Potential to use Ethereum to empower disenfranchised communities in Latin America

Here’s the update: Ethereum Foundation Researcher Marcus AM.

Hello 👋, my name is Marcus and I am a researcher and builder from Guatemala. EF Fellow. An optimist, I am a leader in leveraging social, cultural and technological innovations to create a better society. This is a belief I have had since I was young.

Guatemala: A country of challenging opportunities

As a child, I spent weekends with my father visiting many of Guatemala’s most desolate villages. At the time, he was running a non-profit organization whose mission was to provide last-mile medical care and establish educational programs. The community we visited most often was the village of Puntarenas.

To get to Puntarenas, we would take a boat and travel up to three hours through dense mangrove forests to reach villages deep in the jungle. When we first began our visit, communities in Puntarenas had limited access to clean water, no health or education infrastructure, and little economic activity.

Founded during the civil war, the people of Puntarenas sought refuge from the violence and massacres that claimed the lives of more than 200,000 innocent civilians across the country. For the time being, I will not address the harsh reality of American involvement in Latin America (and beyond) during the Cold War. However, if you want to learn more about this topic, I highly recommend Schlesinger and Kinzer’s book. bitter fruit.

Over the years, we have worked with communities in Puntarenas to run medical and dental campaigns, build health clinics, build homes, and raise funds to invest in infrastructure, including community-run schools.

Decades later, Puntarenas is now a self-sufficient village. There, families have access to education, health care, water, and energy (provided by solar panels that also power several of the school’s computers)! What is happening in Puntarenas is a reminder that access to decent basic services can have a huge impact on communities even in the most dire circumstances.

The story of Puntarenas depicts the reality of Guatemala, a beautiful country full of culture, rich heritage and beautiful landscapes. At first glance, Guatemala seems to be a relatively wealthy country. Actually we Highest GDP in Central America And at some point, largest number of helicopters per capita worldwide.

Unfortunately, Guatemala’s socioeconomic structure paints a completely different picture. We are a country facing extreme inequality due to a violent civil war that lasted 36 years and a history of exploitation and corruption. Throughout Guatemala’s rural and predominantly indigenous regions, it is not uncommon to encounter communities like Puntarena once were, cut off from basic services such as running water, energy, shelter, health care, education and food. Despite these difficult circumstances, people in the region are working to create better livelihoods for themselves and those around them.

Impact begins at home

One of the biggest challenges in development is More than 19.6 million people in Guatemala live in degraded conditions.. In the most extreme cases, multiple generations have to share a room, where stoves pollute the air and hygiene is not a consideration.

We believe that providing decent housing is fundamental to building a better future for all. After all, home is where we spend most of our time, where we learn, where family comes together, and where dreams are born.

That’s why a group of lifelong friends and I are working on the following plan. Lamina Pop. Lamina POP is a patented construction technology that uses commonly found building materials in innovative ways to build inexpensive, lightweight, and architecturally sound homes. The technology is simple and can be deployed in even the most remote areas of Guatemala.

Lamina POP’s system, in collaboration with partners including Habitat for Humanity, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford, is dramatically improving the wellbeing of people who build homes. Collectively, we believe that home is more than four walls. This is an opportunity to convey a new sense of optimism and growth.

The results of quality homes are noticeable. From improving educational outcomes, reducing the environmental impact of housing to improving psychological wellbeing, we have identified the incredible drivers of development that the Lamina POP system can deliver. We are excited about the prospect of continuing to evolve and bring more innovation-driven solutions to Guatemala and beyond.

Despite our efforts, we found that one of the key barriers to mass adoption of innovative solutions like Lamina POP was the lack of financial infrastructure and education in disenfranchised communities. Lamina POP’s solution is 30% cheaper than other leading low-cost housing alternatives, but the people we want to build homes don’t have access to low-interest loans to invest in a home for their families.

Many of the financial transactions that occur across these communities occur in the ‘informal’ economy. Payments are made in cash, liabilities are not recorded, and goods and services are far beyond the purview of financial institutions. Guatemala’s current financial infrastructure makes sending payments, accessing low-interest loans, building a credit history, and tracking commerce nearly impossible. The operation of the ‘informal’ economy closes the doors to ordinary people from accessing mortgages, personal loans and business investments.

As a result, many of these individuals rely on predatory lenders (e.g. traditional financial institutions) who exploit vulnerable populations for their own gain. It is not uncommon to find them throughout Latin America. A private loan shark who lends at a monthly interest rate of 20%. serious debt Puts many people in a precarious situation It forces them to lose their property deeds, become delinquent, or worse, take their own lives.

Can cryptocurrency help?

Above all, the promise of cryptocurrencies is to create new, more equitable economic models that can benefit everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Some see the promise of DeFi as its ability to provide financial services to people who lack access to traditional financial products in emerging economies around the world, including some of the world’s most marginalized communities.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably optimistic about the potential of technology to solve some of these problems. Maybe this means a decentralized network. fundamentally revolutionize How we interact with ourselves, each other, and systems of power. Or it could simply mean an app that uses new, more accurate types of digital information to assess someone’s creditworthiness so they can get the right interest rate for a small loan. I think the reality is somewhere in between.

In its current form, it is a stretch to say that DeFi is ready to provide a viable new path to large-scale financial inclusion. We face enormous barriers to digital and financial literacy, institutional trust, and significant challenges in user experience. But despite the current state of the industry, I believe that anything is possible to build solutions that work for communities like Puntarenas.

My Next Billion Fellowship

Over the past few months, I have been actively exploring ways to leverage the power of Ethereum to break down barriers to financial empowerment. My goal is to research multiple viable solutions based on cryptography for financial inclusion and access to credit to ultimately enable human prosperity in Guatemala and beyond.

I have been researching what money rego could be useful in places like Puntarenas and the rest of Guatemala. In particular, I have been exploring adoption barriers and potential solutions that can be used to unlock peer-to-peer lending for those who lack access to more equitable financing mechanisms.

To date, as part of my research, I have spoken to members of hundreds of cryptocurrency projects, including leading DeFi protocols, DAOs, identity and scaling solutions, and other core developers, designers, and wallet builders. I have also conducted conversations and interviews with key local projects, government agencies and international NGOs across Guatemala and other emerging economies to understand where cryptocurrencies can act as a new means of coordination and a catalyst for equitable financial services.

This research was incredibly insightful and allowed us to better understand the current state of DeFi and the potential of the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem in emerging economies.

next stage

I am currently preparing an open-source report that will provide a detailed understanding of the current cryptocurrency landscape and provide recommendations on how best to leverage cryptocurrencies to increase financial inclusion, especially in emerging economies. We plan to publish the final report by the first week of March (in line with ETHDenver), so stay tuned!

In addition to the written report, we plan to publish an audio-visual series involving various stakeholders. This includes cryptocurrency-based thought leaders and builders, those deploying solutions to emerging economies leveraging cryptocurrencies, and, of course, last-mile communities and organizations that will ultimately benefit from this technology.

The reports and video series I am creating are primarily aimed at builders in the cryptocurrency industry who want to best understand the landscape of technological, educational, and social challenges and opportunities they need to consider. It also includes influential organizations across emerging countries seeking to understand how cryptocurrencies can specifically benefit their efforts and initiatives.

To get the latest findings from our research via email and to contribute to the report: Subscribe and Create a Mint Free NFTs from Mirror. Let’s connect too Twitter!