MakeCents - Distributed Blockchain Platform for Simple, Everyday Payments

Technical Overview

The MakeCents Network is a scalable and distributed blockchain platform, designed for high volume payment transactions that can be facilitated with little to no intermediary. The necessary stability comes about through digitizing and decentralizing fiat currency (undertaken by selected users of the MakeCents Network); a proprietary economic mechanism pegs tokens that are designed to be exchanged quickly, efficiently, and securely on a multilayer decentralized network.

The MakeCents platform consists of three main layers: validation, exchange, and commerce. We deploy the versatility of distributed ledger technology (blockchain) and define a number of digital assets at each layer. These assets, using modern cryptographic methods, power different aspects in the platform and produce utility and provable security across the entire MakeCents ecosystem.

Commerce:

Commerce is a public chain designed for high volume transactions. The initial intended audience on this layer are consumers, retail merchants and financial institutions, but could also be beyond payments. In the use case of a mobile wallet, it manifests on mobile devices and on existing point-of-sale hardware.

Exchange:

The Exchange layer is a decentralized payment and clearing system to facilitate money movement in and out of the MakeCents Network. It is designed to support the Commerce layer by providing merchants, financial institutions, and other large liquidity providers a means to mutually source for liquidity.

Validation:

At a high level, the Validation layer of MakeCents is a network of nodes connected in a peer-to-peer fashion that allows new information to be disseminated through a gossip or epidemic protocol. The network is public. Becoming a validator requires a proof of ownership of MakeCents Stake and a general-purpose computer that supports trusted execution environments (TEEs). The design and the usage of MCS allows the network to dynamically expand and contract in times of stress (elastic network diameter.)

ChronoShift – An Innovative Consensus Protocol

Our unique process of utilizing Stake (MCS) results in a running set of N nodes with subset of validators V. Each validator has a chance to generate blocks while its stake is locked. If this time expires or the validator is too successful, then they are removed from the set V but remain in N. The result is that the set of V validators is constantly shifting as time progresses.

Through fine tuning the minimum amount of MCS required in addition to other parameters, the network is adaptive and elastic. During periods of high stress, this minimum requirement of MCS might be increased to reduce the number of validators; it might be relaxed when the load is less.

Technical Advantages

Node Scaling
Highly Distributed
Short Block times, High Block Frequency

High Transaction Throughput
No Mining/ASICS
Collusion resistant

Our Team

Amos Zhang

Co-Founder

Product, Strategy, and Operations

A tech entrepreneur with a passion for the decentralized economy and financial empowerment. At MakeCents, Amos is leading the overall strategic vision, planning, and execution across product design, software development, and operations. Amos received his B.A. in Economics and M.Sc. in Engineering from Brown University. When not "making cents," Amos plays the guitar and sings with his band Famous Amos and the Cookies.

Philip Seligmann

Co-Founder

Sales, Finance, and Partnerships

Philip Seligmann possesses nearly 40 years of experience in banking, asset-banked finance, and commodity trading. Philip spent the first 25 years of his career with Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and two commodity finance boutiques. In early 2006, Philip co-founded a logistics manufacturing company based in the US and Switzerland, which successfully went public in 2014. After that, Philip co-founded MakeCents. A graduate of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, Philip is a true family man and pet lover.

Thomas Veale

Lead Engineer

Cryptography & Distributed System

Thomas is a polymath, delving deeply into various topics over his time at VCU. He pursued interests in engineering, physics, chemistry, and logic, eventually accepting a research position in the network and security lab as a doctoral student on the cryptography and distributed computing tract. There he published work related to novel consensus algorithms and proof of stake. Working with friends and faculty, Thomas started a number of companies, eventually putting his Ph.D on hold to work on his projects full time in NYC.

Max Seligmann

Co-Founder

Trading, Sales & Product

Max received his bachelor's degree from Georgetown University where he majored in government and business. He has over seven years experience and expertise in trading equities, derivatives, and debt instruments over all major global exchanges. He had worked at three of the largest broker-dealer firms on Wall Street before co-founding MakeCents. He is passionate and dedicated to building a universal blockchain payment solution that will change the way consumers transact.

