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Episode 250 - The Quiet Revolution: Crypto on the Frontlines of Humanitarian Aid · Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today you'll discover how stable coins are quietly becoming the default rails for humanitarian aid, moving money faster, cheaper, and more transparently than the systems they're replacing, why some of the most important builders in crypto are working on anticipatory action, using smart contracts and climate data to release emergency funds to vulnerable communities before a disaster strikes, not after, how entire parallel financial systems are being built on blockchain to resist authoritarian regimes, and why in some places crypto isn't an alternative to the financial system, but the only one left, and why crypto philanthropy, decentralized identity, and transparent giving are quietly rewiring how generosity and accountability flow around the world.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Crypto Altruists, where we explore the intersections of Web3 and social good to the stories of impact-driven builders and offer actual insights to empower your journey into the world of blockchain for good.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Drew Simon.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before we dive in, please remember that this is not financial or legal advice, and always do your own research on any of the projects or investment opportunities that we discuss.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome back to Crypto Altras for episode 250.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, episode 250.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can't believe it.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to say that I thought a lot about what I wanted to do with this one.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you hit a milestone like this, the temptation is to look back and do like a best of episode, you know, maybe share the top 10 lessons from 250 conversations.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing wrong with that, but I just didn't want to do that.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And there's way too much going on right now in this space to do that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And right now, some of the most important work happening in crypto isn't making headlines.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not on the front page of Coindesk or Forbes, it's not trending on X.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening in places most people in crypto don't regularly think about refugee camps in Jordan, farming villages in rural Afghanistan, flood-prone communities in Nepal, and resistance-held territories in Myanmar.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're building infrastructure quietly, persistently, and for the people who need it most.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You may have heard the phrase necessity breeds innovation, and I think there are no better examples of that than the case studies we'll share in this episode.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: So today, instead of looking back, I want to take you on a guided tour of what I'm calling the Quiet Revolution.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Five specific front lines where crypto is functioning as real humanitarian infrastructure, creating real impact for real people in real places.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sorry, that was a lot.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Stay on script true.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Each one tells a different story, but together they paint a picture of something much bigger.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: That crypto's most important chapter isn't about speculation or market cycle.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's about building systems that work for the people traditional systems have failed.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully by the end of this episode, you'll agree.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Starting with use case one, stablecoins as humanitarian rails.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is really the boring infrastructure that changes everything.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm going to start with a question that many people face every day.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you needed to send some funds to a family member around the world, urgently, how would you do it?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now consider this family member lives in a place that has historically been excluded from financial and technical infrastructure.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: You probably use Western Union or something like it.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It might take a day or two, and depending if you are converting to the local currency, you'll lose a cut there to fees, probably landing you at around 6-10% in total fees.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you need to send a substantial sum of money, you can imagine how much this could cost you.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if that family member doesn't have a bank account, which in many parts of the world they don't, it gets even harder, and there's probably another fee.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine that same scenario, but you're not sending money to a relative.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're the United Nations, and you need to get emergency cash to 3.5 million households across 48 countries.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's what UNICEF did in 2024.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: 688 million in cash transfers, and the infrastructure underlying that, the banks, the wire services, the compliance layers, is the same slow, expensive, intermediary heavy system.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is where stable coins come in, and I don't mean stable coins as a trading instrument, I mean stablecoins as payment rails, the plumbing that moves money from point A to point B.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the World Food Program's Building Blocks platform is probably the clearest example of this.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's built on a private blockchain, and it represents the world's largest humanitarian use of blockchain technology to date.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking four million people served each month, 555 million in cash transfers to date, and 3.5 million in bank fees saved.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Jordan's ASRAC and Zatari camps, refugees buy groceries using a retina scan linked to their blockchain-based account.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's no bank account required, there's no paperwork delays, there's no intermediary taking a cut.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: In Ukraine, after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, the UNHCR partnered with the Stellar Blockchain and USDC to deliver emergency funds directly to displaced families' mobile wallets.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Recipients could cash out at local money gram locations or transfer the amount to a personal bank account.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Though the pilot itself was relatively small scale, it clearly demonstrated the power of this technology to help get funds to those in need quickly and at a low cost.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there's obviously some really exciting experimentation happening, and I do believe that stablecoins are quickly becoming the default rails for humanitarian aid, but this is also part of a broader shift of stablecoins around the world, and this shift is quite staggering, because by the end of 2025, total stablecoin market capitalization hit roughly 311 billion.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Transaction volumes reached approximately 33 trillion over the course of the year.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's play a game now, and I want you to think about how many trillion you think Visa and MasterCard processed over that same time.