How MonSave works

MonSave digitizes the rotating savings tradition known in Nigeria as ajo or esusu: a group contributes a fixed amount on a schedule, and each round one member collects the whole pot. Traditionally, one trusted person — the collector — holds the money, keeps the records and remembers whose turn it is. MonSave replaces that person with a smart contract whose rules everyone approved.

Secure Circles, step by step

1. Create

An organizer sets the contribution per round, the schedule (daily, weekly or monthly), the member list and a proposed payout order. Nothing is binding yet.

2. Approve

Every member reviews the exact final rules and approves them with an onchain signature. If the organizer changes anything, all approvals reset and everyone must approve again. Once approvals complete, the rules can never be edited.

3. Fund

Each member escrows their full commitment — contribution × number of rounds — into the circle's own contract. For example, in a 5-member circle contributing ₦20,000-equivalent per round, each member escrows ₦100,000-equivalent before anything starts, and the circle holds ₦500,000-equivalent in total.

4. Rounds settle

On each scheduled date, one contribution unit is consumed from every member's escrow, and the full round pot goes to the scheduled recipient. Anyone can press the button — settlement is permissionless, so MonSave being offline can never block your payout.

5. Everyone collects

Because everyone pre-funded in full, a member who has already collected cannot stop contributing — their future contributions were locked from day one. The circle completes when every member has collected once.

Why full pre-funding?

Ordinary round-by-round ajo has a real weakness even onchain: whoever collects early could simply stop paying. We won't pretend a smart contract fixes human behaviour — instead, Secure Circles remove the possibility entirely by collateralizing everything up front. The trade-off is honest: you lock more money upfront, and in exchange no one has to trust anyone.

What about idle funds?

Money waiting for future rounds doesn't need to sit still. When a verified yield market (Aave on Monad) is available for your settlement token, a circle can opt in to supply idle funds there. Realized yield is tracked separately from principal, allocated fairly across members, and claimable individually. Yield is variable, never guaranteed — see Yield & risks.

Community Circles (coming later)

A round-by-round mode with security bonds, reputations, and default handling is designed but deliberately not enabled for public use. It is not fully trustless, and we will not ship it until its risk model, default handling and legal review are complete.