It’s hard to overlook the fact that female founders are strongly represented in the impact-focused industries. This might be a reflection of the educational background, leading to a focus on economics, the humanities, natural sciences, as well as creative subjects. However, the vast majority of tech startups are still founded by men and it’s totally mind-boggling that the pace of change in this arena is soooo slow.

There are AWESOME women building and growing companies, developing exciting products, solving critical problems, and harnessing the power of technology to spur innovation.

At positiveblockchain.io, we want to contribute to this group of women. We want to help move the above linked statistics in a better direction. Part of that mission is to celebrate every inspiring #bosslady out there, so we elevate the “Female Founder” marker in our database

Below, meet 10 inspiring projects having at least one female founder in their team:

Domi

Your digital rental passport.

Provenance

A social enterprise building a traceability system for materials and products using blockchain.

Agriledger

Providing the Right Tools for the Participants in the Agricultural Supply chain

PPPHealth4All

A multi-stakeholder digital platform to facilitate sustainable and people-centered public-private partnerships for global health.

CIRCLES

Basic Income on the Blockchain.

RECICLOS

RECICLOS a digital and smart solution (smart contracts based) to encourage the good recycling practices of bottles and cans.

ZeroNet

We believe in open, free, and uncensored networks and communication.

Hiveonline

Helping entrepreneurs get access to credit and new markets, with a reputation based on facts about what they do, so they don’t need a bank account to prove they’re reliable.

UnBlocked Cash by Oxfam

Much faster, less expensive, and more transparent financial aid for relief efforts

CoinSence

CoinSence platform enables users to connect, make collective decisions, activate resources, and create shared value.

DeFi what?

Those who have been around crypto will be used to the fluctuations in price and sentiment that this year has brought. What is – so far – unique about 2020 in crypto, is the unveiling and delivery of DeFi to the world. As Bitcoin wallet addresses skyrockets to new highs, Bitcoin has successfully flattened to a pulp the late summer DeFi token bull run. During this winter’s inevitable crypto volatility it is important not to loose the woods from the trees.

The nascent DeFi space is much more than yield farming and financial memes such as Yam, YFII and Sushi swap. DeFi rather, is unique insomuch as it signals another exciting direction of innovation in crypto which has captured the imagination (and animal spirits) of the space. Don’t let the Bitcoin juggernaut fool you, the flurry of DeFi activity has unlocked innovation like never before. DeFi perhaps is vaulting towards re-hypothicating an organic bond market, in other words… recreating the basic yield structures that underpin financial markets.

Raoul Pal – a recent convert to the Blockchain space – summarizes DeFi specifically as „the market struggling to price capital in the crypto world.” While real interest rates have been negative over much of the developed world for years – the first time in financial history ever – crypto is forging rates through market experimentation.

This is wildly innovate. Possibly a unique selling point that speaks the language of traditional finance, and offers to decentralize -and possibly tokenise- all types of markets everywhere. This will inevitably create difficulties for the regulatory side, but this space is known for moving fast and breaking things. Regulatory regimes will need to work monstrously hard to stay abreast with developments. This type of regulatory nightmare is coming from all sides as most global central banks race towards an entirely new digital and financial regime of their own through the much publicized – Central Bank Digital Currency or (CBDC).

Furthermore, the pandemic also short-circuited a lot of narratives in our financial world. Wirecard – potentially – signalled the end, of financial experimentation with a broad negative interest rate, stimulus directed to bloated banks and the death volley to the ancient regime. Why so deterministic? Well today, the open secret is that everything is being renegotiated. Viewed from this context, the DeFi world – albeit submerged in interoperable jargon of smart contracts and governed by vastly different tokenomics- could not come fast enough. Forget the soothing talk of the SDGs and tepid promises of ‘greening finance’ while the Global South is plunged into financial crisis. What is clear is that the world is desperately gasping for less debt but more investment. Today after 12 years of QE and Central Banking word salads, a more authentic market is needed, something more likely to come from outside the banking system.

DeFi **entered the Chat**

Source: https://defipulse.com/

Being short for – decentralized finance – DeFi can be summed up as re-imagining decentralized open market finance on top of blockchain technology. DeFi offers a number of exciting opportunities such as redefining peer-to-peer lending, insurance, privacy, derivatives, 24/7 payment mechanism all without operating though a centralized exchange. Indeed, as centralized exchanges (CEXs) come under greater regulatory scrutiny and hacking scandals become more prominent, the DeFi space has within months, rocketed past the $10 Billion ‘value locked’ mark. This protocol development phase is all the more symbolic as the scaffolding of the current financial system creeks from the severe stress of the pandemic. Ana Andrianova, CEO of Akropolis says that;

„we are seeing the entire financial infrastructure stack being rebuilt from the ground up, with such financial primitives as decentralized stablecoins, automatic market-makers, price-less synthetic assets, reflexive bonds, to name a few. A parallel financial ecosystem emerges with no dependency on the legacy banking system – a key feature that few appreciated until the recently unfolded crisis.

