Latest / Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3 / Episode 266 - Live GoodBuilders Workshop Recording: Building for everyone: Web3 Without the Complexity

Transcript

Episode 266 - Live GoodBuilders Workshop Recording: Building for everyone: Web3 Without the Complexity · Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, it's Drew here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna change things up a bit for this episode, as it's been a bit of a wild week, so I haven't had the chance to produce a new episode this week.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: That said, earlier today I hosted a workshop with the awesome GoodDollar team as part of a series of events they've been offering to participants in their Good Builders program.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really fun session which I called Web3 Without the Complexity Building for Everyone, where we highlight five humanitarian case studies of projects that have done an excellent job turning the complexity of Web3 into a seamless user experience that had an incredible real-world impact.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: I decided to record this presentation, and for a special episode 266, I'm excited to share with you.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was recorded live, so it's probably not as polished as the typical episodes, but I hope you still enjoy it and are able to take away something valuable.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: The presentation is built around a simple thesis.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: The projects winning real adoption aren't the ones explaining blockchain better.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: They're the ones that remove the need to explain it at all.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We highlight five projects that have done exactly that.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: MiniPay, which is really taken off in Africa, Hesa Pay, which is based out of Afghanistan, KotaniPay, which is based out of Kenya, the Stellar and UNHR partnership in Ukraine, which we have talked about before, so you're probably already familiar with, and all in for sports work with Saraya in Somaliland.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Each one solved a boring everyday problem, paying a bill, sending money home, getting paid safely, and used crypto quietly as plumbing in the background.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I close with the practical patterns and design principles you can take back to your own work.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for joining us, and we'll be back next week to our regular schedule with some really exciting interviews in the works.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, let's dive in.
• 1:38
  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.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to start with just kind of uh going over the goals of the session today.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and really the thesis for this conversation is that um, you know, blockchain you users shouldn't have to know a lot about blockchain to be able to engage with a blockchain-based solution.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ideally, they shouldn't even have to know that it is blockchain-based.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: It just works, works seamlessly.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna go over kind of three main things today.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is to understand why complexity is the biggest barrier to Web3 adoption and what you know this idea of meeting users where they're at looks like in practice.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're gonna learn from five real-world projects that have successfully abstracted the crypto complexity away to reach everyday users in uh underserved markets.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna leave with a practical set of design principles participants can apply to their own projects to reduce friction and reach real users.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the goals.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you get something valuable out of this presentation that you can uh apply to your project.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: And at the very least, we're gonna review some really cool case studies of projects that are in some humanitarian contexts, and I'll explain why I focused on that.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But first a little bit about me.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I have 15 years of experience working in the nonprofit charitable NGO, however you want to call it sector.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I run a consultancy focused on frontier tech fundraising, strategic planning for NGOs.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I founded CryptoUltris back in 2021 to really bridge the gap between uh crypto and blockchain and NGOs.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I also hold a Bachelor of Arts in PC Conflict Studies and a Master of Education.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where my educational background comes into play here.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a little bit about CryptoUltris.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a community-driven platform that really aims to, like I said, kind of bridge that gap to blockchain tech for social and environmental impact.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've consulted with diverse nonprofits worldwide to help them implement Web3.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've also built a Web3 Impact Toolkit, which I can share a bit more about later for nonprofits that are interested in learning more about the tech.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have 275 plus podcast episodes focused on this topic.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we also have 300 plus articles and educational resources.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that's a little bit about Crypto Ultras.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh for today, I wanted to really focus on humanitarian case studies.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: The reason for this being that I think that they serve as kind of a great uh you know example of what projects should kind of like, you know, strive to build towards because they are for you know are working with last mile users.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: These are folks that who have traditionally been excluded from tech and financial services and may lack access to basic technological tools.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, they work in the most challenging environments uh where there's limited infrastructure, volatility, a lot of unpredictable variables that can really kind of change things on the fly.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And also it's really high risk.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a high-stakes environment where wrong moves could be a matter of life or death and dealing with a high degree of sensitive user information as well.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so that being said, I think it's a great kind of sector to look at because they are you know building in the most challenging of circumstances.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if they can do it, so can really any project in Web3.