Topic: Bringing the blockchain to Islamic finance. (Read 3315 times)

Just wanted to say (though nobody is listening right now, but later people may come back and read this thread) the reason for the website going down and the hiatus in action was because of issues between me, Abdul Wali and Khalid. I think what happened is that I was expecting to much from them and the result was they left the team. This was pretty devastating to me, but I'm sure it is for the best.

  I'm trying to get it back together now and working on the alpha version of the app with what is left of the team, and it's coming along surely but surely. Not slowly but surely- surely but surely.

Right now i am going to start up the community outreach efforts again with the Jamaa rebrand. I've learned a lot of lessons and we are more determined than ever to make the vision a reality.

   Honestly, before I had a lot focus on launching an ICO because it would be nice to be able to work full time on the project and not have to pay for servers etc. out of pocket, but really with what ICO's have become it may be better if we can avoid it. I'm not sure we can- reaching the numbers of people we need to to reach critical mass will require a major effort.

In any case, there will be no ICO and possibly no pre-ICO until we have a working product. And regardless of these results of the ICO efforts will continue.

In case anyone is watching... we are currently working on the contract wizard. It's a simplified tool in app for issuing customizable contracts. The first one we are doing is a basic profit sharing contract.

The main difficulty is figuring how to code the reputation so it is both decentralized and cannot be faked. The other challenge is tying profit distribution to tokens so that profit payouts will be distributed to token holders, not just investors.

Investor addresses do not appear on the contract, rather the contract grabs the location of the tokens and sends a proportional share of the payout to the same address that each indivisible token is on.

Once we have the contracts down, we can start putting together the database, since the project list will have to draw from this.

I'm looking forward to testing the contracts on a few small projects, then we can populate the database and list with them.

I guess I should start another ANN thread with the Jamaa rebrand. People have got to start developing resistance to hype sometime soon...

   I was just shy of reaching legendary status and my account got hacked.

  Anyway, Ummati is still active, we are continuing work on the app. For those that have not read deeply about the project, we want to have a concrete and established use case before promoting the application platform. The idea is that the unique utility of the app will increase the user base and support the value of the token.

     We are working on Ethereum test nets right now. We are not using Git Hub because there is only two of us really working on it right now, and you have to pay on Git Hub to have multiple people making changes to the code.

       The delay of pre-ICO and ICO is mainly because expenses are so small right now it is not difficult to pay everything out of pocket. Things could go faster if there was more money, but there is also significant risk of compromising quality by bringing in paid help. Ideally we want people who actually believe in what we are doing.

Really we would only need to do a crowdsale once we are ready for beta.

     At that point we will hopefully start seeing serious traffic on the servers. At the same time, we will be wanting to recruit more people to develop the mainnet and decouple from Ethereum. This will require some more funds, and really as much as we can get for getting the word out. But really we don't want to put too much energy into spreading the word until we have a reasonably solid use-case not only established but accessible to the general public.

    Feel free to PM me if you want to see the code we have so far, also the design for the app is still visible at the following link:

https://xd.adobe.com/view/789abfeb-2ffd-418d-b5b3-2fe6c052dce7


   I have been researching projects a lot lately and I have to say I remain convinced that Ummat/Jamaa represents an incredible opportunity at this time, you are very fortunate if you are aware of this project at this early juncture.

We've been building the Jamaa app step by step. I'll be uploading some of the files in the coming days. For future reference, the link is:


https://github.com/UMMATI/jamaa

Looks interesting. Lots to read and take in so I may need to go over it again but for now Im watching.

Some more updates, we have a new advisor who is a professor of business with a background in Islamic finance currently teaching at the Abu Dhabi higher technical college.

  We contacted him after reading his excellent paper on the modern murabahah financing model available here.

  After contacting him, it turns out he has a very similar vision. We are very grateful to have his support.

Another update, we are splitting the concept into a long term blockchain concept and a short term microfinance/wallet app. The app will probably have an API based exchange function.

  Wireframe of the app is complete, but we are trying to work out a new branding concept before settling on a UI configuration.

  Also considering discussing partnership with BitSapphire, has anyone had experience with them?

  Anyway, there is actually a lot to discuss, hope we can get more interest on here or on discord.

Just an update, we have switched from slack to discord, so PM if you would like the invite link.


  Also we have been discussing for some time splitting the project into a foundation/community for developing the blockchain concepts and a platform that acts as the main user gateway.

