The Crypto For Good Landscape in Emerging Markets
In this blog, we provide a detailed view of the ‘crypto for good’ landscape in emerging markets. These findings are based on proposals received from our second Crypto For Good Fund (‘C4G2’), providing valuable insights to builders, funders, and others in the blockchain ecosystem.
Insights in brief
C4G2 received 200 applications for pilots in 50 different countries
We are in a multi-chain and cross-chain future
- Builders are building on 30+ chains, with Polygon (41%), Ethereum (39%) and Celo (29%) the most popular
- 88 (44%) are building a multi-chain solution
Massive builder appetite in emerging markets
- The African region accounted for 61% of applicants; 95% come from emerging markets in Africa, LatAm, Asia
- 26 countries received 2+ applications, with Kenya leading at 57
- An additional 24 countries received 1 application each — 9 Asian, 7 African, 5 LatAm, and 3 European
Solutions are being designed for underserved populations
- 75% of applicants are building for low-income users, smallholder farmers and MSMEs
- Solutions for women, youth and refugees account for an additional 21% of proposals
Lots of productive use cases being built
- Credit for underbanked (27%), nature-based solutions for climate resilience (20%) and crypto wallets for underserved users (16%) were the top-3 focus areas
“From the outset, we’ve seen that crypto and blockchain present tools to address core challenges in the financial services and climate adaptation landscape. But it’s taken time and tenacity to find startups and protocols developing products with real-world application and low-income users at the center.”
Scott Onder — Managing Director, Mercy Corps Ventures
The world is changing rapidly, and as technology evolves, we must adapt the solution set to solving the problems we face.
One area that has shown promise is Web3 technology, which has the potential to address some of the most pressing issues we face as a society, including financial exclusion and the climate crisis.
At the same time, the hype around Web3 has often exceeded reality, with many projects and initiatives failing to make a real impact. We’ve also seen that much of the available funding has been going towards less-impactful, speculative projects rather than initiatives that address real-world problems.
Additionally, most Web3 grant funding is chain-specific, which limits the potential for innovation and collaboration across different networks, and is focused on supporting builders in high-income countries, which means that many promising projects in emerging markets are being overlooked.
To address this gap, we launched the Crypto For Good Fund in 2022 to support and encourage Web3 solutions that drive value for underserved communities. The Fund is chain-agnostic and funds projects based on their societal impact in emerging markets for underserved users.
Last year, we launched six crypto pilots across a variety of use cases and geographies, including decentralized finance (DeFi) lending in Kenya for smallholder farmers and MSMEs, tokenized government bonds in Cameroon, bringing high-quality carbon credits on-chain in Indonesia, a decentralized water economy in India, and more. These projects represent a diverse range of solutions, but all share a commitment to using Web3 technology to address real-world challenges for underserved users.
This year, we opened the second Crypto For Good Fund in February 2023, and received 200 applicants from 50 countries around the world (the application window closed in March 2023), with a renewed focus on specific priority areas, from access to credit to nature-based solutions. We believe that by focusing our efforts in these areas, we can help to drive meaningful change in the communities we serve. Winners of this iteration of the Fund will be announced in the coming months.
Here, we share aggregated statistics from the Fund in an exclusive report.
DOWNLOAD REPORT
We hope this provides valuable insights to builders, funders, and others on the crypto landscape for social impact in emerging markets.
For any inquiries or collaboration opportunities, please reach out to Ken at kkou@mercycorps.org
Stay tuned for updates, evidence, and insights on our other Mercy Corps Ventures pilots, responsibly testing Web3 solutions for unbanked and underbanked populations in emerging markets.