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the reason why the focus on that today.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna actually walk through five different case studies of projects, some that you're probably familiar with, that have done an excellent job of taking that complexity out of Web3 and really um, you know, building something special that's had a really positive impact in the world.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one I wanted to go over is a uh project called Hesebay.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So some of you might be familiar with this.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's based out of Afghanistan, uh, founded originally in 2016 as a digital wall to um, you know, to help bring uh more humanitarian payments into Afghanistan after the banking sector collapsed following uh the Taliban retaking control.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it works on iOS, Android, uh USSD, which is essentially like texting.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might see this with um uh uh you know things like uh uh mobile money, uh where you you know text in to load up uh your card or something like that.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and they also use QR cards.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's meant to say QR codes, apologies.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it reaches uh feature phone users in addition to smartphone users across all 34 platforms.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh users also come for everyday needs, bills, airtime, payroll, and around 30% of Afghanistan's electricity payments are actually now running through this.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it originally started for humanitarian purposes, pivoted then to um, you know, essentially uh responding to the fact that the Taliban took control and helping kind of get around that to provide people with financial services.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it has turned into a really important part of their economy with millions of dollars in aid um processed through the platform to hundreds of thousands of individuals and families.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really, really cool, cool project.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Umie, good to see you.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks everyone else who's joining in as we go.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had mentioned this before.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hope everyone's okay with this.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm recording just the audio for my podcast, so I can turn this into an episode after and share it with more folks.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so just want to share that again.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so lessons and takeaways from HesiPay.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is one of my favorite case studies because it is kind of in the most challenging of situations where there was limited infrastructure, the banking collapsed, there was very, it was very difficult to get money in uh to uh to the country.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, what I think that they showed though is that the chain is the plumbing and that it's not a feature.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Users essentially see it as a payment app, a way to pay bills.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They actually don't even know it's on blockchain a lot of the time.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need to understand that it's on blockchain because it just works.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It uses blockchain as the plumbing, but that's not the feature that's front and center here.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hardware also sets your UX ceiling.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, the use of USSD technology, which is common in mobile money uh to kind of reload your balance and those sorts of things, uh, wasn't a compromise, but was really an intentional decision because they wanted to reach as many people as possible, even those that didn't have an internet connection.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they might have to be connected to a mobile network, but they don't have to have uh Wi-Fi or data to be able to use it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it works within the incumbent system rather than replacing it and it's interoperable.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So those are just a few of the key lessons that I think are important to draw from HesiPay, uh, which, like I said, started um quite small and then grew into something amazing that is, you know, distributed millions in international humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of families.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: The UNHCR and UN have also used it.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh it's also being used for everyday purchases and payments as well.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so it's really kind of taken off and become an ecosystem of its own, uh, which is really cool.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So recommend checking out HesiPay.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: We do have a podcast episode we did with them as well.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very powerful story, so I recommend uh looking into it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one case study uh with a few key takeaways there.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: The second case I wanted to look at was KataniPay, which some of you may be familiar with.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's uh based out of Kenya, a middleware connecting blockchains to Africa mobile money, um, and really serves kind of as the last mile between uh stable coins and cash.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's been a project that's undergone many pivots over the years.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but just like Hesse Pay, they also use USSD short code so that they don't actually have to use an app, don't have to have internet, don't have to manage a key to be able to engage with this.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So again, very similar kind of you know approach to Hesse Pay in that they were able to, you know, use legacy technologies opposed to folks having to rely on um, you know, the complexity of Web3, creating a wallet, you know, creating a private key and having to manage that.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it's something that's easily accessible no matter where you are and easy to uh interact with.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really built for the excluded majority as well.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: 50% of the users were on feature phones, are on feature phones, uh, so don't need a smartphone to use it, and 85% without reliable internet.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So again, really built to uh be resilient in challenging circumstances.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one other thing that's really cool is what they did as well is they made it B2B in the sense that other builders can integrate the API or widget instead of solving the off-ramps themselves.