There are legal reasons for this, but another advantage is to have a public face that does not have such an explicitly Muslim identity.

Ideally in this way we can have the best of both worlds, both an app that appeals broadly to ethical microfinance and avoid deterring non-Muslims or Muslims who fear the negative associations with Islam would scare off potential  users, and at the same time a blockchain project that can be optimized as a project based on Islamic values that can attract people in the Muslim world who are just starting to become interested in blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Hi, thanks for pointing this out. The website is being reworked right now and there should be an update in the next week or two, so we'll try to make that part of it.

Starting next week at least two of us will start working full time on the project.

Hi, why is your website not secure? HTTPS? It takes little effort and cost.

  Yes it's going very well, but I genuinely believe in these principles, and I got the idea to build this because I actually need it in my life and there is no one offering these services- interest free financing, multicurrency mobile wallet, debit card linked to wallets, etc. All in one app.

  Yes, we have also spoken with Ahmed Bugshan who has financed ArabianChain/DubaiCoin with about $8-900,000.

His group expressed interest in Ummati, but they wanted to wait until it is further along.

Dubai Coin is focused on Arabic speakers and in particular the Persian Gulf countries- Qatar, UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman, which represents more than 50% of Islamic banking assets worlfwide.

If you read our whitepaper, you will see our focus is on Indonesia, Pakistan/India, and Nigeria- all non Arabic speaking countries.

  These countries currently have less overall representation of Islamic banking, but higher growth rates than the Persian gulf countries.

At this stage having a blockchain breakthrough is not enough- technology alone will not get people to use a blockchain or token. There must be applications that actually improve people's lives- a killer app. Some people say coinbase is one of the killer apps of bitcoin, because it allows normal people to use bitcoin.

Dubai coin's killer app is Arabian Chain, but as I said, they are focused mainly on big money contracts in the Persian gulf.

Ummati is focused on the masses of Muslims in non-Arabic speaking countries. Actually, the vast majority of Muslims are not Arab.

Ummati's functionality is to provide finance and investment both in cryptocurrency and real world microprojects to millions of people by offering language support in Indonesian, Urdu, Hausa, and Turkish and Arabic for investors. And of course English, French  and German.

  Hopefully it will take of in other countries as well, but marketing efforts will be in those three countries, between them having more than 600 million people who identify as Muslims.

So Dubai Coin/ArabianChain and Ummati are doing similar things but we are not really directly competing for the same market.

I am waiting for more information about this project, I will pay attention to this project carefully! maybe, hopefully this project runs smoothly.

Dev, you are very clever in building a project. You choose Islamic finance and banking to attract the attention of its people. Because you know, Islam is a very big religion in the world. I'm sure your project must be running smoothly. Good luck

Than you missed the DubaiCoin - DBIX. They are here since 2015/2016.

Their ATH was 45 usd... and they will soon go back to it... Islamic banking is a different and more fair way of banking.
You don't have to be a muslim to have an account there (for all the idiots commenting nonsense here, where do these hatefull low life trolls crawl from??? )


I don't know who this dev is but let's see whayt he comes up with. I put my money so far on Dbix.
They are doing big now.

If you have not already joined the ummati telegram channel please do. A lot of content in arabic but it would be good to get some discussion going, especially with regards to consensus protocol dynamics.

http://t.me/ummatiplatform

  Thanks for the support. Really, if you study history and comparitive religion you will find interest is prohibited by many of not most religious traditions- for good reason. Many wars and crises have been caused by interest banking, and the fractional reserve system is heading in the wrong direction. It's time to get off the train.


   Thanks. What project are you refering too? Yes we need to get on top of the language support for Arabic, Turkish, and Urdu in particular. The problem is the documents are being continuously updated. We need to establish relationships with translators, if you know anyone.

Nice project with Islamic financial contracts, I just saw something like this and I think it's the first one in blockchain. and i think this project will get many investors from islamic country.

We support the idea of Islamic banking. There're lots of stuff that is intended for common welfare and against economical crises.

I might as well post the slack link here, not like we are going to get spammed anyway


Join my Slack workspace! https://join.slack.com/t/ummatiplatform/shared_invite/enQtMjY5OTI3ODIwMTMxLWU0Yzc3ZmVlMDFjZDlkOTU5OGFjMWZhZTYxNTJjYzk0NTVjYjJlZDNiYWVjYzY4MjhmNDQxZmE0MWZjMjkzMjM