A simple, elegant app that turns casual plans into real commitments (penalizes friends who flake on agreed-upon meetups with USDC).
Tozlow is a decentralized social commitment app built for friend groups,
families, and small communities who organize regular gatherings — dinners,
trips, hangouts, you name it.
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THE PROBLEM
We've all been there: someone confirms they're coming, doesn't show up,
and the rest of the group absorbs the cost — financially and emotionally.
Over 2 in 3 young adults admit to ghosting plans, and while 9 in 10 feel
guilty about it, more than half do it anyway (IPA/Opinium, 2025). 42%
overspend their social budget several months a year absorbing costs that
weren't theirs (Ally Bank, 2025). And 1 in 5 has lost a friendship over
financial tension caused by exactly this (Ally Bank, 2025). The issue
isn't bad friends — it's that confirming a plan costs nothing. There's
no real commitment, no accountability, no consequence.
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HOW IT WORKS
Tozlow turns a casual "yes" into a real commitment through a 3-step flow:
1. CREATE — The host creates a session: sets a group of 3–5 people,
a deposit amount per person (e.g. 5 USDC), a confirmation deadline,
and a post-event voting window.
2. DEPOSIT — Every participant transfers the agreed amount before the
deadline. If the group isn't complete in time, the session cancels
and everyone is automatically refunded. No one loses a cent.
3. VOTE & DISTRIBUTE — After the event, attendees vote on who was
absent (no self-voting, simple majority). The smart contract
instantly distributes funds: absentees lose their deposit, 90%
goes to those who showed up, and Tozlow keeps 10% as a service fee.
If everyone attends, all deposits are fully refunded — Tozlow
takes nothing.
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THE BUSINESS MODEL
Tozlow only earns when someone breaks their word. And here's the elegant
part: nobody feels like they're paying a fee. The person who didn't show
already lost everything. The people who did show receive money they
weren't expecting — even if it's 90% instead of 100%, it's still a
reward for showing up. Nobody feels punished. The contract just works.
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THE TECH
Smart contracts are written in Rust using Arbitrum Stylus — not Solidity.
This means better performance, lower overhead, and a more efficient
contract execution layer. Deployed on Arbitrum Sepolia. The frontend is
built in Next.js with a fully web2-style UI — no crypto jargon, no wallet
tutorials, no complexity exposed to the end user. Crypto wallets are used
under the hood, but Carlos — our user — just sees a clean, familiar app.
The onboarding experience at /welcome guides first-time users through the
product with section-based storytelling before dropping them into the
live dApp.
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THE VISION
Tozlow is more than a product — it's a statement. Blockchain doesn't have
to live in exchanges, DeFi dashboards, or NFT marketplaces. It can live
in a group chat. In a Friday night dinner. In something as simple, and as
human, as keeping your word. Tozlow is proof that the best blockchain
applications aren't always the most complex ones — sometimes they're the
ones that solve a problem every single person has felt before.