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: So um also building not only for folks that uh are in the last mile for their day-to-day use, but also enabling other businesses and builders to integrate it into their uh solutions as well, which I think is really cool.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So uh great project, definitely recommend looking into it.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And from this one, there's a three three key takeaways that I wanted to um kind of highlight from this.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is that abstraction can be someone else's job.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, integrating an off-ramp, you don't necessarily need to build one.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of solutions out there.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, first before building something new, seek out what already exists.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe if you're a project based out of East Africa, connecting with someone from KataniPay, for example, could be a great way to um create a new off-ramp.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, borrow in and borrow an interface that people already know.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So again, dialing a code uh feels like buying airtime, uh feels like kind of reloading your mobile balance rather than completing an on-chain transaction.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's meeting folks where they are, it's using technology and systems that people are already familiar with in their day-to-day lives.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, cash out is the project.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So value that can't reach a user's hand is in value.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to find that way.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we get the crypto to them, but how can they actually make use of that?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Gitani Pay does a great job of enabling that.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, licenses and liquidity are really part of the user experience.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's things that people don't need to even think about when they're engaging with the platform.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's a friction that they never see because it's just built in.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's abstracted away that complexity.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you're probably gonna get tired of me saying abstracted away that complexity because that's really the um kind of main point of this of this presentation.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So another great um project, definitely worth looking into, a lot of similarities to um to what's been built with uh HessePay, um, but also very unique as well, and a project that's been around for a while and pivoted a couple times too.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um cool.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the second one, Katanipe.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: This presentation may be quicker than the 45 minutes I'm realizing, but that's okay because I can also leave time for questions at the end if folks would like.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um case study number three that I wanted to highlight uh is based out of uh out of Ukraine.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this was actually launched in December of 2022, uh, not too long after the Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so its purpose was to really uh help get funds to displace Ukrainians um so that they could, you know, go about their daily lives, cover their essentials, support their families during uh the instability that was in their life.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was built in partnership with Stellar and really um kind of thrived when the banking access in Ukraine was disrupted from the war.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So how it all worked was uh, you know, recipients simply received USDC to a phone wallet.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: In this case, they did need a smartphone.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I believe that uh UNHCR actually provided it to folks that didn't have one.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh they were able to cash out in local money, uh local currency at MoneyGram locations as well.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that we're not all the biggest fans of MoneyGram, it can be expensive sometimes and you know the fees can be a bit high.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this was the best solution because I believe I'm there were 4,500 or something locations across the country where they could cash out.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was really meeting people where they're at, and they didn't require a bank account either.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody you know locks at lost access to their bank account while they were fleeing or unable to access their funds in their bank, they can still uh engage with this service and still withdraw funds through MoneyGram as the off-ramp.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, USDC as a stablecoin was chosen specifically to manage the volatility risk.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time, you know, with the organizations I work with in humanitarian spaces, the biggest concern is, you know, if I get a donation in X cryptocurrency, is the value going to change overnight?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, it's not gonna be worth anything, I'm not gonna be able to use it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So we've really seen a rise in stablecoins just like taking off as like almost becoming a default rail for humanitarian uh aid for this reason.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so what they did in the first pilot was uh they delivered uh roughly 1.1 million to 1,500 displaced people in year one.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they also had on-chain monitoring built in, uh, which was really important because, as we know, agencies like the UNHCR, any large NGO, um, accountability, transparency, auditability is really important.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so not only was it using blockchain as a way to get aid from point A to point B, but it was also uh taking advantage of the benefits that came with blockchain from a transparency and accountability, yeah, accountability tongue twister, accountability lens.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so another really cool uh case study.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And some lessons and takeaways from this is that they were actually really designing it for two users here.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that the recipient needs the speed and dignity that comes with it and the ease of off-ramping.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the agency, the the NGO, the UNHCR that was really uh behind it all needs that auditability and transparency the blockchain provides.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: But again, in this case, folks didn't necessarily know that that was happening.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: They would have been more familiar that they were engaging with crypto since they were receiving USDC.