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So remember, 33 trillion processed in 2025 by stablecoins, how much for MasterCard and Visa?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is 25.5 trillion, which is also roughly 23% less than the stablecoin volume.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I find that stat absolutely mind blowing that stablecoins, which seem to be a niche and kind of fringe thing a couple years ago, uh are now actually processing more transaction volume than the two largest uh credit card processes in the world, which is incredible.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And on that note, one of the common critiques you may hear about crypto in humanitarian contexts is that the tech is simply too fringe.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd say that stat alone disproves that argument.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to be fair, not all of that volume represents consumer payments.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: A substantial share comes from trading, settlement, and crypto native financial activity.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But even accounting for that, stable coins are increasingly being used for real-world remittances, aid disbursements, and cross-border commerce.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The Inter-American Development Bank published a report earlier this year noting that in the US-Mexico remittance corridor alone, BitSo, a Latin American crypto exchange, processed over 6.5 billion in crypto-based remittances in 2024, representing more than 10% of total corridor volume.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to be honest about the limitations, because access doesn't equal effective use.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Digital literacy gaps are real, and especially in the communities that need these tools most.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Infrastructure challenges like internet connectivity and power reliability remain significant.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And there are also legitimate macro level concerns about what happens when dollar peg stablecoins essentially export US monetary policy into economies that didn't choose it.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things that need to be figured out, of course, but the trajectory is clear.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Stablecoins are becoming global financial infrastructure for people who've never had reliable access to financial infrastructure before.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the organizations at the center of this, like the World Food Program and the UNHCR, aren't crypto startups chasing hype.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're established institutions building on top of something that works.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move on to use case number two, anticipatory action.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I bet you didn't anticipate that.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but seriously, I love this one.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: So stable coins are getting faster at moving money after something bad happens, right?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we could move money before it happens?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the humanitarian world calls anticipatory action, and it might be the most underreported story in all of crypto right now.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the traditional model of humanitarian aid.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: A drought hits.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pastorless in Kenya watch their livestock weaken and die.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Families skip meals, children drop out of school because there's no money for fees, weeks and months later aid might arrive, but by then the damage has compounded.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: People have sold off assets at distress prices, taken on predatory debt, and the community is in survival mode.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: The humanitarian response in this context is always playing catch up.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a niche problem.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's estimated that for every$10 spent on humanitarian relief, only$1 is spent on reducing and managing risks beforehand.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, according to the UN, anticipatory action currently represents less than 1% of total humanitarian funding.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Less than 1%.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yet half of all humanitarian crises are predictable.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: 20% are highly predictable.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the question becomes: if we know a drought or a flood is coming, why are we waiting until after it arrives to help people?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anticipatory action flips the model.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It uses climate data, weather forecasting, and early warning systems to identify when a disaster is likely to hit, and triggers aid before it does.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization, every dollar invested in anticipatory action generates$7 in benefits and avoided losses.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the math is clear, but the challenge has always been the infrastructure to make it work.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's where I want to go deep because this is a story that many of you might not have heard, and it's one that we actually covered on this show back in episode 177.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: In late 2023, MercyCore Ventures partnered with three organizations, DivaDonate, Shamba Network, and Fortune Credit, to run a pilot that deployed blockchain-based anticipatory cash transfers to 262 pastoralists in two rural counties in Kenya.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let me walk you through how this actually worked, because the mechanisms are what make this so compelling.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It uses so many different elements of what blockchain enables, and I can't think of any other use case like it.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how it works.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Xamba Network built a blockchain Oracle, essentially a bridge between real-world data and smart contracts.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Their Oracle pulls satellite data measuring something called NDVI, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a measure of how green and healthy the vegetation is in a given area.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: For pastoralists, vegetation health is a leading indicator of whether their livestock will have enough to eat.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: When vegetation declines past a certain threshold, drought conditions are coming.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: DivaDonate, which is built on the Diva protocol, created smart contract escrows on the Polygon blockchain that held donor funds.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those funds were programmatically locked, and they would only be released if the Shamba Oracle reported that vegetation levels had dropped below predefined trigger points.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, there's no human needed to make the call and no bureaucratic approval training that needs to happen.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: The data triggered the contract and the contract released the funds automatically.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then Fortune Credit, a Kenyan microfinance institution with deep community ties across rural Kenya, handled the last mile.