Latest / Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3 / Episode 263 - Innovation for Everyone: Impact Staking, Blockchain for Good, and the Future of Philanthropy, with The GSR Foundation

Transcript

Episode 263 - Innovation for Everyone: Impact Staking, Blockchain for Good, and the Future of Philanthropy, with The GSR Foundation · Crypto Altruists: Real-World Stories of Social & Environmental Impact with Web3

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today we'll discover an introduction to the DSR Foundation and their mission to ensure no one is excluded from the benefits of technology, the exciting blockchain for good project they support from new funding models for high-impact NGOs to tools for displaced communities and platforms for Web3 education, the power of stablecoins and impact staking to fund and power real-world social impact, and how we can build accessible educational opportunities that bridge the gap between the crypto world and the traditional nonprofit sector.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to CryptoLephics, where we explain interceptions for social codes, the stories of impact of the builders, and offer practical insights into our journey into the world of blockchain for good.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Truth Simon.
• 0:37
  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 discussed.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the CryptoLephics Podcast.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us today.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: On this show, we spend a lot of time exploring new models for funding impact.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And today's episode dives into one of the most exciting and forward-thinking approaches I've come across, put into practice by an organization doing some real kick-ass work in the space.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined by James Newell of the GSR Foundation, a global charity and grantmaker working to ensure that no one is excluded from the benefits of technology.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Their tagline says it beautifully: inclusion powers innovation.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: The GSR Foundation is also a supporter of crypto altruists and has been essential in helping us get our Web3 Impact toolkit off the ground.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you will recognize the GSR name from the crypto and trading world, and we'll get into the relationship between the company and the foundation.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what really drew me to this conversation is how the foundation is using the tools of this space to drive real world impact in ways that I think point towards the future of philanthropy.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Here's an example.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: The GSR Foundation is directing Ethereum staking rewards through Lido Impact Staking to fund incredible partners like UNICEF, Mercy Core Ventures, and Grassroots Economics, to name a few.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've listened to our past episodes on impact staking, you know why this gets me excited.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a model where you can put your crypto to work generating yields and direct that yield towards causes that matter, all without giving up your underlying assets.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's a true positive sumway to give.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're also going to talk about their work supporting partners like Relay Funder, which is building blockchain tools for displaced communities, how they are pioneering new ways to use stable coins to fund impact, why education is such a critical part of the mission, and how they make the case to a sometime skeptical nonprofit world.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: James, thank you so much for joining today on the CryptoUltras podcast.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I am so happy to finally have you on the podcast because I've been wanting to have you on for a bit now because of all the great work you're doing with GSR Foundation and also the support you've offered us here at CryptoUltras.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're an awesome partner.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for making the time to be here.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for inviting me.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a longtime listener, and so it's great to be a first-time participant.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, this is gonna be an interesting conversation.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna dive into you know, GSR, since it's its founding, has supported some incredible projects ranging from uh some work with Unicef to MercyCore to Impact Staking and also supporting us with our toolkit, uh, which has been a huge help.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we're excited to dive into that, really kind of just hear everything you've been working on.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe to kick things off before we dive into GSR Foundation, I'd love to learn a bit about your journey and how do you got to where you are today.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, tell me a little bit about that and how you ended up working with GSR Foundation.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: So my background is pretty much exclusively charities.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I I sort of advertised myself as a bit of a failed social worker because I I started uh seeking out a qualification in social work, uh, got a job working in uh a prison in the United Kingdom.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, cool.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, became very, very quickly disenfranchised with uh with that type of work.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not not because of um anything but myself.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I it just I wasn't cut out for it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was too hard, it was it was way too challenging, and and I I have the utmost respect for social workers, um, but it it wasn't a career ultimately I could see myself in.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: At that time in the UK, our government was shifting.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: So uh Gordon Brown was becoming Prime Minister over Tony Blair, which um um listeners will probably age me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but with that with that came a lot of changes in statutory funding.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So um the charity I worked for lost a lot of money overnight.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I said to my boss at the time, can I have a go at fundraising?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I I think I've decided that that social work's not for me.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: I still want to work in this setting, still very interested in prison reform and and and supporting um this environment.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I mapped into fundraising and have never really looked back.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I sort of uh secured my first big gifts.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: That charity is still alive and well today, which is which is awesome.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and basically consider myself a fundraiser.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been sort of in and around the the relationship fundraising world for nearly sort of 20 years now.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh historically, I did that for sort of a range of charities.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I I set up and exited a small consultancy business uh in that space.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and the the cornerstone of my career has been setting up and scaling charities, which I've done from an executive and non-executive point of view.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up at the World Economic Forum in 2018, where blockchain was very much a central topic.