What is Akropolis? Saving The Pension Industry

The global pension industry is in turmoil and currently, there little is being done to fix it. The discrepancy between pension assets held by funds across the globe and their existing liabilities is steadily growing.

For the leading economies, the combined deficit is expected to hit $400 trillion by 2050. Such a discrepancy is bound to create another financial crisis which bodes ill for the funds, their members, and the rest of the global economy.

There are several reasons as to why the pension industry is in such a bad state – longer life expectancy, global decrease in voluntary contributions, and an increasing ratio of retirees to active working employees. The circumstances faced by the older generations that created many of these current pension programs are different from today’s work environments. Workers are changing jobs more often than before. Shifting careers late in life has also become quite common. Freelancing is also on the rise.

Workers are also not geographically bounded anymore. They get to work in different locations and under different regulations that govern their employment. All of these changes make it a challenge to maintain the traditional pension structure and to collect contributions. A way to solve this problem is to develop a platform that addresses the issues of the current pension ecosystem while offering new ways to accommodate the realities of an evolving workforce. Upcoming blockchain-based platform Akropolis is in the process of building a smart pension infrastructure of tomorrow.

In the venture’s own words, “It is designed to be a multi-jurisdictional platform for the delivery of the pensions, social welfare, and future benefits in a portable manner that over time, brings together individual end-users and large institutional players in a new system of incentives.”

The Platform

Akropolis is building a portable and incorruptible blockchain platform to mitigate the many issues that currently plague pension and retirement plans. It seeks to provide transparency and accountability – two factors that have been severely lacking in most pension funds. Users will be able to securely participate in pension funds that fit their requirements and they will also be able to audit their accounts through blockchain’s immutable records.

The platform is designed to be decentralized. It will not be geographically bounded to encourage participation from those globally distributed workers disenfranchised by traditional pensions. It will also involve minimal intermediaries in order to provide a fast and automated experience.

Initially, the platform will be developed using the Ethereum blockchain. However, the ultimate goal is to create a blockchain-agnostic platform that can fully maximize the various advantages brought about by the technology to enhance the experience. The project is driven by a team composed of experts in finance, asset management, and blockchain who all want to make it easy for workers and institutions to support their pensions.

There are five main agents that can interact with the platform:

• Individual Users: A single, non-institutional individual, who wants to protect his/her pension fund.
• Pension Funds: Institutional entities that may currently exist in the current pension industry.
• Fund Managers: Institutional entities that are responsible for hiring and selling assets on behalf of pension funds.
• Asset Tokenizers: Entities that are responsible for minting the tokens and powering the underlying blockchain.
• Developers: Community members that contribute to the platform by developing and improving it.

The AKT Token

Akropolis platform will be backed by two tokens, namely, the Akropolis external Token (AKT) and the Akropolis Internet Token (AIT). AKT is a fixed-supply token whose value is subjected to market forces and serves as the onboarding utility token that users can use to join the network and access the platform. Initially, the platform will operate on a freemium model, to provide access to global workers without discrimination.

AIT is an independent token that represents an arbitrary stable coin. Due to the long-term nature of staking, AIT will be used to provide users with a volatile-free option to enjoy the staking incentives mechanisms. AIT will be exchangeable for both crypto and fiat assets. Its audit trail will be present on the public blockchain.

Team & Advisory

The following are the main team members of the Akropolis network project:

Anastasia O. Andrianova: Founder/CEO

Sandra Wu: Senior Adviser

Peter Robertson: Pensions Lead

The following are the main advisers on the team:

Ian Grigg: Technical Adviser

Kate Kurbanova: Adviser

Bokky Poobah: Security Adviser