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: They recruited local village champions who onboarded Pastorlis, collected MPESA numbers, and for those who don't know, MPESA is a mobile phone-based money transfer service that is widely used in Kenya, and when the smart contracts triggered, Fortune converted the stable coins to Kenyan shillings and delivered funds directly to participants' mobile wallets.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The results were remarkable.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Funds reached Pastorlis in 14.5 hours after being released from the smart contract, a 90% reduction compared to the 7-10 days it typically takes through traditional channels.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Transaction costs dropped from roughly 10% to 2.5%, meaning 97.5 cents on every dollar reached the people it was meant for.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And every single recipient said that they would recommend the program to a friend.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And 77% reported improvements in financial stress levels.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And here's another detail that's really important.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: 79% of the participants in this pilot were women.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: The female pastoralists reported improvements in their ability to participate in household decision making, so it really wasn't just financial aid, but was shifting power dynamics within communities.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be honest about the limitations here.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: The pilot was small, 262 participants, about 20,000 in total funds distributed, only 10 external donors participated, partly due to challenges with onboarding, which points to the need for better community education.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: The NDVI measurement methodology also needs refinement because using average vegetation density as a trigger may not always accurately predict drought conditions, and the teams are exploring whether peak vegetation metrics would be more precise.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the proof of concept worked.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: The technology worked, the smart contracts triggered correctly, the funds moved faster and cheaper than anything in the traditional system.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: It has the potential, if backed with adequate resources, to be a game changer for humanitarian aid.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the Kenya pilot isn't the only one.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Nepal's Terai region, one of the most flooded vulnerable areas in the world, a blockchain platform called Rahat is doing something similar for flood risk.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Rahat uses smart contracts connected to climate forecast data.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: When forecasts cross a predefined threshold indicating a flood is imminent, the contracts automatically release stablecoin payments to pre-registered vulnerable households.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's none of the bureaucratic delays you'd see with traditional aid, and the money moves when the data says it should.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: The REACH Alliance at the University of Toronto conducted field research on Rat in May 2025 and documented how blockchain-based anticipatory action systems are building community resilience in ways traditional aid hasn't been able to.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk bigger picture, because these pilots are part of a larger movement.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: In 2025, MercyCore Ventures launched the world's first anticipatory action accelerator, a grant program specifically funding organizations that combine climate analytics, AI, and crypto payment rails to pre-position aid.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're also collaborating with Ripple to expand anticipatory cash transfers using Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, which is bringing institutional backing and scale to a concept that barely even existed a few years ago.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: UNICEF's Innovation Office is also actively exploring blockchain for what they call automatic cash transfers as a preparedness mechanism.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is the same.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Connect weather data to smart contracts to payment rails and let the system respond faster than any human decision-making chain could.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reason anticipatory action doesn't get more attention is that it's genuinely new, and the title might be a bit linguey, so maybe there's a PR problem too.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Most people in crypto haven't heard of it, most people in humanitarian aid haven't thought deeply about smart contracts.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: This sits at the intersection of climate science, blockchain, engineering, and disaster risk management, and the people working on it are a small, dedicated group doing quietly extraordinary work that has potential to achieve incredible impact at scale.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move on to use case number three, looking at how blockchain can enable resilient systems under oppressive regimes.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this next section is the one that hit me hardest when I was researching this episode, because it takes everything we've looked about so far, talking payment rails, speed, access, and puts it in a context where it's not just about convenience or making things easier, but in many cases it's a matter of survival.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: When a government becomes a threat by freezing bank accounts, collapsing the currency, cutting off financial access, the traditional financial system stops being a tool for citizens and becomes a weapon against them.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in those moments, the question isn't whether blockchain is better than traditional finance, because in many cases it's the only option left.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about Myanmar, which is probably the most dramatic example right now.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: After the military coup in February 2021, the civilian government was ousted, and the country's economy went into freefall.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: The Kiat, which is their local currency, collapsed, and banks were weaponized.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Having your account linked to the wrong person, the wrong organization, the wrong cause could mean having your savings frozen overnight.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: In response, Myanmar's national unity government, the NUG, which has received political support and engagement from the European Union and several democratic governments, did something that has almost never been attempted before in a conflict setting.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: They tokenized the national currency.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: In mid-2022, the NUG issued the Digital Myanmar Kiet, DMMK, as a crypto token on the stellar blockchain, pegged one to one to the Kiet's black market rate.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: They built a payment app called Nugpay.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Think of it like Alipay, but for a resistance movement.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Citizens can pay for goods and services, pay taxes, pay rent, and donate to the resistance all through QR codes and handles on a mobile app.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: As of March 2025, DMMK transactions totaled approximately 2.3 trillion Kiet, roughly half a billion US dollars.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when a devastating 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck central Myanmar in March 2025, resulting in thousands of deaths and thousands more displacements, over 700,000 in DMMK donations flowed through Nugpay for disaster relief in areas where traditional aid simply couldn't get through because of junta restrictions.