James R. Simmons

Co-Founder

Legal and Partnerships

James R. Simmons is an attorney with extensive experience in the areas of corporate law, banking and commercial law, venture capital, private placements, creditor’s rights and real estate. He also has been active as an investor, advisor and entrepreneur in various sectors including real estate, technology and industrial markets. James graduated magna cum laude from the University of Hartford in 1985 and received his law degree from George Washington University in 1988.

Cameron Seligmann

Co-Founder

Public Relations and Marketing

Cameron is a public relations professional and has provided strategic communications support to public and private organizations on numerous transactions and special situations, including: M&A, shareholder activism and defense, litigation, and senior management changes, as well as long-term corporate positioning and investor relations. Cameron graduated from Bucknell University with a Bachelor’s degree in political science and a double minor in economics and philosophy.

Ketaki Guntoorkar

Senior Android Developer

Ketaki completed her master's degree in Information Systems from Northeastern University. She is an experienced Android developer with in-depth knowledge of retail payments and point-of-sale technologies. She had worked on Staples retail app and Andoid kiosk before joining Makecents. When she is not coding, she loves to explore new places and bake different desserts.

Prageeth Kumara

Senior Android Developer

With over ten years of software development experience in multiple business domains and working for multinational companies like Motorola Solutions, Prageeth brings in-depth knowledge and practices of enterprise level mobile application development to MakeCents. Being a passionate photographer, he loves spending time behind the camera taking pictures of interesting things.

Ryan Murphy

DevOps Engineer / System Administrator

Ryan works as the system administrator for the MakeCents team. Previously he worked with Red Hat on their Kubernetes solution, OpenShift, and brings 4 years of Linux experience to the table. Prior to that, he graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University to pursue Computer Science and Computer Engineering. In addition to MakeCents, he implements kernel-level machine learning models for Sicuro Innovations.

Yiren Xu

UI/UX Designer

Yiren received a bachelor's degree from China Academy of Art. She has a background of industrial design and has been working as an UX/UI designer for three years. Previously, Yiren participated in several startup projects, and worked as a UI designer at VeChain. Yiren is a master's candidate in Information Experience at Pratt Institute. Yiren loves to use design thinking to solve problems.

Sushanth Krishnaswamy

Backend Engineer

Sushanth received his master's in cybersecurity from New York University. He received his bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University in India. He is interested in back-end engineering and application security. In his spare time, he plays piano, explores coffee shops, and plays soccer.

Bo Yao

Backend Engineer

Bo received his master's degree in Computer Science from New York University. He also received his bachelor's degree in Applied Mathematics from Xi'an Jiaotong University in China. He is a back-end and distributed system developer. He's also interested in doing open-source projects in Lisp, low level operating systems, and compilers.

Vinaya Chakati

Distributed System Engineer

Vinaya is Computer Engineering Ph.D student at CIDSE, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. She received her M.Tech and B.E. degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. Her research interests include computation offloading in mobile, edge environments and distributed solutions for large scale power systems.

Julia Purcell

Product Designer

Julia is a Seattle-born, New York-based product designer. She studied economics at Stanford University and design at General Assembly, and is now working on applying design thinking to the world of cryptocurrency. Outside of design, Julia loves to attend barre classes, create gluten-free delicacies and solve crossword puzzles.

Tyler Malin

Token Sale Advisor

Regulatory & Marketing

Tyler is a veteran entrepreneur with 15 years of history building and scaling new ventures. He has started and lead 4 ventures including 2 successful exits to Private Equity. Tyler started Idea Farmer, a digital strategy and creative agency that grew from 2 partners to the Inc. 500 in just under 3 years, where he led global strategy, marketing and media, and worked with clients such as Whirlpool, KitchenAid, Toyota, AT&T, Ace Hotels, Subaru, Pinkberry, Musclemilk and many others. As an attorney and blockchain developer, he has focused on assisting world class teams build and scale blockchain technologies for the last two years.

