit/s. We estimate an average user connection time of 60-150 seconds, with the app synching to the network only when user prompted.

Distribution

As pseudonymous participants and contributors in other well-known cryptocurrency projects over the last 2 years, we would like to think we have learned which distribution methods work best for each project. While we are fans of PoW mining as a concept, we believe it is not the most sustainable and practical system for distributing coins to our target user. As such, Afri will have no mining or minting of any kind, and the genesis block containing all of the coins (4 billion) will be distributed in the following way:

49% of coins (1 980 000 000) will be sold in a crowdsale starting 14th October 2017 19:00 UTC. More details below.

49% of coins (1 980 000 000) will be distributed via bounties to promote the adoption, code, and design of Afri. More details below.

2% of coins (40 000 000) will go to the founders, distributed among the three: 10 000 000 for each, with the remaining 10 000 000 to be sold in the first exchange listing and donated to the Plateforme de Protection des Lanceurs d'Alerte en Afrique (African Whistleblower Protection Platform). We also encourage you to donate to them for their amazing effort in protecting us and other whistleblowers in the past.

Additionally, all Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin collected during the crowdsale will be distributed, alongside the remaining Afri coins, as an extra incentive for users to participate in the several bounties we have planned. More details in the Bounty section.

Crowdsale:

The objective of the crowdsale is two-fold: reward investors and traders for their trust in the project at an early stage, while using the funds collected to reward users through the bounty system to develop the network and community.

The crowdsale begins 24h after this post has been submitted and will last until the 31st of December 2017. The equivalent number of coins per investment is distributed in three phases:

1st phase: 14th October 20th November: 800 000 000 Afri at a rate of 1 Afri = 0.0001 USD (cryptocurrency equivalent*). Should there be more funding than the initial valuation, the Afri will be distributed at a different rate proportional to each investors stake.

2nd Phase: 21st November 10th December: 700 000 000 Afri at a rate of 1 Afri = 0.00015 USD (cryptocurrency equivalent*). Should there be more funding than the initial valuation, the Afri will be distributed at a different rate proportional to each investors stake.

3rd Phase: 11th December 31st December: 480 000 000 Afri at a rate of 1 Afri = 0.0002 USD (cryptocurrency equivalent*). Should there be more funding than the initial valuation, the Afri will be distributed at a different rate proportional to each investors stake.

*We define cryptocurrency equivalent as the rate of USD to your cryptocurrency of choice (bitcoin, ether, or litecoin) at the market value in Bitfinex exchange on the timestamp at which your transaction is received in the Afri crowdsale wallet, expressed in the equation: Claimable Afri = (USD rate of your cryptocurrency * number of cryptocurrency units sent) / equivalent crowdsale phase price. For example, if 1 BTC = $5000 when you send your bitcoin transaction, and you send 0.01 BTC during the first crowdsale phase, then you will receive 5000*0.01/0.0001 = 50 000 Afri.

As mentioned above, if there is more funding than the initial valuation, we will have a proportional reward, wherein:

Claimable Afri = (Total Afri supply in the respective phase / USD rate of each cryptocurrency * number of cryptocurrency units sent) * (USD rate of your cryptocurrency * number of cryptocurrency units you have sent).

We have made what might seem like a low valuation since we prize the utility of the network we will create more than the monetary incentives we (founders) could gain from it, so our bounty system was made with the minimum viable investment possible in mind to kickstart it.

Crowdsale Official Addresses:

1st Phase now live! 14th October 19:00 UTC - November 20th 19:00 UTC | Total Afri: 800 000 000 | Rate: 1 Afri = 0.0001 USD (cryptocurrency equivalent*)

BTC address (no bitcoin cash!):
(We are considering limiting crowdsale through bitcoin during the month of November so that users can claim both bitcoins in the upcoming bitcoin segwit2x fork)

ETH address:

LTC address:

Claiming your Afri

During our alpha release (scheduled for the 31st of November 2017), users will be able to automatically collect their Afri by selecting the cryptocurrency they used in the crowdsale and placing their wallet address in the Claim tab (see image preview in French) of the wallet. Because of this, it is crucial that you remember the wallet address from which you sent your bitcoin, ether, or litecoin. If you, for example, place a bitcoin address in a litecoin claim, the system will not recognize the action, and your tokens will not be lost. Simply select the correct cryptocurrency and wallet address and try again. If you are still facing issues please send an e-mail to africryptocurrency at gmail dot com where you include: 1) your wallet address, 2) the transaction, 3) Txhash, and 4) block number so we can troubleshoot the issue.

Bounties:

Afri is a bounty driven cryptocurrency, and we aim to use bounties as an economic incentive to grow the use and features of the network. The bounties are not time limited and will be granted on a first-come first-served basis. If the crowdsale results in higher than expected funds, then these will be distributed proportionally across all the bounties.

Wallet/Code Bounties (Total: 500 000 000 Afri)

Free 250 000 Afri in each of the first 1000 wallet downloads (total 250 000 000 Afri);
Porting the wallet code to iOS 11 (total 100 000 000 Afri proportionally divided by the relative number of github commits and our interpretation of their impact, to prevent abuse, + $10 000 from the crowdsale divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin);
New wallet features and network optimizations (up to 10 proposals, total of 150 000 000 Afri available to distribute between these 10 proposals at the joint judgement of the three founders, + $10 000 from the crowdsale divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin).

Language Bounties (Total: 350 000 000 Afri)

While we will release our initial alpha with 5 available languages (English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, and Modern Standard Arabic), we are looking to include 31 more languages over the next months and perhaps even years. The translation work to be done concerns only the GUI, and the rewards will be distributed in three different phases based on the relative number of speakers of those languages. The base GUI file will be released in English in our github repository following the release of the alpha wallet (30th of November 2017). Below you can read the target languages and rewards:

1st phase languages: Hausa, Yoruba, Oromo, Fulani, Amharic, Igbo, Malagasy, Somali, Berber, and Swahili.