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: But again, they didn't have to go through that process of you know, the complexity of you know managing a private key and and you know, signing it with uh signing transactions for everything that they did.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: It was just very simple to use.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what's really cool about this one too is their partnership with that physical layer, right?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so MoneyGrams agents um and the MoneyGram locations all across the country um really did something that you know no protocol can, and that's meet where users where they are and provide them with a simple way to engage that they are familiar with from their everyday life, and no matter where they are in the country, can probably access in one way or another.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing that they did that was great is that they piloted small.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's many contexts around the world, unfortunately, where this could be of use, where there is some sort of humanitarian crisis, where there are folks that are displaced.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we've seen UN agencies beyond the UNHCR, including the World Food Program, UNDP, also you know, pilot solutions to use stablecoins to get funds to those in need.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but really they tested it small with uh you know 1100, 1500 users, and then they're now looking to expand it to other regions around the world uh as well and see if they can uh replicate uh you know this this project in those areas.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So um another really important one because I think that sometimes when we launch a project, um, we really want to kind of get it to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I think um, you know, what I've learned from interviewing hundreds of leaders from these projects uh all over the world is that those that do succeed are the ones that started small.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So they could really kind of focus in on really understanding the challenges that those users faced, learn from them, and then and then build out from there and create kind of a uh a pathway that could be replicable in other settings.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so you probably all know this one because it comes up uh all the time in our demo days.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone obviously wants to get uh engaged with Mini Pay.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I would have to highlight MiniPay because it is probably like the prime example of a project that's done an excellent job of meeting people where they're at and really taking the complexity out of the process.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um incredible project.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: For those that aren't aware, in case uh you are not aware, uh, it is a self-custodial cello wallet embedded inside Opera Mini, which is a browser with 150 million active users in Africa alone, which is just mind-blowing to think about.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so how it all works.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they took advantage of this by partnering uh with Opera to create the solution.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, folks can use phone numbers instead of addresses or emails uh to sign up to get a wallet.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they have subcent fees, there's no gas and no seed phrase required to um to engage.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's all kind of just built into the process of signing up with your phone number or email.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Folks can then actually send money to someone just by using their phone number or email as well, which is really cool.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's been 16 million plus activated wallets uh last time I checked across 65 countries and almost uh getting to a half a billion transactions soon, too, with 420 million.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so it has grown exceptionally.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I know that they have a number of different projects that are now listed within MiniPay as well, as they continue to build out the utility.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you can you know do more things, pay more bills, uh, engage with different merchants.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: They've also plugged into a lot of trusted local rails.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so similar to the case study with UNHCR, where they plugged into the local rail of you know, uh on-the-ground money service where they could cash out.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they've also plugged into trusted local rails like MPesa, OPE, Mercado Pago, Pageo.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I probably butchered that, my apologies.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um they actually now have also a Visa card reaching 175 uh million plus merchants.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they're linking crypto with traditional banking too, uh, which is kind of really unique.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so obviously a lot of us have qualms with the traditional banking system, but the reality is it is something that most people use for their day-to-day expenses still.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to meet users where they're at and and figure out how we can build from there as opposed to you know creating something new from scratch or or reinventing the wheel.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the great thing about Mini Pay too is that there really is no crypto knowledge needed to transact.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people probably know that they're engaging with crypto because you can also send you know different types of crypto through the platform, but uh, it isn't something that they need to know the complexity of to really engage with.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that is case study number four and some of the lessons from this.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, distribution beats product.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, going where the users already are before asking them to download something new.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so building it as an extension into the uh Opera app was like a huge um huge game changer because it was meeting 150 million users uh that were already using that app you know every day and making it a lot easier for them as opposed to having to download a whole new app and go through that process and and really learn all the intricacies that come with that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they also did an excellent job of removing unnecessary kind of crypto native concepts, so like you know, gas fees and those sorts of things, uh, managing a seed phrase.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because what I've learned from working with a lot of these organizations, not MiniPay, unfortunately, I would love to because they're such a great project, but a lot of other smaller scale and medium scale projects working in uh traditionally underserved communities, is that uh each one of these kind of things can be a barrier in itself.