Monolith
Monolith (formerly TokenCard) is a decentralized banking alternative and cryptocurrency that is powered by Ethereum. Monolith provides a non-custodial contract wallet to store Ethereum-based tokens securely. The TKN token is the native token of the Monolith platform[1][2].
Overview
Monolith is a decentralized financial platform built on Ethereum. The concept of Monolith stemmed from Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the symbol of the monolith represents mankind transcending into a new era. As the Monolith team states,
"To us, Ethereum is the real-life analogy to the Monolith and it alludes to transcendence in the world economy through the introduction of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). Our project, Monolith, brings Ethereum to life."[3][4]
On Monolith, users' funds are secure and cannot disappear. All contracts are open source and the contract wallet is triple-audited externally[5].
Users can exchange TKN to fiat and load them onto a Monolith Visa debit card. The Contract Wallet is non-custodial, open-source, and decentralized while enforcing advanced security features that are designed to protect users' funds in the event of an attack. The Monolith Visa debit card is accepted globally and currently available for EEA residents (31 countries within Europe).
Monolith was funded by an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) of their TKN tokens that raised $16.9 million from retail investors in May 2017. The Monolith team turned the ICO proceeds into roughly $25 million worth of assets through timely sell-offs and collateralized debt positions (CDPs), using Ether as collateral to take loans denominated in dollar-pegged DAI tokens[6].
Products
Wallet
Available on iOS and Android, Monolith wallet allows users to securely store ETH and ERC-20 tokens in their own decentralized contract wallet. They can then exchange them for fiat money and preload them to their Monolith Debit Card[7].
Monolith Visa Debit Card
The Monolith Card is available to residents of the United Kingdom, and across the European Economic Area (EEA). The Monolith Card is connected to a non-custodial Ethereum (ETH) contract wallet. The Monolith Card is issued by Contis Financial Services Ltd.,the same company that issues the Wirex Card[8].
The Monolith Visa card can be used anywhere Visa cards are accepted. The card also supports both Apple Pay and Google Pay.
TKN Token
The TKN is the native token of Monolith. TKN is backed by a growing basket of ERC-20 tokens that are used by Monolith Visa Cardholders in a wide variety of transactions. When a Monolith card user tops up their Monolith Visa card with a token other than TKN, a 1% contribution is sent to the TKN Community Chest smart contract[9].
Holders of TKN then have the option to burn their tokens for a pro-rated number of TKN from the Community Chest contract. By burning (destroying) the token, the TKN coins that remain in the contract will be valued at a larger pro-rated amount than before burning. The Community Chest asset contract shows full transparency of the contributions to the chest and the community actions within Monolith[10].
Partnerships
In August 2019, Monolith partnered with MakerDAO and Digix. It became available to top-up Monolith cards with MKR, DGX, and DGD, along with our original suite of tokens: DAI, ETH, and TKN[11].
Team
| Name | Position |
|---|---|
| Mel Gelderman | Founder and Chief Executive Officer |
| David Hoggard | Founder and Strategy Director |
| Vincent Choi | Head of Product |
| Mischa Tuffield | Chief Technology Officer |
| Lachian Cruickshank | KYC Officer |
| Jeffrery Bolle | Senior Backend Engineer |
| Daniel Smith | Head of Design |
| Anthony Smee | Senior Product Manager |
| Narman Xu | Frontend Engineer |
| Mark Wubben | Principal Product Engineer |
| Xavier Mitchell-Diggens | Customer Legend |
| Mike Marciniak | Frontend Engineer |
| Daniel Chmielewski | Blockchain Engineer |
| Cesare Naldi | Senior Frontend Engineer |
| William Ou | Chief Commercial Officer |
| Ryan Collingham | Backend Engineer |
| Brice Berdah | Community Manager |
| Akeel Qureshi | Marketing Manager |
| Wiktor Pinkwart | Compliance |
| Oliver Morgans | Head of Compliance |
| Bertie Stanley | Finance Officer |
| Corinna Duszynski | Head of People |
| Yannis Stamelakos | Blockchain Engineer |
| Riccardo Persiani | Blockchain Engineer |
