Creating A New Asset Class with Blockchain

How Sentinel Chain is leading the charge by reviving Dead Capital

Thanks to the spread of capitalism, the world’s economy has grown immensely into the state it’s in today. The momentum gained from the adoption of free markets around the world has allowed a larger portion of the population to enjoy the advantages and privileges of operating as an economically liberated individual. The current gross world product has grown to $77.8 trillion USD from the approximate 1.7 trillion it stood in at 1920. The growth that was experienced on a global scale was largely a by-product of a world economy that slowly became structured to enable people to become more financially significant individuals within their communities.

With the size of world’s massive economy, most would be led to believe that we’ve reached a point of overdevelopment. Although that is partially true, there’s an estimated 9.3 trillion in various forms of assets that are excluded from contributing to economic development and essentially unaccounted for. Starting the process of bringing these assets into formal sectors of the world’s mainstream economy could be the catalyst to creating unprecedented economic development.

Coined by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, the term “dead capital” focuses on the idea that certain individuals are unable to take advantage of the assets they have possession of or access to mostly because they aren’t able to claim it as their own due to political instability, corruption or simply bad bureaucracy. The property rights in Western countries are a fundamental component of an individual’s ability to realize their economic potential.
Within those property rights, the deed serves as the identifying and verifying element needed to secure an individual’s property claims.

There have been many attempts at tapping into the dead capital that has been mostly neglected, undervalued or overlooked. Many times, when some of that capital is able to be realized, it is by someone of a higher economic or social class essentially rewarding only those who are already at an advantage financially. Others underwhelming efforts at providing financial inclusion are only able to give minimal or partial services like lending and e-payments. These kinds of services are not only limiting but also require those who want to use them to incur the sunk cost of buying a cell phone and have access to airtime resellers in return for an incomplete resolution.

An easy-to-use and accessible infrastructure that will facilitate livestock identification and verification is a key component in the process of economically empowering those who have the potential to do so through their small farm chattel. It also averts the theft and smuggling of livestock essentially turning the untapped assets into real capital that can be leveraged and insured.

Sentinel Chain is a blockchain-based platform that plans to be the total financial inclusion package for economically marginalized business owners and farmers. The dead capital they possess in the form of livestock will be registered and divided into tokens that can be tracked and can easily transfer ownership of these assets. This will give them the opportunity to insure, collateralize and leverage their newfound assets. Modeled as a B2B marketplace, the blockchain network is essentially positioned to be the source for all financial services for the unbanked. They will have access to asset insurance by turning their livestock into verifiable assets, loans available through livestock collateral, crowdfunding, relief funding and e-payments services.

The livestock is identified and tracked by placing a “livestock identification tag” on each animal. The livestock identification tag is “a single-use, tamper-proof RFID” which keeps tracks of certain data like the location at a specified time. The tag cannot be removed without its destruction. The identification tag system is a core element to making those with livestock as dead capital have the access to resources that will turn their untapped wealth into tangible assets.

As a benefit of being the brainchild of InfoCorp, Sentinel Chain has been able to utilize the CrossPay Blockchain they have built. Their blockchain system has proven itself to work efficiently as a means of financial inclusion when the company successfully tested their network on 19,000 migrant workers who have no access to any form of banking or financial services. InfoCorp and Sentinel Chain are aware of the fact that due to their lack of engagement with any banking solutions, those who find themselves in economically adverse circumstances in places where the economy is already limited in development won’t have the financial literacy to properly take advantage of conventional banking services if they were suddenly made available.

Despite the definition of capital being derived from the Latin word “capita” meaning head of cattle, dead capital is not limited to the issue of realizing the untapped wealth in livestock. For the issue of dead capital to be completely eliminated the solutions have to expand beyond the bounds of livestock. Many of these same owners of livestock are unable to do the same with their property due to the increased difficulty in verifying and registering property without the local government assisting with facilitating that process.

Although CrossPay is already building a reputation of being part of a tangible solution for creating substantial economic development within communities who are lacking availability to banking services, Sentinel Chain has work to do before it reaches the stage of becoming a fully functional financial network operating autonomously from our antiquated banking systems. That being said, they are still poised to making everything they have set their mind on achieving palpable within the near future. Once they’ve accomplished all they’ve planned to, they may be the contributing factor to livestock no longer being part of the dead capital conversation.

Requiring ample time before all of their goals materialize, Sentinel Chain has a process to follow before they reach the point of fully implementing their application of blockchain technology. As a part of the process of the Sentinel Chain network going live, they have announced a token sale generation event planned to begin March 2018. This event will mark a minor, yet important milestone in the journey they’re embarking on. Once the tokens are available for use on the network, it’s ability to solve financial inclusion issues will prove how important of a project this is to watch.