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I became really interested in the role that decentralized ledgers and this kind of technology could play in supporting some of the people that I had worked with in my career.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then my Eureka moment, I suppose, came probably about four years ago when I wanted to send money to a friend of mine who's in a conflict uh afflicted country.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and the traditional financial system said no, I wasn't able to send that money.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I became very interested in the role of crypto and being able to send money um via sort of a blockchain that didn't require an intermediary, and it was cheaper, it was faster, and ultimately it was possible.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so around that time I connected with GSR, the cryptocurrency trading firm, and uh they were looking to set up a foundation.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it was good timing because I sort of outlined what I had learned through my journey with crypto, and it was very, very in line with what the foundation wanted to achieve.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've been going for about four years now, uh, running the GSR foundation.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I'm I'm been in crypto all that time and I've really, really enjoyed it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's really interesting.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we share a lot of common background, I think.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, both of us being fundraisers within the social services sector.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I actually managed a halfway house, so having that justice connection as well is really interesting.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that about you.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really cool to hear your background and you know, hearing that, it sets you up very well for the work that you're doing with GSR Foundation, um, which has the tagline, Inclusion Powers Innovation.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that really stands out to me.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe for listeners who aren't as familiar with the work that you're doing, what's the mission and what does the foundation you know set out to do?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, great question.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, first sort of caveat is what we're new.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and when we set the foundation up, we had a very, very broad remit.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we were looking at all the systemic barriers that prevented people from benefiting from the new technologies that were sort of becoming um both sort of prominent within GSR, but also globally of global importance.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so we did a lot of sort of brainstorming and fact-finding around sort of what we mean by barriers, because obviously barriers affect the same barriers affect different populations very differently.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, in in countries perhaps where women are educated differently to men, the same barrier can affect a different population in completely different ways.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to take a holistic approach to how we supported our philanthropy and establish uh some parameters that we considered good practice.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think with um a lot of the innovation work we were seeing in the space, uh inclusion was something of an afterthought.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it innovation was sort of what people were pursuing, but ultimately it was done at the cost of including the people who benefit from the innovation.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: So our sort of our sort of mission was around the inclusion powering the innovation, flipping kind of that assumption on its head and making sure that the people who experience the problems that that this technology can help are the ones actually driving it.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: One of my greatest frustrations kind of with the global charity space is that so much of it is built on the unpaid labour of uh non-executive directors and trustees, which obviously is great.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a voluntary sector and it's supported by volunteers, but ultimately by ensuring there's a layer of people at the top of charities that can afford to take unpaid labour, what you find that does in lots of instances, if not most instances, is pushes those that are closest to the problems furthest from the solutions.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so we wanted to make sure that with our philanthropy, we were making sure that we recognize that you know global talent is distributed um normally.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so it doesn't make sense to exclude people from typically excluded markets from creating solutions.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So in practice, what that looks like is the grants we give typically are unrestricted.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: They support organizations to cover core costs, so we don't um it we don't sort of pretend to know how to spend money better than the organization delivering the work.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um and we're also willing to fund early uh an experiment and you know, in in philanthropy, more traditional philanthropy, there's sort of this global expectation that everything should work, whereas in our space, we're very comfortable with something not working or not working as expected.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so we build that into our into our core methodology.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I love the focus on just like relationship building with your partners as well.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like a lot of traditional fundraising or grants are very like transactional almost.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like, you know, you submit your application, you get your funding, you submit your report, you get the rest of your funding, and then it's like, okay, see you later.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, whereas you're really focused on building that relationship and getting to know the partners and learning from them and working with them, which is fantastic.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, before we dive into that and some of the partners that you have been working with, I think it's important to just uh highlight the GSR connection as well, because many listening obviously know of GSR as a major name in the crypto trading world.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So can you tell me a little bit more about that relationship uh between GSR the company and the GSR Foundation and kind of um what that support looks like?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, the the the phrase I I guess that that we use is GSR uh founded and GSR funded, but not GSR directed.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: So we're a UK charity, a charitable incorporated organization, and we follow the guidance of the charity commission in England and Wales.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and independence, particularly in decision making, is very, very important to what we do.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: So GSR, when it was launched, that for the founders it was important to have a philanthropic arm to the firm, um, which is just baked into how the firm does business.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and obviously it was what attracted me.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and also by hiring someone like me, by hiring someone who's sort of been at the coalface and has has done the grind of building charities, uh, you know, I I was particularly eager to align myself with a company that wanted to do it correctly and not sort of in some of the more performative uh corporate philanthropy of um of other organizations.