How Cryptocurrencies are Creating Massive Social Change Around the World
Of course we are excited about our own little project over here in our corner of the crypto world and feel like our philosophy is in alignment with the democratic, decentralized promise that distributed ledger technology has the potential to deliver.
But, it is even more exciting to see so many use cases and applications of blockchain that are all about creating the most good for the most number of people. The world continues to become a smaller more connected place every day, yet we still have billions of people who still lack access to basic food, shelter and clean water. Here are a few ways cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology are a big part of the solutions that are rapidly improving the lives of billions of people around the globe.
A more stable medium of exchange for half the world’s population.
For many of us who live in modern cities in first-world countries we take for granted that we can open our smartphones and see that our paycheck was direct deposited, use Apple Pay to buy groceries at the store, or find an ATM on any corner with plenty of cash if we actually need it. For over 3 billion people on the planet who are unbanked, having access to a workable medium of exchange continues to be a huge challenge.
Venezuela has been the poster child of currency crisis for decades. According to a report in Reuters, annual inflation in Venezuela at the end of May topped a staggering 24,600% for the previous 12-month period. Excessive money printing and shortages of food staples and medicine have only continued to compound the problems and caused the Venezuelan bolivar to lose 98% of it value over the past year.
Needless to say Venezuelans do not trust their government-run banks and have been dealing with inflation for decades. Previously, citizens used offshore bank accounts with other currencies to try and avoid the heavy losses associated with hyper-inflation. Cryptocurrencies are finally giving the people of Venezuela, and other countries around the world a democratic and stable option for digital currencies not under centralized control.
Philanthropy/Charitable Donations
In March of 2018 Ripple donated $29 million of its token XRP and fully funded every project on DonorsChose.org. At the time of the donation there were 35,647 open campaigns on the public school crowdfunding site that helps teachers ask for contributions for classroom supplies or projects. Amazing!
What a great example of crypto and crowdsourcing making it easier for the flow of capital to get where it can do the most common good for our society. Thankfully not everyone in the crypto space is a Bitcoin Bro angling to score a big payday to buy a Lamborghini and most are actually following in the footsteps of Bill and Melinda Gates.
Global Poverty, Clean Water and Hunger
Distributed Ledger Technology in general has amazing potential to empower social impact programs around the globe. Reduced transaction and administrative costs insure that the beneficiaries realize the maximum impact of donations and eliminate corruption and waste.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) estimates that 50% of the benefits they deliver will be cash-based transfers by the year 2020. Utilizing blockchain technology, transaction costs will decrease from 3.5% to less than 1% saving millions of dollars that can be used to help many more people.
They recently piloted this program by providing Syrian refugees in Jordan with digital currency vouchers that could be used locally to buy goods and services. The program distributed $1.4 million to over 10,000 people and successfully eliminated the dangers of carrying cash while greatly streamlining and reducing the administrative costs of the transactions.
More Affordable and Reliable Remittance Payments
Currently over $444 billion dollars flows from more developed countries into impoverished areas around the globe in the form of remittances sent to family members by relatives living and working abroad. Historically this has been a very expensive and unreliable process for the regular transfer of these important and impactful amounts of cash.
The remittance service Abra states that they can lower transaction fees by 90 percent and is already operating in 155 countries around the globe. Abra converts fiat currency into bitcoin, transfers it across its blockchain platform, and settles it in a local currency on the other end. Users do not even have to have a bank account to make transfers via their smartphones. Sounds a bit like a certain cryptocoin exchange we know that does not require an account to complete transactions either.
In the world of media we tend to get blasted with bad news or stories of bad actors displaying gross greed or disregard for human life. The good news is that the Bitcoin Bros and the Pharma Bros are a huge minority of the humans in our world. There are actually some really smart and generous people in the crypto world that are not waiting for a government program to come save the day and they are taking matters into their hands and solving the biggest problems of humanity that we have on our planet.
