Thurman

There’s a $229 billion small business revenue gap between black and white US communities. That’s enough money to feed almost 23 million US families. Small business ownership continues to be a tried and true wealth builder, but unequal access to capital makes growth challenging for entrepreneurs in underserved communities.

Thurman is a lending platform focused on transparency and community ownership. We use blockchain technology to create a fairer financial system. Our vision is to create a world where community members jointly contribute to and are rewarded through each line item on our profit and loss statement (marketing, underwriting, etc.). We help small business owners and community members work side by side to build their local economies, unlocking growth within companies and communities. Digital asset holders earn additional yield and access to the foundation of the US economy, and they are empowered by making a real-world impact.

I've already created a previous version of an unsecured lending pool on Ethereum Mainnet that lent 18,500 across five micro-loans to three small business owners from underserved US communities. 0% default rate.

I built the protocol on top of Aave, an overcollateralized lending protocol. A common unsecured lending pool smart contract allows users to supply, withdraw, create loans, and repay loans. I used thTokens as interest-bearing tokens that earn an additional yield on top of aTokens when debt is utilized. I used liquidity indexes to scale tokens over time.

In the future, I’ll use interest-bearing NFTs to represent unsecured loans. The balance increases based on the loan’s interest rate and can be repaid using the lending pool interface.