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I was really, really happy that they listened to you and and co-created a really, really great strategy that that uh adheres to the principles I've outlined in the previous answer.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it was aligned with GSR's 10-year anniversary.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: So uh when we started, we were looking in 2023.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: We've survived 10 years, which is certainly not a given in this space, um, and we expect to survive much longer.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, so GSR committed$10 million uh as part of its 10-year anniversary, and we started to use that capital to identify the ways in which we we could uh deliver on our mission.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: But what we found out very quickly was that there was a real gap in the crypto and sort of blockchain for goods space.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that was why we sort of um decided to fill that because we find ourselves in this very privileged position where we have got um uh a useful and and significant budget from you know one of the best in the business.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and means I and the foundation have got access to some of the smartest people in crypto.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we wanted to use the expertise in the firm to support the philanthropy of the foundation.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it made logical sense as we came to market to be quite broad, because I think it's fair to say at that time, even in sort of 22, 23, there wasn't a massive amount of truly viable kind of crypto innovation um in the philanthropy space.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: But increasingly, over the course of you know, bringing us to date, that's changed massively.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: That there have been some really viable and credible evolutions and some significant developments and some significant kind of cultural and technical shifts within organizations that that see the value and support the value of cryptocurrency.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: So effectively, we've sharpened our focus from a very broad base, which we use to learn, uh, to learn how to be a good grant maker and to focus our philanthropy.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we've really decided to zero in on um supporting new methodologies.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love that approach.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it definitely shows, you know, in just you know, my experience working with you and our partnership.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, I'd love to now kind of look at before we explore the projects, uh, the approach to funding in terms of uh your different funding verticals you have.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know that there is blockchain for good that you mentioned, education infrastructure and internet provision.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so talk to me about these funding verticals and how you landed on these is where you wanted to focus.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so thank you.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So so we from our original grants, we built a thesis of where we thought our our support could be the most effective.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and in chronological, I guess, in sort of order of precedence of our current strategy, blockchain for good sits very much at the top of that because we think there's the most space there for a foundation like us to drive the dialogue forward and to build the learning and to create momentum.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because one of the other things that we we've been um enjoying and and sort of working towards is bringing other people on this journey with us, so um, and supporting other people as they develop their respective journeys.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: So we do a lot of work with um LMAX and Exchange as they're launching their new LMAX Impact product, which you know more information will come out in the public domain soon, but that that's super exciting.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's great to see a group of you know crypto businesses that have made money in this space recognizing their role to give back to it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so across blockchain for good, basically we're looking at um areas where blockchain-based technologies do things smarter than existing aid modalities.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, anyone who works in aid or who's had his you know historic um uh sort of career trajectory in building out um aid interventions will know the last mile, getting cash from the aid actor to the actual individual or individuals in need is expensive, it's timely, um, it can be complex with um local liquidity or currency devaluation.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at things like stable coins and the role it can play in um revolutionising areas like that.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: One thing we notice is there's a there's an awful lot of piloting.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in pilots, it's very, very easily to artificially create things like off-ramps, um, which might not exist in kind of day-to-day.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, how we're approaching blockchain for good now is very much looking at which of the pilot stuff and the pilot methodologies can be scaled to real world.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's our our overarching goal for blockchain for good.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But within that, we're exploring lots of other methodologies, you know, um staking yield, um, tokenized giving, you know, everyone's tokenizing everything at the moment.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: So looking at kind of how we tokenise um financial products to support people.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and there's loads of really exciting stuff in there.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's what we're looking at.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: On the other two, with education, infrastructure, and internet provision, uh obviously that there's a skills gap.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: So some people are less able to use this technology because they've not experienced it, and some people are fundamentally not able to use this technology because they're excluded from the internet.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, as sort of support pillars, it makes sense to address both the connectivity gap and the skills gap in the other two pillars.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um that makes complete sense the way that they all kind of tie together here.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And um I think you know going through some examples and case studies will make that even more clear.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, such cool projects that, and it's such a cool range of projects that you supported as well.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have the map on your website where you can see some of the different ones.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I'd like to start with impact staking because uh I know that there's been a kind of unique partnership here as well.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than just you providing them funding, you've actually also staked rewards on their platform, uh, Laddo Impact Staking and their stablecoin uh for the platform as well, and directed it towards partners like uh Unit Venture Fund, Mercy Core Ventures, Unitf Giga.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's some really cool, um it's a really cool kind of test of the mechanism yourself in addition to also supporting it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so can you break down kind of the partnership with impact staking, how it all works, and and why you decided to also kind of you know go in on that and and stake some of your treasury uh on their protocol?
