The overwhelming majority of business done in the black community are verbal agreements loosely based on trust and hunches with one party talking jive like “I got you, man” instead of solid business agreements that are enforceable and terms are respected by both parties. 

Because of loose-based agreements, what happens in the black community is one person want to act a fool and the other person is screwed by the business arrangement and then a bunch of jive fussing and cussing at each other with one feeling played like a sucker and the other running off from their obligation to the arrangement that was made. As a result of constant fallout from, good black folks don’t want to start businesses or ventures in a community where they cannot trust others and the overall community goes into economic deterioration.  

As an elite firefly of the ADOS Digerati movement, you can address this challenge by establishing an e-signature service platform enforced by the blockchain. 

What is an E-Signature?

An e-signature is an electronic form of a signature used to ratify a contractual agreement.  The ESIGN Act is an American law providing guidelines on how a signature in electronic form is valid and legally enforceable.  Overall, a mechanism must be in place where the identity of the signee can be verified and additional information (two-factor authentication, IP address) can provide the digital signature was in fact entered by the signee.

To create a system that manage electronic signature, we looked at the EPA web site which has information on standards and found their requirements. The requirements we gathered to create a system that manage e-signatures are the following guidelines: 

Document cannot be altered without detection. The blockchain hashing algorithm can facilitate this functionality to ensure if any document is altered, the chain of documents in the distributed repository fails. 

Any alteration to document is recorded. Because the blockchain will fail on any alteration on an existing document, the only way forward is an amended contract that is added to the distributed repository and the latest contract supersede the previous agreement. 

The e-document can only be submitted intentionally. The party signing the document will receive a message indicating the document is legally enforceable and subject to criminal/civil penalties in case of contract fraud.  In addition, the party signing must perform an action such as check a box or sign a line using a digital pen to show intent of the signature. 

Submitters and signatories can review the document. Before signing the document, the document must be made available to the parties in readable form. The document will be stored on the blockchain distributed ledger where the parties to the contract has their own keys to decrypt the contract and read it. 

So the goal is to create a system that allow cats to create a contract, review the contract beforehand, perform electronic signing and record the final contract on a blockchain distributed ledger where the contract cannot be altered. 

Understanding Legal Enforcement and Social Enforcement

One of the challenges with contracts in the black community is lack of enforcement. This is usually due to lack of relief resources such as the other party having no assets or money to recover from a lawsuit. Then that same jive brotha or jive sista who screwed someone out of a contract go somewhere else and do the same bad business with a sense of impunity that they got nothing to give up from a lawsuit. 

However, there is a new emerging pattern known as “social credit” where a person worthiness is measured and used as an indicator of whether to do business or be involved with a specific person. If a person has a history of burning people, then future business deals are going to be hard to come by. If a person has a history of honoring their word and fulfilling terms of contracts, then the community will welcome them with more business, invite them to weddings and parties and who knows – elect them to political office. 

In the black community due to lack of assets to seek as relief, social credit has to be in play to deliver a true e-signature system that is enforceable in the hood. You know the funny part if people got something to say about this social credit system? It doesn’t matter because what will happen is the good black folks will rush to start looking for other good people they can trust to do business and do deals with and everybody else will be on the sideline with no trust history attached to them. So you going to win anyway in bringing up the real ones in our black community while shutting down the ghetto ass hustlers and jive artists who ain’t about nothing and got nothing going for them anyway. 

What Kind of Deals Can Be Done in the Hood?

You would be surprised at the number of contract opportunities that are all around in the hood that are long overdue. In order to create economic empowerment in the hood, let’s look at some of the economic sectors that will need contracts 

Service Economy. In general, these are employment agreements. But think of a barbershop or hair salon where a hair stylist that is brought into a shop has to sign a contract on terms. Or think of a plumber or painter performing a service and if they breach the contract, that information is there to alert the next person.

Membership Economy. These are access to club and subscription-based services where someone sign a contract to become a member of a spa, a laundromat or a gym. 

Sharing Economy.  These are apartments, car rentals, tool rentals where someone sign a contract to borrow or lease something and return it in good condition. 

Financial Economy. These are pawn shops, small loans and resale shops where cash is traded for items or sold to customers on an as-is or warranty basis. 

Entertainment Economy. This is everything from access to a escape room tour, travel tours, sports teams, acting and modeling representation contracts and more. 

Think about the black community and how many times on these gossip blogs and in the industry, you hear someone cheated someone out of money or screwed another person over, from your hair stylist to what you read about a rapper bad contract deal.  You definitely have opportunity to make enforceable deals happen in the community. 

Technology and Workflow 

The platform to establish an e-signature service is based on the workflow. Let’s look at the workflow and discuss the technology and process to make it happen. 

Business Curate Contract. You should have pre-created contracts like LegalZoom that target a specific business or industry in the hood. For example, a barbershop would need a contract for the conditions of the shop and a photographer may need a release contract filled out. The contract can also be created by the business and submitted to be signed as well. 

Business Send Contract to Signer. The business should collect identity information from the person signing the contract to place on the contract form. The business instructs the system to send the contract which is done via e-mail address so the signer can receive it and act upon it which is a required tracking action.  

Signer Verify Identity. The signer can click on the link to go to a page to verify their identity by having a phone number text them a code they can enter the verify code. This is also important to capture both the email address and phone number as contact information of the signer. 

Signer Review Contract. The signer is allowed to download a PDF file of the contract to review before signing which is required. The signer also receives a notice that they are entering a legal enforceable contract. It is also important to let them know about the social contract clause and the implications. 

Signer Provide Signature. The signature is actually a unique token built upon the signer information such as phone number and email address and full name that can be hashed one way and reproduced to show the signature is valid.  

Signer Ratify Contract. The signer is giving one more warning of the enforceable nature of the contract and press a button to process their approval and ratification. A timestamp is recorded. 

Business Sign Contract. The business is notified the contract is received and they are required to sign as well and receive the same notice. The business signs the contract electronically and then the contract is ratified as a legal agreement. 

Contract Stored on Distributed Ledger. The contract is stored on a distributed ledger with other contracts so the contract cannot be tamped. The business and the signer as well as the middle party can download the contract with a public/private key to decrypt. 

Provide Review and Follow Up. Each party can provide a positive or negative review of the contract to establish a social credit history for both parties. Please note if no parties do not provide feedback, that is also recorded as inaction because it is considered negative to deal with someone who will provide any feedback. 

Please be mindful there is another electronic signature workflow for in-person contracts such as an agreement to work on a car and the price. In these instances, a tablet with a digital pen should be provided and a copy of the contract is emailed to both the business and the signer and the business should print out a copy of the contract to give to the customer. 

Building the Empire

In order to create economic activity, people and businesses got to commit to deals and understand the consequences of doing bad deals and the reward for doing good business. By creating an ecosystem of contractual deals in the hood with both legal and social enforcement, you set the tone that business is going to be real and no more games and jive artists. 

What we are looking at is a future where the real ones who want to do good business embrace signing their name on the line and put their word and actions behind a contract. And these people will be rewards and celebrated for doing good in the hood. And those who want to do jive business, cut out on agreements and believe they got nothing the courts can take from them, the social credit system of the contract blockchain will allow future businesses avoid dealing with that person and the opportunities will dry up on them very fast. 

This is a positive and necessary way the hood is going to be able to do business among each other and the ADOS Digerati has to take the lead and make it easy to create an ecosystem of trust and agreements where people keep their word and promise and deliver.