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's important to think about how do we kind of hide that behind the scenes as opposed to really making it front and center.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say with um, you know, Web3 projects that are working in in you know different communities around the world that you should always lead with the benefit rather than the technology.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you go into a room and start saying, oh, crypto and you know, cello and smart contracts and you know all these sorts of things and gas fees, it can be really easy to lose people pretty quickly because that doesn't really matter to them.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: What they want to know is how will this benefit my daily life and what are the benefits that will come with it and how will it improve my life?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so um it also, like I said, integrated those incumbent Rails, um, which is again uh the Opera browser, but also things like MPESA, which is you know already very successful, uh, instead of competing with them.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um so, and this is kind of a common thread here is that you know, the projects that do well aren't those that try to reinvent the wheels, that they look at what's already working well, that people are using effectively and that um works pretty well.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then how do we integrate with that rather than trying to necessarily challenge that?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, not to say that you shouldn't challenge incumbent uh rails or traditional things, because a lot of them do suck, but a lot of them also work well.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's thinking about what works well, what is working for the people, and how did I then integrate with that uh and make improvements where I can.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, another thing that was great was starting small and expanding utility over time.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, starting as a relatively smaller like cash transfer uh app has really grown from there, enabling saving, uh sending, spending, credit.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it it's really kind of chasing a moving target a lot of the time, which you know is often the case in these types of projects that as they scale, you know, they identify new things that they, you know, want to integrate, uh, new things that users bring and say, hey, this is great, but what if we could add this in as well?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: So they really started small and then expanded this utility over time.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what they also do is that they offer distribution to other builders.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, for example, Sylvie is a great uh project that is kind of like a tokenized tree planting project that rewards people for planting trees.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they actually built their campaign into MiniPay.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so Minipay does also offer that ability, uh, kind of like what we discussed with Katani Pay, to um really be interoperable and and to um and to be something that folks can build upon as opposed to just using.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we see this already, the success of this in every demo day.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: We see the projects in good builders that you know are working hard to get listed on Minipay to partner with them because they've just done something.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: A great job of reaching so many people.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So another great case study there.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: A bit of a different one for the final one that I wanted to cover in the case studies before I kind of then go to key takeaways.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, this presentation will obviously be quicker than the 45 minutes that was allocated.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there'll be quite uh a chance for questions and discussion as well after for folks that are interested.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh case overview of this partnership with All In for Sport and Surreya.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Saraya is an incredible organization based out of Somaliland, an autonomous region within Somalia, uh, that has a decade of creating space for women and girls to play sport.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um and All in for Sport is a Web3 native DAO that uh is focused on supporting inclusion through sport.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Two great organizations that came together.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And how this all started is a really interesting story.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's inspired by a routine grant payment that Saraya was trying to receive in Somaliland, but it took six months for it to get there.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because there were so many gatekeepers in the way.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was blocked by banks, it was rerouted by um kind of middlemen and intermediaries at every step of the process.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: It made it so complicated and thus delayed their ability to do their work because there are all these gatekeepers.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of money simply going from point A to B, it went from point A to B and then stopped at B and then maybe went to C and then back to B, and then you know, straight to D, where it had to sit for another couple of weeks and then to E.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally it arrives in their wallet six months later.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this was the inspiration behind this project is addressing this very simple challenge, you know, a grant payment that took six months when it should have taken six minutes.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so then beyond that, a group passed payments into governance and transparent treasury management management as well.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they started with addressing this very simple challenge.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then once they had got that figured out, they then brought in other components as well that allowed for uh communities to uh transparently measure, uh, sorry, uh manage the money that's in their treasury that they've gotten uh through this project.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Another really cool aspect of this that kind of spun off is um, I don't think it was originally part of the plan, um, but speaks to the ability of of and the importance of kind of reading the room and responding to community feedback is that they initially had been looking at on-chain ways to create attestations and and to and to kind of measure impact.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, found out this, you know, this was really complicated.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're having troubles kind of figuring this out.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then they realized, you know, everyone here actually uses WhatsApp as part of their daily life.