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, for for us, we don't maintain a particularly significant crypto balance.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um we sort of have a small amount of various tokens and coins uh that we use to experiment and support sort of um startup stuff.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but obviously we we were holding some Ethereum and it makes a lot of sense to stake it so it can generate some yield rather than sit idle.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I was super interested in the work launch nodes were doing.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think they were the first people to really recognize that that sort of a painless pathway to uh donate those yields in a tax-efficient and straightforward dashboard-based environment made a lot of sense.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: The partnership with Lido obviously made a lot of sense too, because uh it it's an established actor and it makes it credible and reliable.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we had some good relationships with the people that the stake and rewards can be pointed to, so UNICEF, MercyCore and various others.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: So for us it was it was logical.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: We had some Ethereum and we wanted to prove the concept, particularly in a traditional philanthropic setting, because you know, things like donor advice funds are very much on the rise and that they're often talked about in traditional philanthropy as a really good way to leverage kind of significant amounts of money into the philanthropy space.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with um donor advice funds, obviously, they're they're captured by the more traditional financial systems.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, there's a lot of regulation, uh, they they can be quite time consuming to deploy capital.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and there's also no sort of pressure to deploy capital too.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, some some people set up donor advised funds for the tax advantage and then sit on the capital and sort of you know drip it out slowly.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh argue very much is that you know doing it on chain and doing it via an impact-staking methodology uh means that that the yield is given straight away.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it it that the principle is not diminished, but but the yield is given.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we think there are some really strong um use cases for that, particularly pre-deployment.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're making the case in the foundation that um, you know, crypto donations and and crypto kind of cachet cash assistance deployments represent a better way to do it than in some instances than traditional um cash-based assistance programs, then there's going to be instances where there'll be significant balances of crypto pre-deployment.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so what what I I think the value in this, or one of the values in this, is creating an opportunity where Ethereum or or other um majors or stable coins can be held to generate a yield while um big interventions and big deployments are broken.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, and and all the other things uh that to me that are appealing about it are we've always got control of the budget.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we can unstake it and have it back in our account within a couple of days, which is incredibly useful.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, at the moment, where where we are sort of um working through our cash flow at the moment, uh, we have done that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have unstaked some and put it back in the account, and it's super easy to do, and it's also really easy to redeploy and re-stake.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, it's an incredibly straightforward uh way to make the absolute best use of our reserves that gives us complete control.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's such a cool mechanism.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this concept of like, you know, putting um the kind of gains from the principal to good as opposed to the principal so it can kind of create that more sustainable path to giving.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, one of them uh so there's also the stablecoin for impact uh project they're pioneering uh using stablecoin lending yield also through, you know, the same platform launch by launch nodes to help fund UNICEF Giga's mission to connect every school in the world to the internet, which is great.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that obviously aligns perfectly with a couple of the funding verticals of yours that you have.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so can you tell us a little bit more about that, this partnership and um why you see this kind of as like a key aspect of the future of philanthropy, having this option to kind of stake for good?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, the stablecoin piece that came after the Ethereum piece felt logical for us because obviously there are going to be some people that won't want the volatility risk of holding a major cryptocurrency, or their constitution won't allow them to do it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, stable coins represent a far safer, more reliable uh mechanism.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the stablecoin, for impact, is layered on top of Aave, um, which is a decentralized lending protocol of some.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, most of the listeners will know.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: And basically, the the donations are deployed into the lending pools, which gives a very, very low volatility way to earn yield on stable coins, which can be deployed in exactly the same way.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so what LaunchNodes is doing now is building up a portfolio of partners who want to be a part of this technology, who want to benefit from these yields.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And in tandem with that, that they're finding people who've got balances of crypto that they want to deploy in this way so that they can retain the capital, but they can also, you know, deploy either with the volatility risk of Ethereum or without the volatility risk that comes with stable coins.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I know that uh one of the partners that you're working with on this is UNICEF that you've worked with in a couple of different areas.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: They have their venture fund and crypto fund.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's the Gigam project as well.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So talk to me about the uh partnership with UNICEF.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, because they're the largest, as far as I know, largest uh children serving and children and youth serving organization in the world, which is incredible.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um so talk to me about that partnership and kind of how that's going and how that came to be.