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ProxyKin: Getting Started
Proxykin is a blockchain application that allows you to create, revise, revoke, store and track the use of your power of attorneys, wills and proxies.
POA is an acronym for Power Of Attorney.
A power of attorney is normally in the form of a document that authorizes someone else, usually someone you trust, to make decisions on your behalf when you cannot, such as when you are physically and/or mentally incapable or you are absent.
Life is full of surprises and unfortunately, just because you are mentally and/or physically incapable of making decisions for yourself or for your dependents doesn't mean they don't need to be made. We take for granted how often we are required to make decisions on daily life affairs. Without a power of attorney in place you have no control in deciding who you trust most to continue to make those decisions on your behalf. These decisions include your medical care and how to be treated, such as just after a catastrophic car accident, while at the same time someone needs to decide how to continue to pay your ongoing mortgage payments and your children's tuition. Without a power of attorney, someone may have to be appointed through the courts or by the government, which could be costly, inhibitive and take a really long time when urgency is most important.
A will also known as a "last will and testament", normally in the form of a document, provides your instructions as to who you want to be in charge of your money, property and investments of any kind, and what to do with them, including who should get what and how.
If you die without a will and you are married, have children and assets, your wife may not get anything or very little, and your children may have to wait a long time before they can access your estate to pay for their care. In most cases it will be up to the Courts to appoint someone to administer your estate, and it may not be your surviving spouse or adult children. In some cases if you are not married or do not have a surviving spouse; if your minor children are entitled to any funds from your estate, the government and/or courts may decide how those funds should be invested and what amounts should be paid for your children's maintenance and care. Most importantly, if both you and your spouse are deceased, it will be up to the courts and/or government to decide who should act as guardians of your children. And then once your spouse and children obtain access to your estate it leaves them to fight among themselves in deciding who gets what and why.
Although we prefer you make these documents from scratch on our Proxykin, we support the uploading of your original documents. You can upload an existing POA, proxy or will using the upload button during the document creation process. We accept the following file formats: .jpg, .pdf, and .rtf. The onus is on you to ensure that you are uploading the appropriate document. We will eventually verify and check the documents to ensure they are of the correct type. We have a strict policy that we enforce to not allow inappropriate documents to be submitted through Proxykin.
The Circle of Trust is Proxykin's way of keeping track of your next of kin, confidants, and other trusted people within your network that you may use as your attorney, executor or proxy, or be named as your beneficiaries, and most importantly you may share your power of attorneys, wills and proxies with them. Whoever is part of, or named in, your POAs, Wills or Proxies in real life should be stored here as a contact. This includes your family members (who are usually the beneficiaries), witnesses, and any professionals that are relevant in this process such as your trusted lawyer, banker, accountant, doctor, financial adviser, etc.
Given you had created your power of attorney, will or proxy correctly, its authenticity was verified as well as you, and you agreed for it to be legally binding, the information provided by you will be safely and securely called and assembled whenever its to be used by your attorney, executor or proxy. The power of attorney, will or proxy is accessible from the Proxykin app or our companion website, “Proxykin.com”. At that point in time you, and whoever you grant access to, can view the details of your power of attorney, proxy or will. Also, at any time you can check any activity your POA, Will or Proxy may have had since the last time you looked at it.
- You will be notified when and where your power of attorneys, wills and proxies are being used.
- You will be notified when someone has accepted, denied or resigned as your attorney, executor or proxy, or as part of your Circle of Trust.
- You will be notified when Proxykin detects any potential misuses.
If you no longer need the power of attorney, proxy or will you created, you can simply deactivate and archive it. At that point, the POA, Will or Proxy loses all its authoritative power and is simply stored away. Even though its kept for your records, it can no longer be used in the legal sense. This will allow you to easily avoid having multiple versions of your power of attorney, will or proxy in circulation.
Blockchain: Trust and Safety
Blockchain is the core technology behind Bitcoin. At its heart is a distributed data store. Anyone who participates in this network has their own data store that stores all of the transactions that ever happened on the network (this is also known as the distributed ledger).
Entries are stored within a cryptographic chain of blocks. At every stage, the network of participants must agree about the latest block of transactions. Agreement is reached through a process of majority consensus, eliminating duplicate entries, double spending etc. This process and the cryptographic layering of the blocks makes the agreed blockchain irreversible and immutable. The ‘history’ of events within this technology cannot be modified by any one of the participants without majority consensus from the group.
Private blockchains are deployed either within an organization or shared among a known group of participants. They can be limited to a predefined set of participants. In this case, no one else can access them or the data residing in them. They can be secured in a similar way to securing other integrated enterprise applications (e.g. firewalls, VPN etc).
A Smart Contract is code that is deployed to the blockchain. Each smart contract contains code that can have a predefined set of inputs. Smart contracts can also store data. Following the distributed model of the blockchain, smart contracts run on every node in this technology, and each contract’s data is stored in every node. This data can be queried at any time. Smart Contracts can also call other smart contracts, enforce permissions, run workflow logic, perform calculations etc. Smart contract code is executed within a transaction – so the data stored as a result of running the smart contract (i.e. the state) is part of the blockchain’s immutable ledger.
Ethereum is a group of incredibly smart individuals who have developed the next generation of cryptocurrency. The Ethereum project involves a large single network (much like Bitcoin), and runs on a cryptocurrency that can be mined (Ether). Developers are now looking at deploying private networks of the Ethereum (or similar) within organisations, or across small predetermined groups of organisations.
Mining is used as a proof of work for participants in the blockchain. Whenever a block of transactions is to be agreed, every participating node attempts to ‘mine’ the block (a mathematical algorithmic process that requires extensive CPU capacity). In public blockchains successful mining is rewarded with a cryptocurrency token.
The concept of provenance originates in the fine art world where it describes the documented evidence that’s used to prove that a work of art has not been altered, forged, reproduced, or stolen.
Data provenance is a historical record for any piece of data. Data provenance systems track changes that are made to data, where data originates and moves to, and who makes changes to it over time. In other words, data provenance is “showing your work” in a database. This historical record of information can then be trusted for data validation and audit purposes.
The provenance of our customers POAs /Proxies/Wills is accomplished by Proxykin using industry standard blockchain technology.
A blockchain-based POA/Wills/Proxies storage and provenance system could revolutionize the use of digital POA/Wills/Proxies( evidence) in legal proceedings. By utilizing a blockchain-powered distributed ledger like Ethereum , the "evidence" could automatically be uploaded to a peer-to-peer network and appended with provenance information like time and date stamps, i.p. addresses, IMEI number, MAC addresses etc. Since blockchains are immutable, prosecutors, defendants, or judges would not be able to modify the "evidence" to serve their own agenda, and all parties would have greater assurance that the "evidence" is completely authentic and unedited.
Proxykin uses a proprietary mix of blockchain and off-chain software, this overcomes the speed issues tremendously and customers can expect a quick turn around on most of their transaction requests.
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