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, WhatsApp has probably hundreds of millions, if not billions, of users around the world.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they actually built a protocol called Parable Protocol, which allows the community members to essentially just send a message in WhatsApp and then it turns it into an attestation on-chain, which is really cool.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, again, it's meeting folks where they're at and using the technology that they're using every day.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of these folks probably sent, you know, dozens or hundreds of messages through WhatsApp a day.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's just sending, you know, maybe one more to create this uh on-chain attestation to measure the impact of the project.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so another really great thing here is that um it was building off what folks already knew as opposed to kind of trying to create something new or filling a gap.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Somaliland has had mobile money since the early 2000s, so this isn't something new.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: What this did was really built on that and kind of added to this existing fluency rather than filling that gap.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So incredible project.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely definitely recommend checking them out.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: We actually had a really cool discussion with them too on the podcast a few weeks back, so or a few months back, actually.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, great episode where they kind of dive a bit more into how they built all this and the lessons learned.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I definitely recommend listening to that one as well.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some really cool takeaways there.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and lessons learned.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so starting with a specific pain point, uh, don't try to do too much at once from the beginning.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, instead of coming in and saying we're going to, you know, A, do money transfers and also create a DAO and also do attestations and, you know, also have a multi-sig and all these sorts of things.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that would have been too much.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: It would have been overwhelming.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So they started with a simple pain point.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: This transfer took six months.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do we get that closer to six minutes?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another important thing is to not assume that the community needs teaching and everything.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of these folks had a ton of experience uh with uh with mobile money.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes, you know, projects will go into communities and think that they're you know doing something brand new, but these communities have already been doing something similar for years or decades.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's looking at what does this community already have as strengths uh within their toolkit?
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, what are they already doing well?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we build on that as opposed to assuming that, you know, they don't know and we need to essentially teach them or, you know, or provide them, you know, it's it's simply just providing them with the tools and then getting out of the way essentially.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was also really cool how things kind of built off, you know, uh this as they went too, as they got community feedback.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were consistently working with the community to say what's working, what's not, what can we do better.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how they arrived at things like Puerto Protocol, which was integrated with WhatsApp.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, again, it's another important point is you know, listening to the community as you go.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and what I think that this project really demonstrated is that a lot of the times we assume that, you know, the technical side of things is the barrier here, right?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um, you know, folks not having access to, you know, a smartphone or traditional finance or those sorts of things.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, the exclusion was really structural.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was there was the ability to get the money there, but it was just these gatekeepers along the way that kind of made it difficult to happen.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so the value here was really about how do we route around these gatekeepers rather than creating a whole new technological solution.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is one of my favorite projects.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so unique.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they do such a great job.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a really cool organization as well that that is incredible at supporting women's sports in Somaliland, a place where unfortunately a lot of folks don't have access to sports in their daily life, um, especially organized sports.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a great opportunity there.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So those are five um what I think are really cool case studies.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that that you think so as well.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, I do have uh for a few of these for Hesse Pay, um, for all in for sport, I did an episode on the UNHCR collaboration as well.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh if you want to you know learn more about those, you can find them all on our website, which is cryptoaltrist.com, where we'll dive a bit deeper into each of these case studies.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So as we uh get to the near the end of this conversation, I wanted to kind of share, as I was looking at these case studies, and you know, I had a hard time picking which ones to go with because there's so many other ones that I could have selected as well that have done a great job of you know proving a lot that this technology can be a simple thing that can just be integrated into everyday uh life.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I was really thinking about which projects to include, and I think that these did a great job of kind of exemplifying what I see as kind of the three key things that folks should consider when they're building, you know, a project, especially one that's uh meeting last mile users.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the first is that you know, go where your users already are.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: So every project in this session here really won and was able to be successful by removing steps as opposed to adding features, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So as opposed to creating a new app, Minipay, embedded into an app that millions of people were already using every day.