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, so we we'd be really, really interested in the venture fund and and specifically the crypto fund within that.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And what what became abundantly clear to us is when we wanted to um make significant gifts in the in the charitable space for crypto forward projects, ultimately it was kind of the big actors who had the resources to take kind of the the perceived risks to understanding and investing in this technology.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so we particularly liked what UNICEF does in sort of enabling and and bringing up sort of local actors, and we recognize that that through a partnership with them and their venture funds, we'd be able to get to people and projects that have got a lower profile.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, perhaps GSR Foundation wouldn't have found and they wouldn't have found us.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: But it's helped us identify the type of projects that we want to build into our portfolio ongoing, uh, and we've we've got some great partnerships from that.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the other the other big sort of drive within UNICEF and across the other UN agencies with whom we have a relationship is is that the more they can progress with cryptos within their ecosystems.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, UNICEF now can receive, hold, and disperse Bitcoin, um, you know, exploring the role of stable coins, et cetera, et cetera, the more that that can become accepted and um understood within the UN ecosystem, the more traction it gets.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so for us, helping the big actors understand and implement uh this technology in their mechanisms will then filter down via the venture fund models that that UNICEF operates, that MercyCor operates.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, one of the one of the um sort of key things that I always encourage people to think about is the charity sector uses the word innovation a lot.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh innovation is is is different depending on the scale of your organization, in my opinion.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're running a small organization or a medium-sized organization, often innovation means sort of keeping the lights on and keeping payroll met.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, while it would be lovely to imagine a world where everyone has the capacity to look at on-chain innovation and apply that to their operating models, the reality in this sort of resource-strapped environment is that that's not the case.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so our approach to kind of our bigger partnerships with UNICEF and MercyCore uh was to build and learn with them and then work out how we take the bits that work and disseminate them down into the organizations um that are smaller and less able to innovate in this way.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I love that.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's so cool.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I mean UNICEF, I I have said it's so interesting because you have, I think back to the days here in Canada, we used to do this thing where on Halloween we'd go around trick-or-treating with UNICEF boxes and collect change and then you know, donate them.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's just just cool seeing how like over time UNICEF has evolved and innovated and you know tried new things.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll be right back after this brief announcement.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Are you part of a nonprofit or mission-driven organization curious about Web3 but not sure where to start?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've got you covered.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Crypto Alternates Web3 Impact Toolkit is a free, comprehensive resource designed to help nonprofits and change makers navigate the world of crypto and web3.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: From accepting crypto donations to exploring blockchain tools for transparency and impact, the toolkit breaks it all down in a way that's practical, accessible, and jargon-free.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything you need to take the first steps all in one place, and the early access is now live.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: So no matter where you're at and what your knowledge of crypto is currently, I'd recommend checking it out.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's really for everyone.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So head to cryptoaltist.com/slash toolkit or simply click the link in the show notes.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: And now back to the episode.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I know in addition to that, you do support also some really great uh smaller organizations, some newer projects that are coming online as well.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Relay Funder is one that comes to mind.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you tell me a little bit about them?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's such a cool initiative that that they're doing, and I'd love to share it with listeners.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So Relay Funder um is kind of at its core a very simple way for um refugees and uh displaced sort of community leaders to fund the campaigns that support their work.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's it's a it's a decentralized uh sponsor-seeded match fund, basically, uh built out um on blockchain technology uh to ensure that the people who are very much at the bleeding edge of the problems that that you know affect their communities and affect them personally are supported and enabled with secure digital identity, you know, mobile-based savings, verifiable public edges, all the things that we're learning from our bigger partnerships are then supported and made easy for people for whom this technology will typically not be available about democratizing access to it.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah, we're we're we're we're early on in a partnership with with Relay Fund, but but we're really pleased with with how it's growing and uh expect to see this model hopefully as um a a linchpin of of support ongoing.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's great.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I just loved hearing about Relay Funder.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely I need to learn more.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it sounds like a really cool organization.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And is there any other projects that um that you've partnered with, any other kind of outcomes or impacts that you wanted to highlight from your work so far before we move on to the next part of the conversation?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I mean we have we have loads of really, really exciting sort of uh partnerships uh within um within our output.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And lots of them.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: So because we're funding uh more core costs, so for salaries, et cetera, we're not looking more explicitly at outcomes, so so how many more people served.