San is the digital version of a sou-sou / tanda / san: a small circle of people, each putting in the same amount monthly, each taking the whole pot in turn. Every dollar moves as USDC directly between members' own Coinbase-secured wallets. San's software organizes, records, and verifies — it never holds, routes, or controls anyone's money, and it couldn't: it has no keys.
A san has 3, 6, or 9 paying members plus a host. Every member pays the same cuota ($10–$500/month). Each month is one turn: the cuotas land in the host's wallet, and the host pays the whole pot to that turn's recipient. Turn 1 is always the host's own — the traditional organizer's hand, disclosed in the app before anyone joins. Joining happens one of two ways, both chosen by people, never by us: the host invites you, or the host lists the san publicly and you decide to join that host's circle. San never matches anyone, pools nothing, and pays no one to recruit — and before any join, the app itself warns that a san is only as trustworthy as its people.
San prepares the transaction for you (recipient, amount — including the fee split on each payment) and hands it to your wallet. Only your wallet can approve it: keys live in Coinbase's secure infrastructure, and signing requires the session you open with a code sent to your email. San cannot execute a transaction, and it cannot prevent one either — from Wallet → Export private key, any user can take the key that controls their wallet and transact from any standard wallet app, with or without San. If San disappeared tomorrow, no one's money would be stranded.
San's entire revenue is two flat fees, both paid by the host out of their own collection: a one-time hosting fee per san ($1.50 / $3.00 / $4.50 for a 3 / 6 / 9-member san), and a $1.00 platform fee on each cuota payment. Neither is charged at creation. Each cuota payment is split by the payer's own wallet in one atomic transaction — the fee to San's fee wallet, the rest to the host; the first payment carries both fees, every payment after carries only the $1. That fee wallet receives only the fee, never member money, and never sits between a payer and a recipient. Members never pay more than their cuota — the fees come out of what the host collects. Both fees are flat (never a percentage of the pot), disclosed before the san is created, and labeled in the transaction list afterward. Gas is sponsored through Coinbase, so no one pays network fees.
This page is maintained by Novo LLC, the Florida company behind San by NOVO. Reviewers and regulators are welcome to write to social@novo.ws — we'll answer with specifics, including code-level detail.