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, same within Somaliland with WhatsApp.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so what really happens is that the hardest work happens behind the interface so that we can make sure that the user never has to think about blockchain in the first place.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's about simplifying it as much as possible so that they don't have to go about worrying about what the heck is a blockchain, what is cryptocurrency, what is an L2, um, what is a stablecoin versus Bitcoin versus Ethereum.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just made it a lot you know easier so that they could focus on just going about their daily lives as opposed to having to learn something completely new.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this also leads kind of into the next one of solve a real problem and not a crypto problem.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So none of these projects went in and saying, I want to build a crypto, a crypto uh project, and I don't really know what, but crypto needs to be the answer.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, really, it's about going in and saying, what are the needs here?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are the pain points?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And how do we address that?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is crypto part of the solution?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: If not, that's okay too.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not everything needs to be crypto.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did a good job of leading with a specific painful everyday need and then use crypto rails because they were the best tool for the job, not because they were the shiniest tool or there was hype around it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that, you know, from my experience, I've also connected with a lot of projects that essentially unfortunately failed and didn't do well.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the time it was because they um were really just we want to build something crypto, as opposed to we want to build something that's addressing people's, you know, day-to-day problems, right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so they didn't take off because they didn't have that um, you know, that that North Star that they were building to.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have that real pain point.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't that product market fit for that reason.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the final kind of key takeaway that I think all these projects have in common is that adoption is built on trust, and trust is built with communities, not for them.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the early days of uh crypto and also just in in the legacy of humanitarian systems uh and humanitarian projects, a lot of them kind of came in with this almost like savior complex of, you know, we're gonna come in and we're gonna do this thing for you to make your life better.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's not the way to go about it, as many and as we all know, and as we've learned over time, um the important thing is to work with communities, have them as part of the process, have them be owners as part of it, as opposed to coming in and saying this is what you need, because we simply don't know what people need.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: We might have our best idea, we might know what we need or what we want, but we don't know what the community wants.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so what we need to do is really go in and say, you know, talk to us, we need to learn from you just as much, or if not more, than you know, you can learn from us.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so the most durable projects didn't arrive to teach or upgrade anyone.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: They started from what communities already had and then handed over the tools, and then they got out of the way, right?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was it was as simple as that, and and consistently building in those loops of feedback throughout as well.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of the three uh key takeaways.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was my presentation.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was pretty quick, about 30 minutes.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um that said, I, you know, I if there's anyone that has any questions or anything, uh, feel free to uh to to chime in or throw them in the chat.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you do want to get in touch, here's my contact information where you can learn more about the work that we can do, where you can listen to our podcast episodes, follow along.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you can also get in touch at uh cryptoalth, Drew at CryptoAlters.com is my personal email.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you have any follow-up questions or if there's anything more uh that you uh wanted to discuss following this, I'm always open to connecting with great projects.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then we're also, of course, on X and LinkedIn and a bunch of other um platforms as well.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one thing also that I wanted to mention is we are building a uh toolkit.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's already built.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're just continuing to build it and build more on top of it.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's meant for really uh impact builders that are interested in learning about how Web3 can benefit their impact projects.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we have Explain It Like on Five videos.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: We have uh on the core concepts of Web3, we have uh different course modules.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have, I think at this point, close to 20 different uh module videos on different kind of use cases.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um we have case studies highlighting many great projects, some of them which I discussed today, uh, as well as a resource library.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's another place you can go to learn more about what we do and to kind of see the toolkit.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a great uh tool for your communities to help onboard them as well.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can access that by going to cryptoaltras.com/slash toolkit.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the presentation.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, if you have any questions, feel free to throw them in the chat.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh thank you so much uh again for uh for taking the time to uh be here today.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening in on our special live episode with the good dollar community.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week when we're back to our regular schedule.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.