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're looking more at things like, you know, are people able to build the engine?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Are they able to um develop uh reasonable uh fundraising strategies to drive pieces of work forward?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think for us, one of the most exciting things we've been working on around this space is we've started doing some research into how young people are engaging with crypto.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're gradually shifting a little bit more into the policy environment.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we did some research with the London Foundation for Banking and Finance into how young people are using crypto because we're particularly interested that for young people, one of the overriding findings was that their experience of sort of currency in the first instance is frictionless.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in a way that when Drew, you and I were growing up, it probably wasn't.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I remember sitting with a bank manager to set up a bank account.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, young young people aren't having these experiences, and and lots of their first experiences with kind of cash is more like digital in-game currencies, it's it's using smart cards to pay for lunch at school or whatever.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: So the young people that are sort of growing up with um cash and finance today are um increasingly expecting a frictionless space.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what we what we found in our research was that the existing financial curriculum was ill-equipped to deal with uh questions around blockchain and crypto.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, as you all know, in that space, there are a lot of um less than credible sources where a young person might get information uh that might be detrimental.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we want to do with our funding, you know, as a part of our blockchain for good output, is support the curriculum and support the financial actors uh in the space to make sure that that crypto, you know, as something that's here to say, it is a part of that.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so for us, I think that's the most exciting thing we're working on at the moment.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it would take it would take a lot of podcasts to go through all the cool stuff that um that our partners are doing.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, totally, absolutely.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: We could make this a series if we if we wanted to, for sure.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, another piece of that education we've talked a lot about.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we're grateful, obviously, that you supported our work through our Web3 Impact Toolkit.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, I I do remember reading actually that research paper.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think you sent me a an early draft of that to review.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh and it was very interesting seeing some of the findings and the disconnect between kind of you know younger folks that are coming up in the in the school system and crypto and finance more generally.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really great that you're doing that work too.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why do you see education as such an important piece of the puzzle?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess what's holding nonprofits and just individuals back from really embracing these tools?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: What are the key kind of barriers right now?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I so I think I mean crypto often has a reputation issue.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I mean, if I I suppose more than that, it's more time.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I I've been working in the charity sector about the same time as you, Drew.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've we've been around a long time and and and I've not known it to be sort of as bad as it is in terms of not just lack of resource, but also uncertainty.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are big um there are big changes expected and um in progress in how the US delivers aid, um in how Canada delivers aid, and in how the UK delivers aid.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we've just had a new government here, uh or a new prime minister here, sorry.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are we are in a really, really uncertain time.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so as a charity leader, it can be incredibly difficult to know where to focus your time and resource.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and probably at this point, it's it's irresponsible to suggest that people should be looking uh at blockchain stuff because there is a lot of other more integral um you know things to be to be focusing on now.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: So our view very much is let us take the risk.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna go out with our philanthropy, find what works, and then via mechanisms through like yours, uh, work out ways to disseminate it in as painless and as straightforward as a way as possible, but also be very open about what works and what doesn't, because you know, a lot of the blockchain stuff that comes across my desk candidly adds more complexity than clarity.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there is there is a real um, or or perhaps less now, but there certainly was a real uh focus around just being new and shiny and and not actually involving the people that that would benefit from the products that are being developed.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're very cognizant that we sort of have an opportunity and a role to sense check and um debug lots of what's out there.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, the the goal for the next three, four, five years is to disseminate and create the rails.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when people go, that's interesting, how can we do it?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: We've got places to point them to because that's what's lacking at the moment.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh really great, really great.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, on this um kind of note of education and and barriers as well, um, I want to talk a little bit about the nonprofit and philanthropic space because you'd mentioned kind of like the stigma around crypto.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of folks are still sitting on the block on the sidelines when it comes to crypto and blockchain.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm sure you've had lots of uh interesting conversations uh with leaders in this space about this.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um what do you what would you say to a skeptical kind of charity or nonprofit leader about why they should you know explore the world of crypto or not, maybe.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um like what would your what would that conversation look like?