Each day, I continue to think about creating solutions that bring people to Hive the freedom blockchain. HBD remains the best form of money anyone could think of. Having studied local savings and fundraising models and discussed with a few friends, I really believe that another powerful usecase could be created for HBD. This usecase is called ROSCA and has existed in many countries of Africa and beyond as a standard financial instrument.
This could end up a long post or not. Either ways, I wish to make it comprehensive. So here are the 4 main points to cover:
- ROSCA – an overview
- ROSCA with HBD – the proposal
- ROSCA with HBD – the deliverables
- ROSCA with HBD - More Hive, more Content, Onboarding and mass Adoption
Before I hit up the first point, I want to remind our readers that this is just an idea subject to friends endorsing it. It’s a kind of proposal that will work only if we see a good positive interaction from our audience.
ROSCA – an overview
ROSCA stands for Rotating Savings and Credit Association. It is a popular way to save money and raise funds for members. A ROSCA system often involves many members contributing or saving a fixed amount of money periodically (daily, weekly or monthly). After the contributions are collected, the sum is given to members one after another. The system is repeated in turns until everyone has gotten the collected sum. Once each circle is completed – after all members have gotten the bulk contribution, the process is repeated.
Here is a sample ROSCA made up of 12 persons. They agree to contribute ₦10,000 weekly:
- All the members contribute ₦10,000 each week
- The total sum of ₦120,000 is collected and paid to member A in week one
- In week two, all members repeat the contributions and another ₦120,000 is accumulated and paid to member B
- The above is repeated weekly until each member receives ₦120,000.
ROSCA is a popular way to raise bulk money in economies where there are few financial products. In my city Aba, there are so many of them. Small businesses owners are often the core members as they make daily contributions in order to receive lump sum from the ROSCA system. Besides the opportunity to raise bulk capital, ROSCA systems instill the discipline to save. Members understand that they must make the contributions daily or weekly as agreed in order to remain eligible to receive a bulk contribution.
A ROSCA system also makes it easy to access funds without worrying about interests. Traditional bank loans often come with big interests. Besides, they require lots of paper work, credit history checks and sometimes collateral. All these are not needed in a ROSCA system. And since trust and reputation are the main instruments of successful ROSCA’s, it helps to create a social environment where people depend on each other and stay connected.
The above are some of the reasons why ROSCA systems have remained relevant till today.
ROSCA with HBD – the proposal
I belong to a fiat-based ROSCA system. When I did my wedding last month (October 2025), I collected ₦400,000 from one of the ROSCA systems. It’s a daily system where we contribute ₦4,400 everyday. I am still making contributions to pay off part of the sum given to me. So having benefited from such a ROSCA system and after closely observing how it works, I strongly believe that we could try out one with our favourite stable coin - HBD.
We already have with it takes to start small. Hive and my city Aba is home to a strong, local network of HBD users and spenders. We will make it easy for everyone to join. The contributions would be done weekly and the collected sum could be shared to 2 members per week. This ensures that the circle finishes fast and early. Then the amount to contribute could be 2 or 3 HBD per week, or more. I leave it to the community of friends to drop their suggestions. This would be a community project. Our input and support would make it work. But the whole idea is to create a financial instrument that mirrors legacy fiat-based systems. A HBD-based ROSCA would incorporate everything good from existing traditional models. Then the Hive blockchain would make it to a premium Defi product.
ROSCA with HBD – the deliverables
A HBD-powered ROSCA system if properly managed would be a powerful instrument both for Hive users and people elsewhere. Here are some of the reasons why this idea is worth your time and support:
- Easy access to big funds: Raising money for personal use or business is never easy. But with small contributions from many members of a ROSCA system, its easier.
- Savings Culture: The discipline and motivation needed to save money consistently is often provided in a ROSCA instrument. That responsibility to save periodically in a social environment rewarded with accesss to funds, pushes members never to miss saving the agreed amounts.
- Better than loans: ROSCA instruments makes it easy to access hassle-free funds from a community. Compared to loans from banks, ROSCA is better. No need to worry about high interests and collaterals.
- Fosters a community: Funds are raised by members of the association. That becomes an environment to meet new people, build relationships and connect with new opportunities.
- Banking the unbanked: Locals are often the foundation of ROSCA instruments. These are often made of individuals that are unbanked. Each ROSCA platform creates a financial tool that rivals traditional financial institutions and lower the entry requirement for the worlds unbanked to participate in financial transactions.
The above are some of the benefits that participants in this HBD-powered ROSCA could enjoy. But for the larger Hive ecosystem, the project could deliver even bigger results. Consider the following.
ROSCA with HBD – More Hive, more Content, Onboarding and mass Adoption
Below are the 3 major values that this project would bring to the Hive ecosystem
1.. Buy more Hive: Since the contributions would happen in HBD, users need to purchase Hive off the markets and swap to HBD. Since the project would aim to attract users outside Hive, there would be a demand for more Hive. Creating this scarcity for Hive is a good thing. If we have more people participating in this ROSCA project, then it’s a great thing for the Hive ecosystem.
2.. Create more content: For participants that are already on Hive, they could decide to earn the HBD they contribute from their content earnings. So with ROSCA, participants have bigger reasons to be more active on Hive, creating more content from which to earn HBD and Hive. This makes their contributions to ROSCA easier and certain
3.. Onboarding and Mass adoption: I mentioned earlier that I belong to a ROSCA society that recently helped fund part of my wedding expenses. This particular ROSCA is called Harmony Multipurpose Cooperative Society with close to 700 members. And there are many such ROSCA’s in my city. A HBD-powered ROSCA would provide another reason for people to Join Hive. So we have a large crowd of potential Hive adopters that would use Hive and HBD purely as a defi product. Sooner or later, we could be talking about mass adoption here. Such a massive value that ROSCA could add to hive which is why its worth bringing up this conversation.
Share your thoughts with me
ROSCA has the potential to become a huge attraction for non-Hive users, delivering massive benefits to all participants. Would you fancy the first HBD-powered ROSCA? Would you like to be part of it and even refer your trusted friends to join? What else could make this idea better? Share your thoughts on the comment section.
If we have sufficient interest and support, we will kick of the first HBD-powered ROSCA by December 1, 2025. By then, we would have ironed out finer details of this association.
Note: Thumbnail is from Pixabay