The financial melee the coronavirus has brought legacy markets is one of the main reasons for which central banks are orientating towards CBDC’s. A debate is currently raging around their eventual implementation in all corners of the world. Meanwhile Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF Managing Director, vigorously proclaimed in October the notion of a ‘new Bretton Woods moment.’ The question of how a programmable central bank money would impact banks, society, sovereignty and privacy were central to discussions between the BIS, the FED, the BOE and the ECB. This is the new territory we are wading into today one when innovation and platform based economies are merging with banking and personalized finance.

The soon-to-be new monetary regime seems to hinge on the spectre of mass behavioural economics to both derive and implement the value proposition of CBDC’s. Central banks will be the Facebooks of banking obtaining value from the AI analysis of your spending and micro-targetting policy at you. Sounds scary right? But with now 80% of global central banks currently engaged in what seems a global central bank digital currency arms race, the West looks years behind China in the implementation of this coveted new Central Bank tool. But where does DeFi fit into this new digital finance wild west?

As much of the contemporary financial architecture is up for renegotiation, Steven Becker, President of the Maker Foundation excitedly adds that,

„DeFi has the potential to completely reinvent the world’s financial systems, merging the scale and familiarity of the traditional economy with the security, efficient and transparency of the public blockchain.“

Despite the euphoria, many of these projects are work-in-progress and most DeFi applications cannot be considered meaningfully decentralized by any measure. The Cambridge 3^rd Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study explains how “the majority of these applications are still dependent on kill switches, centralized oracles, or some other centralised support or maintenance.” The idea behind many DeFi projects is rather to tend towards decentralization as development continues – and this will allow the space to bloom an eco-system of many blockchain varieties that balance trade-offs differently.

This discussion can be seen through a recent twitter exchange which accused the Serum DEX (SRM) of hiding a centralized point in their DEX exchange which showed up as a full exchange withdrawal smart contract. On the other hand, Armani Ferrante, an engineer at Alameda Research insisted that decentralization should be increased over time and that that there was nothing to worry about – “or you can wait years for a perfectly decentralized app that nobody wants.”

This recent exchange is typical of twitter feuds within a nascent crypto space – but this all depends on what time horizons people have. Just as with Bitcoin, that perfectly decentralized Dapp could be a valuable addition to crypto if it is technically feasible and short term pressures don’t muddy its design. But the crypto market isn’t the same. Some projects want to mimick the current financal system – just tokenized- and others want to solve democratic deficits through governance models and tokenomics.

The emergence of alternative governance structures comes with new incentive mechanisms that are designed to reimagine democracy for the 21st Century. The cypherpunks ethos was the initial fuel of the DeFi movement just as centralized exchanges began feeling the pressure to conform to global AML/KYC regulations. Recent headlines from the US and Chinese authorities show the clamping down on CEX’s by targetting stable coin operations is problematic to regulators as parallel development of CBDC increases pace. For example, BitMEXs‘ fate in the US while in China OKEX’s seizure demonstrates how sensitive authorities are around the issue. This jostling to control stable coins, over the centralized – on and off ramps – to crypto could not only incentivize the push to DeFi further, it shows how structually important building a DeFi digital ecosystem will be both in against and in collaboration with CBDC’s. Of course, debates about privacy and custodial control of assets isn’t very far away either.

Source: 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study

Despite the huge price fluctuations during the 2020 DeFi boom and bust cycle, DeFi is the second most cited future development of the Cambridge benchmarking study that is anticipated to be a game changer for service providers. Binance, the most powerful crypto exchange, has been accused of making a ‘Tai-Chi‘ named plan to skirt global regulators by going through its US California branch to feed its Cayman Islands registered company to evade clampdown. Moreover, CZ, the CEO of Binance, has sought diplomatic immunity to avoid regulators as the exchange feels the heat from the DeFi swing. His evasive moves can be seen as a scheme to avoid regulatory control over his heavily retail focussed exchange.