1st phase rewards: 20 000 000 Afri + $2000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) per Language (total 200 000 000 Afri)

2nd phase languages: Shona, Akan, Zulu, Kinyarwanda, Chewa, Kirundi, Mossi, Xhosa, Tigrinya, and Gikuyu

2nd phase rewards: 10 000 000 Afri + $1000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) per Language (total 100 000 000 Afri)

3rd phase languages: Tshiluba, Umbundu, Tswana, Kongo, Sesotho, Lingala, Luganda, Northern Sotho, Dholno, Mauritian Creole, and Ndebele.

3rd phase rewards: 5 000 000 Afri + $500 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) per Language (total 50 000 000 Afri)

Google translations will not be accepted. Language submissions will be handled manually by us, so make sure you provide your bitcoin, ethereum, and litecoin public addresses when submitting your request so we know where to send your rewards if you are accepted and when you do deliver the translation.

Design Bounties (Total: 300 000 000 Afri)

We will reserve 100 000 000 Afri + $10 000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) to reward a new logo design to replace our current one should a community vote with over 1000 votes decide on an alternative logo. The remaining 200 000 000 Afri + $20 000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) will be distributed to several GUI design proposals as well as for new wallet/app option arrangements, should a strong case be presented as to why said changes would optimize the user experience. Failing to achieve both these goals, the Afri and equivalent USD will be used as rewards for Other Bounties (see below).

Community Bounties (Total: 200 000 000 Afri)

50 000 000 Afri + $5000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) will be distributed between the first five websites where:

1.   Afris general, technical, and ideological information is presented in a fair way;

2.   Links are provided in the website to this bitcointalk thread and our github repository for the official download links;

3.   The website itself hosts the official download files and commits to keeping them up to date (as a prevention against our github repository getting seized by malicious actors).

4.   The website should have the information in English, French, and Portuguese at the very minimum.

50 000 000 Afri + $5000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) will be distributed to the first 10 videos that explain what Afri is under 3 minutes, in English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, and one or more Northern-African languages (each video only needs one language, subtitles in the other target languages are encouraged).

50 000 000 Afri + $5000 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) for the first 10 video tutorials on downloading and getting started using Afri, as well as claiming ones Afris from the crowdsale, with no time limit, in English, French, Portuguese, Afrikaans, and one or more Northern-African languages (each video only needs one language, subtitles in the other target languages are encouraged).

25 000 000 Afri + $2500 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) for the creation of an active though unofficial reddit, twitter, telegram, slack, and facebook communities, with the rewards being distributed proportionally based on metrics such as daily views, comments, upvotes, posts, etc after one month of the community page being created.

25 000 000 Afri + $2500 from the crowdsale (divided in equal parts through bitcoin, ether, and litecoin) for newspaper/magazine/flyers/tv advertisements referencing Afri in whatever African country they are displayed.

Other bounties (Remaining Afri)

The remaining Afri from either the difference in funding phases or an extra source of funding will be allocated for two uses. Half will be to reward Afri/Fiat exchanges in Africa only. The funding will be distributed through the first 3 exchanges that are created in the form of free Afri to the first 100 users that sign up in each exchange. The second will serve to reward bug bounties after the end of the crowdsale and user feedback of app use for one month.

Roadmap:

November 2017: Crowdsale 1st phase (14th October 20th November), Crowdsale 2nd phase (20th November 10th December), release of Afri Android wallet v0.1a in our public Github (30th November), release of the Afri Technical Whitepaper (30th November).

December 2017: Crowdsale 3rd phase (10th December 31st December), beginning of the bounty claims (15th December), release of Afri Android wallet v0.2 & Windows desktop wallet (20th 30th December), target for bounty-funded websites, communities, videos, and 1st phase language translations to be completed (31st December).

January 2018: release of Linux desktop wallet (15th 30th January), target for iOS release (15th January), target for bounty-funded 2nd phase language translations to be completed (31st January). Target for the first Afri/BTC or Afri/Eth exchange.

March 2018: Release of multi-platform wallet v1.0 with new bounty-funded design features (28th February). Target for the first bounty-funded Afri/Fiat exchange in Africa and exposure in African traditional media.

July 2018: Target for 80% of all bounties to have been awarded. Target release of multi-platform wallet v2.0 with additional features such as cloaked channels where two users can send value anonymously while other users cannot publicly find the sending/receiving addresses as well as the amount transferred.

August 2018 - onwards: Network optimization and taking on user feedback to improve the network and decide future features.

Final Notes: We are extremely happy for the hard work the team has put during these months, and the extraordinary results we have achieved. However, our ultimate goals should be very clear for all the cryptocurrency community and our users:

1)   Develop a scalable and easy to use cryptocurrency for Africans;

2)   Upgrade the protocol to the extent possible;

3)   Ensure its decentralization in the nodes (through our consensus protocol) and in the availability of the code (to prevent censorship).

As such, once we the founders are happy with Afris development, we will not see a need to build layers on top of the Afri network, unless there is a clear and unmistakable demand by its main target users. We will still be available to the extent possible to help others wishing to build these layers, but it will not be on top of our individual founder priorities. Additionally, we hope to keep this bitcointalk thread and our github repository as the main and official sources of information concerning Afri development and updates. We hope you are as excited about Afri as we are!

P.S. We have been approached by some members asking for Afri before the crowdsale. We would like to be clear that no Afris will be sold outside of the crowdsale period or distributed in other way other than by the bounty system, so please stop asking. Thank you.