Clare Sai Zhang

Fintech Strategy

Clare brings in three years of experience in financial technology strategy. During her time at EY, she has helped major investment banks, consumer banks, credit card companies and asset managers on their technology innovation and operation transformations. She received her master’s degree from Columbia University in operations research and her bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in physics and mathematics. Clare is passionate about bringing technology innovations to improve people’s life.

Our Advisors

Tom Burgess

Tom Burgess is a seasoned executive in online and wireless interactive advertising and digital media technology. As a serial entrepreneur and innovator, he has been granted multiple patents for his pioneering work in the wireless, mar-tech and loyalty industries. Burgess is a consistent speaker at global marketing conferences and has been quoted or featured in Forbes, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, CNBC and many industry publications. He founded Linkable Networks, a payments loyalty company in 2010 and was CEO until its sale to Collinson Group in September 2017. In 2001 Burgess founded Third Screen Media, a wireless advertising company that was purchased by AOL/TW in 2007. Prior to Third Screen Media, he founded two other successful digital media companies. In 2007 Burgess was inducted into the Entrepreneur Hall of Fame for superior performance by a group of investors. Burgess is an active Board Member and advisor to early stage ventures with a focus on corporate development, Board governance and investor relations. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Providence College and currently resides in Rhode Island with his wife and two children.

Dr. Robert Dahlberg

Professor Dahlberg is a cybersecurity and infrastructure architect with in-depth knowledge of all phases of IT security. Bob’s expertise includes security software development for IT auditing, access control and intrusion detection system products. Dr. Dahlberg is an assistant professor of computer science at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Engineering, where he is currently leading a research group developing a Blockchain for Access Control and blockchain for optimization. Prior to his academic posts, Bob was Senior Technology Advisor as well as Lead Information Security Architect for the Federal Reserve Bank, Richmond, Va. for 14 years. Bob possesses an MA and MS from Northern Illinois University and a PhD in Engineering / Computer Science from VCU.

Mark Walsh

A seasoned angel and venture investor, Mark has a long successful career in both public and private sectors. Beginning as an on-air television anchor in a small market, he quickly moved on to corporate positions at GE and AOL. His early success permitted Mark to found and foster a number of technology and media start-ups. Later, Mark acted as either board member or chairman of several public or private enterprises including: The Street.com, The Bipartisan Policy Center, Rocket Genius, and Chairman of the Board of Union College. In more recent times, Mark acted as Head of the Office of Investment and Innovation with the U.S. Small Business Administration. He was also Advisor to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Treasury, and the White House Broadband Initiative. Mark is a graduate of Union College and the Harvard Business School.

Introducing MakeCents

Problems With Current Payment Systems

Solutions

Individuals (Consumers)

payments made digital and effortless

Businesses (Merchants)

preferred payment processing and analytics

Financial Institutions

enterprise-grade distributed ledger and smart contract platform

Technical Overview

Commerce:

Exchange:

Validation:

ChronoShift – An Innovative Consensus Protocol

Technical Advantages

Our Team

Amos Zhang

Co-Founder

Product, Strategy, and Operations

Philip Seligmann

Co-Founder

Sales, Finance, and Partnerships

Thomas Veale

Lead Engineer

Cryptography & Distributed System

Max Seligmann

Co-Founder

Trading, Sales & Product

James R. Simmons

Co-Founder

Legal and Partnerships

Cameron Seligmann

Co-Founder

Public Relations and Marketing

Ketaki Guntoorkar

Senior Android Developer

Prageeth Kumara

Senior Android Developer

Ryan Murphy

DevOps Engineer / System Administrator

Yiren Xu

UI/UX Designer

Sushanth Krishnaswamy

Backend Engineer

Bo Yao

Backend Engineer

Vinaya Chakati

Distributed System Engineer

Julia Purcell

Product Designer

Tyler Malin

Token Sale Advisor

Regulatory & Marketing

Clare Sai Zhang

Fintech Strategy

Our Advisors

Tom Burgess

Dr. Robert Dahlberg

Mark Walsh

Contact Us