Skirting regulatory frameworks I hear you ask? The head of growth and strategy at privacy focused DuckDuckGo, Adam Cochran, explains in a 25 part tweet thread that DeFi is still within the grasp of authorities. He states that,

„Dao or no Dao you can find developers with admin keys, users who create front-ends, companies hiring individuals to work on protocol and others who enable or profit from the contract, to be in violation on the BSA (Banking Secrecy Act).“

In this event, Cochran states that this would kill the protocol with the majority of the participants instantly exiting upon hearing the news. What we know is that DeFi pushes towards a positive time value of money, exploring natural rates while promising – if not purely decentralized – then an open, secure, accessible and ultra-fast, smart contract run protocol. This automation and execution of an interoperable network of smart contracts with different coding languages… what could go wrong?

The 3^rd Cambridge Benchmarking Study identifies several risks to DeFi. Indeed, smart contracts aren’t new but being fully dependent on them to automate and self regulate financial processes will add huge risks especially in this early period:

Source: 3rd Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study

The risks outlined above are serious and will urge caution for the space. Time and development will be needed to iron out the smart contract risks and oracle data feed risks mentioned but the growth of smart contract analytic firms and protocol auditing requests does show the intent of the DeFi space to streamline and clean their protocols.

Forbes magazines Steven Ehrlich discusses with MakerDao’s, Steven Becker the ways forward for the DeFi space. Becker was focussed on transparency and community as serious mechanisms by which DeFi platforms can grow and gather people to their platforms. Not being opaque and following the path that stable coins such as Tether which has perplexed crypto users still shrouded by doubt. Growth of the community by trying to create loyal customer base with attractive perks all the while remaining transparent about the risks involved in the platform was Becker’s suggestion for DeFi platform growth.

By having social benefits embedded within their ‘DNA’, they make the platforms more attractive in the long term to customers. The aim is to have a diverse set of MKR or DAI token holders which translates into diverse liquidity and use cases. This could be achieved by targetting token holders with different, or personalized sets of behavioural incentives to solidify that diversity similar to CBDC’s. Steven Becker clarifies that „there is a big difference between social finance (SoFi) and decentralized finance. In a nutshell, social finance is trying to pull social impact, where I think decentralized finance is actually in a really awesome positions to sort push that impact.“

For this required set of diversified customers and token holders there would need to be a greater general crypto adoption wave. Kraken Intelligence recently suggested the generational shift to millennials acquiring wealth would naturally happen. To this point Krakens report titled, „Inheriting USDs And Acquiring BTCs: How ‘The Great Wealth Transfer’ Will Fuel ‘The Great Bitcoin Adoption.’“ The key finding was that millennials and Gen Z would be the drivers of this digital pilgrimage to BTC, ETH and DeFi adoption.

The Kraken report found that if millennials invested at least five percent of their wealth in bitcoin, then this could potentially drive the price of bitcoin to $350,000 in 2044. As a result, from a $971 billion investment, this would give millennials around $70 trillion. Yves La Rose, the CEO of EOS Nation says,

“The foundational tools for DeFi are being built at an ever-increasing pace in order to be there when the flood gates open. I expect to see a significant influx of traditional money flow into the ecosystem in the coming months as people start to realize the machine can’t go brrrrrr forever.”

As the doors open on this little known but much talked about segment of the market, I finish with musings from Jonathan Beller, who philosophizes about DeFi and its emerging possibilities. Beller proposes that DeFi can begin where the Internet failed. By building an emerging post monopolistic and extractive structure which engenders horizontal governance, trust and shared co-authored creativity.

He claims we need to radically renegotiate the nature and value behind our interactions online. Beller continues stating that, monetary media and communications media have converged as economic media. Communication, computation and finance have already converged. As the current financial frameworks are no longer fit for purpose Beller proposes that „our communication is increasingly our economy, and our economy is our communication.“ He proposes that in this emerging world, we offer our capacities in and as our messages, we collaborate on intellectual and physical creation of projects and products, be they dance moves, software, online education, political or community organizing and farmed goods.

DeFi could be the scaffolding for this radical re-imagination needed in both traditional financial markets and the upcoming one. „We receive liquidity over the same medium we use to communicate from a trust-worthy network of peers who will share a stake in our activities as we share a stake in their.“

Instead of being an extractive and centralized we can realign finance with democratic values which in the age of ecological movements may be non-extractive, co-operative and a trusted peer-to-peer governance architecture. These forms of postmodern kinship with trusted peers who are reputationally vetted and historically known can have the capacity to transform societies. Equity for participation – a potential new slogan in a democratic, decentralized finance.

Therefore, despite the crippling and awful knock-on effect of this pandemic, real as they are, a genuine source of enthusiasm during 2020 has been the blossoming under our noses. The DeFi moment is upon us and with ETH 2.0 around the corner we must continue with caution for there are many dangers ahead ….. but the night is still young.