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Then UG also launched the Spring Development Bank, a fully crypto-native financial institution.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Its SDB token was listed on the MEXC exchange in late 2025, generating nearly 30 million for the resistance.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a dark turn to the story as well, with the military junta reportedly exploring state-controlled digital currency infrastructure, which opens the door to surveillance control and the ability to freeze any account at will.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's one country, two blockchains, two fundamentally different visions of what digital currency is for.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just a perfect example of the paradox of technology.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It can be used for extraordinary good or extraordinary evil, and I think we're seeing plenty of examples of both happening right now, unfortunately.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: On a brighter note, let's talk about another case study showing how crypto can power resilient humanitarian infrastructure.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: It takes place in Afghanistan, a country that in many ways represents an even more acute version of the same story.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Since the Taliban's return to power in 2021, Afghanistan's formal banking system has essentially collapsed under the weight of international sanctions.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: 85 to 90% of the population is unbanked, 98% lives below the poverty line, and 22.8 million people are headed towards food insecurity.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: In the traditional channels for getting money into the country, banks, wire services, even informal money transfer agents are either blocked, prohibitively expensive, or dangerously slow.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where HesePay comes in.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Founded by San Zar Kakar, and please excuse my pronunciation if I got that wrong, Hesepe is Afghanistan's first interoperable digital payments platform.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Originally built in 2016 to address the humanitarian aid crisis, the platform migrated to the Algorand blockchain in 2022, and has since become something remarkable: a functioning national payment system in a country where the formal financial system has largely ceased to exist.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hesepe issues HAFN, a digital Afghani stablecoin pegged to the local currency, settled on the Algorand blockchain.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Users don't need to understand crypto or blockchain.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: They pay bills, buy airtime, send money, and receive aid using their phones or a simple physical card with the QR code.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: The platform has facilitated 4.5 million transactions across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan, and now handles over 30% of all electricity bill payments in the country.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: In 2025, more than 1 million people received life-saving assistance through HesiPay, including cash support from the World Food Program, UNHCR, and the World Bank.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a critical innovation came through a pilot with MercyCor Ventures in rural eastern Afghanistan, where 100 smallholder farmers in the Zermat district of Paktiya province received stablecoin-based aid through offline capable physical cards linked to digital wallets.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: These are people with no smartphones, no internet access, and zero prior digital payment experience.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the results were awesome, demonstrating reductions in delivery costs and payment times compared to traditional cash distribution.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's no surprise that 98% of participants said they preferred the stablecoin system over traditional cash transfers, setting safety, trustworthiness, and ease of use.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think this story is over, well it's not, because just as the pilot concluded, the Taliban shut down the internet nationwide.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Banks and businesses were ground to a halt, but HessePay's physical cards still worked offline, and merchants could sync transactions later using satellite internet.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: This hybrid blockchain-based approach demonstrated a resilience that many traditional systems lacked.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: There are also stories like Code to Inspire, an organization that, after the Taliban takeover, turned to cryptocurrency to provide monthly emergency payments to female students whose families had lost their income.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's$200 a month per family paid in stablecoins converted to the local currency at money exchanges, and included what they believe were the first female blockchain coders in Afghanistan, which is really cool.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to sit with what these stories mean for a moment.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: In Myanmar, blockchain became the financial backbone of a democratic resistance.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: In Afghanistan, it became the way families receive emergency assistance.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: The stakes here are high, and the tech demonstrated that it can perform and withstand the pressure that came with that.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So now let's move on to case number four, which is crypto philanthropy and transparent giving.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Let's shift gears a bit.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about crisis settings, places where crypto is stepping in because traditional systems have failed, but there's a parallel revolution happening in how money moves for good even in places where the financial system does work.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't work well for charity.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: The philanthropic sector has a trust problem.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Overall, charitable giving in the US is dropping, average donor age is increasing, and younger donors in particular are skeptical of institutional philanthropy.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know where their money goes.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want a PDF annual report six months later.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: They want real, traceable, verifiable proof of impact.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And crypto is starting to answer that call.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: According to the Giving Block's 2026 annual report on crypto philanthropy, crypto donations cost$1 billion in 2024, a 386% increase year over year.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: 70% of Forbes' top 100 US charities now accept crypto, up from under 12% in 2020.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Platforms like Endowment have built fully on-chain donor-devised funds, which are a crypto native philanthropy infrastructure where every dollar is traceable on a public blockchain.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are models like Octin, which many of you know from the show, where users stake their GLM tokens, which gives them a say in how rewards from 100,000 E staked by the Golm Foundation are allocated.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: The funds go towards public goods and impact projects through community-driven epoch-based funding rounds, or they are claimed by their users, or a bit of both.