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and and that's a great question.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, generally when you tell people you work in crypto, uh the the the first response you get is I don't understand that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh or you know, it's not something I I hear about it, but it's not something I understand or or want to understand particularly.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my my sort of response to that is it it it's not it's not massively complicated.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, uh understanding kind of how a basic blockchain works, understanding how um digital assets uh and and sort of tokenization processes can work, it is actually well within everyone's gift.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you know, efforts like yours uh drive that stuff forward.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I encourage any charity leader to identify where the pain points are.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And often in in similar charities, the pain points are quite similar, um, you know, particularly those that deliver aid to uh populations that that are kind of in environments where there's conflict or or or there's other mitigating factors that make them harder to support.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I encourage them to look at what's been published and and read the pilots that are out there around uh where things are being done differently and where things are being done better.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: I also encourage them to look beyond just the price action.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, specifically and especially at the moment, uh it can be very, very easy to get um, you know, disenfranchised with the price action.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the technology remains the same, right?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: The the you know, and and and the technology is improving, and um we're we're working towards, I think, way more institutional adoption.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we know that the that the bigger traditional financial actors are taking more of an interest in this space.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, increasingly, alongside that and alongside um um further regulatory clarity from the big regulators, this is becoming more established as an asset class.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so while I do encourage people to exercise a healthy degree of caution, uh, as I would with any new uh modality kind of in in aid, I do ask that they kind of keep it on the table.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: And there are ways to de-risk it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, cryptocurrency is not homogenous, you've got you know, speculative uh meme coins, uh you know, right up to stable coins and everything in between.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing I encourage people to do is if they think that some of the things that the crypto promises in the existing literature uh could support them is to use platforms like yours to identify what it means, to skill themselves up.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and if they think it has a legitimate role that can support their organization, open up a conversation with someone like us.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm I'm very, very easy to contact.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, or you know, that there are other people that that are similarly easy to contact, uh, and take a little bit of time to understand the technology because um, you know, with the best will in the world, if I can understand it, um they can too.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that there's been so much great work being done to really simplify things too in abstract away the complexity.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, a lot of that work is being done by folks that you're working with and supporting through GSR.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so first of all, thank you.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and this actually leads this nice segue as well into my next question because obviously we weren't able to cover everything in this conversation.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, where's the best place for folks to go to learn more about GSR Foundation, to get in touch with you?
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And do you have a call to action for them?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you, Drew.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so we have a website which is gsrfoundation.io.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's in the process of being updated at the moment.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so it it you know it it's not as up to date as I'd like it, and and I I'm improving that sort of as as as we build out the foundation.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: But people can contact us there or or they can find me on LinkedIn where I'm quite active.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and uh if they have something they think that fits within our parameters, mindful that at the moment we're we're looking more explicitly at blockchain uh as the primary driver for support, please do reach out.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're also pretty active on the speaking circuit.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So uh you know, we attend a lot of the crypto events and increasingly lots of the charity events too.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, encourage people if they're interested to participate and and to join the sort of the growing body of sector-aligned blockchain um sort of uh events.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but ultimately, yeah, I mean I'm I'm very easy to contact.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm delighted for people to do so if if they've got something they want to run by me.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and yeah, if there's anything interesting that people are working on, very, very pleased to hear about it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we'll make sure to include all those links in the show notes for folks listening along so they can easily uh get in touch, follow along, see the cool projects that you're supporting.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I'd like to, as we get to the end of this conversation, I'd like to go kind of full circle here and wrap things up, uh, revisiting the thesis that we talked about right at the beginning of inclusion powers innovation.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that no one should be excluded from the benefits of technology.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, at the same time, we're in a very unique context, as you mentioned just a second ago, about how challenging things are right now in the nonprofit sector, how much aid is shifting worldwide, how much uncertainty there is.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look ahead to the future and you also recognize this current context that you're in, what makes you most hopeful about the role these technologies can play in building a more inclusive world and really helping kind of fill this gap that's been left by these shifting priorities?
