GiveCrypto Monthly Update — October 2020
Marketplace launched, amount of user info collected and RCT’s results
Marketplace Launched
We launched a feature complete v1 of the crypto donation marketplace on October 25th. The service allows anybody to apply for help and anybody to provide help, all in cryptocurrency. Recipients receive a pre-defined amount of money (depending on the PPP of their country) on a weekly basis for six weeks. The amount varies from $20-$50 per week and all transfers are in ETH.
Although the scope of this initial version is deliberately narrow, launching software is always an endeavor. This is especially true when working with a bleeding edge technology like crypto/blockchain. An important part of the service is a user friendly way to initiate a transfer of cryptocurrency between donors and recipients.
Best practices for this type of service are basically non-existent. Our system for tracking, attribution, allocation, and execution of blockchain payments must be able to handle the variable timing and edges cases of the blockchain data that drives it — while still providing timely feedback. It must also be able to smooth over small inconsistencies due to fluctuating exchange rates during the donation flow, and supply gas when needed to keep everything moving. Keeping this state both correct and current is a significant challenge, but it allows us to hide a lot of potential pitfalls from users.
We would greatly appreciate your feedback. I encourage you to play with the service. If you need some help, please create a profile and make a funding request. If you are able to help, please consider making a crypto donation to someone in need.
Recipient Info
Any marketplace (defined as a service that connects people) grapples with the question of how much information to collect. In our case, the primary question is how much to ask recipients when they make a funding request. Less information means that the on-boarding process is easier, more information means that the donor has more details to help them make a decision about funding the request.
For v1, we decided to request as little information as possible. We currently only ask for the following fields from a recipient:
- Name & email (via Google auth)
- Bio
- Location
- Description of what they will do with the funds
- Photo
*items in italics are optional
We have already heard feedback that this lack of information makes it difficult to decide on a donation. The implication is that the donor may be more willing to give if they knew more about the recipient. We have done some research on the information requested by similar services, summarized below.
As you can see, other services request quite a bit more information. While we strive to make the on-boarding process as easy as possible, we should probably add more ways for recipients to share information about themselves. We will experiment with this over the next few weeks/months and will share our findings in future updates.
RCT’s Results
We recently completed a randomized controlled trial that compared the effectiveness of cash vs. crypto transfers in Venezuela. Rather than take the traditional path of writing a long academic paper and publishing the results in an economics journal, we decided to create a micro-site that provides all details on the study free of charge to the public, along with links to our analysis files and data (personal identification information of recipients removed).
Please take a look at the site. It explains the design of the study and describes our analysis and the results that we found (crypto was impactful!). For people that want to dig deeply into our analysis, there is also information on the econometrics that were performed. We are excited to hear your feedback.
Staying Connected
As always, we love to hear from supporters outside of our updates. Please follow along on Twitter and our blog for information on our programs.