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not traditional philanthropy, but a new mechanism entirely where both the donor and the cause benefit.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Another similar case study is Lido Impact Staking, which we explore with JDEP Corative Launch Nodes in episode 207 and 244, so shout out to JDP.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: They take a different but equally compelling approach where users stake their ETH or stablecoins and donate a portion of their staking reward to fund verified impact organizations like GiveDirectly, UNICEF, and MercyCore Ventures.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: The coolest thing about this is that you're keeping your principal intact.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You're not giving away your capital, you're giving away the yield it generates.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a regenerative, continuous funding stream rather than a one-time donation.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want to be clear out about this too, because not every experimental model scales.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: NFTs, DAOs, and on-chain funding pools can be powerful, but they depend on active communities, sustained engagement, and market conditions that many nonprofits can't maintain.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: The FTX collapse in 2022, among other high-profile events, dealt a real blow to trust in crypto philanthropy, and the shadow hasn't fully lifted.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the underlying trend is unmistakable.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: The infrastructure for transparent, accountable global giving is being built on blockchain, and it's moving faster than many people realize, quickly becoming an important part of all nonprofits' fundraising strategies.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now let's move on to our final use case.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I save this one for last because in many ways it ties everything else together.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say some groundwork.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: An estimated 850 million people globally lack official identification.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Without ID, you can't open a bank account, you can't receive formal aid, you can't cross a border legally, you can't prove you're a citizen of your own country.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: In some cases, you can't prove you exist at all.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Traditional identity systems are centralized and fragile.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: They depend on governments, and as we've seen in Myanmar and Afghanistan, when the governments are the problem, the identity system becomes part of the problem too.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is why blockchain-based identity and verification tools are emerging as something much bigger than a crypto niche, and have the potential to become real human rights infrastructure.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Think about the examples we've covered today.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: The World Food Program's Building Blocks platform in Jordan works precisely because it links biometric identity to a blockchain account, giving refugees a financial identity that's independent of any government.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hestopay in Afghanistan works because it provides a digital finance identity to people who have no bank accounts and in many cases no formal ID.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: The concept is self sovereign identity, the idea that your identity should be portable, controlled by you, and verifiable without depending on a single institution.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in a world where democratic institutions are under increasing strain, Decentralized identity, privacy preserving tools, and verification systems are becoming essential safeguards.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Identity is really the connective tissue of everything that we've discussed today.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Stable coins need identity rails to comply with regulations and reach the right people.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Anticipatory action systems need verified beneficiary data to trigger payments.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Resilient financial systems need identity that can't be seized by an authoritarian government, and philanthropy needs accountability, which starts with knowing that money reached who it was supposed to reach.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: This space is still early, there are serious questions about privacy, data protection, and the risk of creating new forms of surveillance disguises empowerment.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: But the trajectory is toward a world where your identity, your proof of who you are and what you've done can travel with you, is controlled by you, and is verified by math rather than by institutions that may not have your best interests at heart.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the tour.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Five front lines, five use cases, five places where blockchain is doing the thing it was always supposed to do.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about making rich people richer, but building infrastructure that serves people traditional systems have left behind.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to come back to where we started.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I called this episode the Quiet Revolution, and it took me a while to arrive at that phrase after changing the title like ten times, which is more than the usual five times per episode.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I finally arrived at the quiet revolution because none of this is allowed.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening behind the scenes in regions that have long been neglected by financial and tech institutions, often with limited resources and certainly no hefty marketing budget.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's quiet in the most empowering way because quiet doesn't mean small, and quiet doesn't mean slow.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: The systems being built right now, often by small teams in the hardest places on Earth, could become infrastructure that millions and potentially billions of people depend on.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they chose crypto, but because crypto was the thing that worked when everything else failed.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: The systems being built right now, often by small teams in the hardest places on Earth, could become infrastructure that millions and potentially billions of people depend on.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they chose crypto, but because crypto was the thing that worked when everything else failed.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the moral of the story of episode 250.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for joining me today and for being an important part of this journey.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: If this resonated with you, let us know why on LinkedIn, Twitter, or X, or by email, all of which you can find in the show notes.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Have a lovely day wherever you're listening in from, and let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps up today's episode of Crypto Altruist.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit us at cryptoaltruist.com for articles, resources, and more.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you love what you heard, it would mean the world if you could rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your support is huge in helping us reach more listeners like you and keeping the platform going strong.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.