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think there's two answers to that question.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: The first for me is kind of technology-based.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: So particularly with cash assistance programs, so so with that type of aid, we're seeing a shift uh to it.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we're seeing sort of a rise in prominence of um that being a preferred methodology for the big aid actors, so so that that is giving cash directly to people in need so that they can deploy it in the local economy to solve their own problems.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: For me, that's where the most obvious use cases for stable coins are.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, as someone who's brokered that with more traditional methodologies in previous careers, the cost, the timing, the uncertainty is all mitigated.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I hesitate to say solved, but but you know, let's say could be solved with stable coins in that kind of deployment.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, the ability to make that cheaper um creates a saving, you know, and and billions is lost in that sort of financial transaction fee associated there.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the ability to use stable coins to realise that saving, yes, there's not much more new money coming into Aid, but the ability to create an efficiency of scale there for me is is you know absolutely incredibly exciting.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then I suppose just on a more sort of macro uh sector, uh crypto sector sort of point of view, one thing that's super encouraging is lots of the big crypto companies are recognizing that this is not just sort of a nice to do, but but a need to do.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, in sort of decentralized financial technology, the most compelling use cases are for those who are excluded from traditional financial systems.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, they lay squarely in the types of projects that we've worked on historically.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: So seeing the sector rally around um philanthropy and rally around kind of building public goods into their commercial outputs is is really, really powerful.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we're seeing a lot more of that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm having loads of conversations with you know, friends, partners, even competitors, you know, strictly uh who want to get this right and recognize that we'll move further if we do this together.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so from my point of view, I think, you know, as as an as a still relatively nascent industry that has still got a long way to go.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: And my belief is its best years are very much ahead of it.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's really, really exciting to be involved in the early stage sort of aggregation of some really smart people doing some really smart things and making sure that that's sort of sufficiently um you know built around synergy that um that that accelerates the whole thing.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's it's a really, really exciting time to be in this space, which I'm sure you'll agree.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um very exciting time indeed.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's really interesting because during these kind of market dips is when you see a lot of these really great projects kind of like, you know, build up their foundation and really, you know, build for the future.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're certainly seeing that now as well.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you've been a big part of that with the work that you're doing with GSR Foundation.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for everything that you're doing.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you so much for taking the time to share your wisdom today.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a great pleasure to finally sit down and have this conversation.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for those listening along, of course, head to the show notes.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have all the links so you can follow along and get in touch.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: James, thank you so much for sharing your time and wisdom today.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: That was a great conversation.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate it.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, Drew, and I appreciate everything you do for this day.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that was James Newell of the GSR Foundation.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot I'm taking away from this, but a few things really stand out.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that the GSR Foundation walks the walk.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing to talk about new models for funding impact, and another to actually put your own capital to work doing it.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: Impact staking is the perfect example.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: By staking crypto from the treasury and directing Ethereum staking rewards towards partners like the NISF Venture Fund, Mercy Core Ventures, and Giga, they're not just endorsing the idea of channeling on-chain yield into real-world good, they're proving it, which is so important in this space.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: The second is their approach to funding.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: I really admire that they're proactive, relationship-driven grantmakers, seeking out aligned partners and investing in genuine long-term relationships rather than just processing applications.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I also love that they're not afraid to back early-stage projects like Relay Funders that are doing bold, unproven work.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Supporting innovation means taking chances on ideas before they're safe bets, and that willingness to support early experiments is where some of the most important impact comes from.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the third is a big shout out to GSR, the company, for funding the incredible work of the GSR Foundation.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's also to see leaders in this space step up and use their resources to create real impact.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, before we wrap up, I want to once again thank the GSR Foundation for funding our Web3 Impact Toolkit.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_00: Without their support, we truly would have never got it off the ground.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if listeners want to learn more about the GSR Foundation, explore their work, or dig into their resources, we've included all the relevant links in the show notes.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: A huge thank you to James for sharing their work with us today, and to the entire GSR team for the impact they're creating and for supporting the work we do here.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that wraps up today's episode of CryptoAltress.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for tuning in.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you enjoyed the conversation with it.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit the CryptoAltress.com for articles, resources, and more.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you love what you heard doing mean the world, it's good great of you and subscribe to the podcast.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And keeping the platform going strong.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, let's keep going a little bit of crypto.