Nagare protocol

NAGARE Protocol

Emancipatory payroll infrastructure that breaks financial gatekeepers through cooperative scaling and radical transparency.

Project Description

NAGARE Protocol represents a fundamental challenge to extractive employment platforms by creating the world's first zero-fee, yield-generating payroll infrastructure. Built for ETH Tokyo 2025's vision of "Emancipatory Tech for Future of Humanity," NAGARE radically reimagines how global work flows by eliminating gatekeepers and distributing benefits cooperatively across all participants.

The Problem:

Extractive GatekeepingCurrent employment platforms extract 5-30% fees while forcing workers to wait weeks for payment. This creates artificial scarcity in a digital world, concentrating wealth among platform owners while marginalizing the actual value creators. Over 2 billion gig workers globally face these barriers to economic participation.

Our Solution:

Cooperative Financial Rails

NAGARE eliminates platform fees entirely while enabling instant payments through three revolutionary mechanisms:

1. Yield-Generating Escrow: Platform funds automatically earn 8-15% APY through Morpho Blue integration, creating new revenue streams that replace extractive fees

2. Streaming Payments: automated payment enables real-time payment flows as work progresses, eliminating payment delays

3. AI + ZKTLS Verification: Automated, transparent work verification through zero-knowledge proofs, removing subjective evaluation barriers

Emancipatory Architecture

・Inclusive Access: Zero fees remove economic barriers for marginalized populations
・Security as Freedom: Non-custodial design preserves user autonomy and economic sovereignty ・Radical Transparency: All operations, governance, and economics are comprehensible to average users
・Cooperative Scaling: Network effects benefit all participants, not just large capital holders

Global Impact

NAGARE enables a Filipino developer to earn London rates with instant payment, a Kenyan designer to access global markets without banking barriers, and platforms to become yield-generating cooperatives rather than extractive monopolies. This represents true economic emancipation through technology.

Technologies Used

・ERC-4626: Targeting Morpho Blue but also compatible for any ERC-4626-based protocols
・Reclaim Protocol: Applying zkTLS for proof of progress
・React and Next.js: For frontend and backend development
・Supabase: For offchain data storage - While our protocol can fully onchain, we store auxiliary data for better experiences
・Privy: For social login, payer and worker don't need to worry about managing wallet

Our contracts are designed to be open, though we use Reclaim protocol to demonstrate the verifier, it's easy to implement other kind of verifiers (such as zkML, DAO-based, UMA, etc.).

Source Code

・Github repo: https://github.com/orgs/nagare-protocol/repositories
・Demo website: https://nagare.sonova.casa/

Demo Features

・Payer Dashboard: Create projects, monitor yield generation, track worker progress
・Worker Interface: Browse projects, submit proposals, receive real-time payments
・LP Portal: Invest in insurance fund, track social impact, participate in governance
・AI Verification: Simulated work quality assessment with ZK proof generation