Digital Sovereignty and Inequality

Can we agree that at the halfway point, it has been a fairly comprehensive and eventful year so far? With every month comes another potentially ominous sign reinforcing the status of the year 2020 as a rupture point in global history. Bitcoin has also had a full-blooded year, going through the anxious sell-off, lots of global news regarding Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), an anti-climatic ‘Halvening’, a DeFi explosion and finally a relative price stabilization. Bitcoin has also seen further adoption with the likes of Raoul Pal and Paul Tudor Jones publicly endorsing Bitcoin within mainstream the financial space and in so doing positioning Bitcoin as the fastest horse ‘outside of system’. These are just two characters of the Bitcoin landscape but they are part of a normalization of Bitcoin as an asset which has seen a turbulent volatility in price. What hasn’t changed much however is the idea of Bitcoin and Blockchain as a burgeoning counter movement within an increasingly corporate business model of surveillance capitalism. The concept of out of the system money which works against corporate surveillance opens up conversations such as Inequality and resistance. I want to be provocative in this piece and ask if Bitcoin, a piece of computer code, can really help resolve inequalities entrenched within today’s financial and social system? It would seem odd at first glance and perhaps impossible in some ways but this view of Bitcoin depends on how we ‘see‘ Bitcoin and it’s underlying technology.

A brief reminder of the core features of Blockchain Tech:

The question of inequality is a deeper question that extends into many categories, but for this piece we contend by looking at, as mentioned above, surveillance as a business model and a decade of monetary policies which have normalized financial imagination and fiscal austerity. For example recently, Jay Powel the FED reserve Chairman, was asked about inequality in relation to monetary policy. His response was that “inequality has been something that’s been increasingly with us for four decades and it’s not really related to monetary policy.” But years of QE and ‘alphabet soup‘ programs have solicited frictions with the German constitutional court when it called “the bond purchase program and others […] have considerable redistributive effects – from the bottom to the top.” In a world upheld by a meme based social media, this translates into the now infamous “printer goes brrrr ” meme.

Bitcoin as Protest

Although Bitcoin is occupied by many competing schools of thought,  many Bitcoiners, like Max Keiser, agree that Bitcoin has a revolutionary technology which makes it unconfiscatable, easily divisible, and is deflationary at core. It opposes inflationary currencies at heart thus because it cannot be inflated out of worth. This property is a vital source of sovereignty and power in an age where algorithms, banks, and companies can take you offline instantly. Many have already been wrongly profiled or targeted by an algorithm, and if you haven’t yet had the pleasure your time time will come. People are wising up to the inescapable tensions confronting the rise of centrally coded algorithmic rule and democracy. A recent Forbes article illuminates how protesters are noticing and sharing the qualities of uncensorable money, just as ‘the Intercept’ breaks a story which reveals the Pentagon targeted its young population in a wargame scenario for a ‘Zebellion‘.

The questions here are fundamental and revolve around rule, democracy, surveillance and access to your wealth. These kind of conversations have previously been left to the experts, but as education and awareness meets growing distrust people understand the need for discourse on quite a political issue. This issue that extends beyond that of the individual. Indeed the overt weaponization of the international payments structures have forced this issue onto the realm of state and regions from Catalonia to Iran, alternative payment plumbing is a lifeline.  It also shows the potential power of the decentralized, trustless, algorithms to uphold rights when other systems cannot or do not. This technocratic argument extends to suggest that if humans aren’t able to be equal or fair algorithms can. This does seem paradoxically giving life to the origin ideals of Silicon Valley – who now are the main propagators of surveillance capitalism.

Following the weeks of the global Black Lives Matter (BLM) anti policing protests that have now spread around the West it would be apt to approach the topic of racism and the fortunes of the Black American community in a quest about inequality. While burrowing through Twitter I saw placards in the protest crowds touting Isaiah Jackson’s book – Bitcoin and Black America – one of the Gentlemen of Crypto Youtube duo. This is an organic and social media infused drive to educate ‘minorities’ about the potential of blockchain tech and specifically Bitcoin as a tool towards financial freedom. After following the duo for a couple of years, it has been glorious to see their electrifying rise to prominence. Jack Dorsey, the Twitter CEO endorsed the book in February and from London to LA the message has gone viral.

But what exactly is that message?

“Of course we need Police accountability, we need to adjust the judicial system as it’s

taking the wealth out [of the community] with 100 – 1 sentences of blacks compared

to whites.

After the smoke clears, focus on the economics behind Bitcoin, leveraging it’s

financial self-sovereignty to store black community wealth. Bitcoin won’t solve the problem

of racism but it is an unconfiscatable store of value which will help the community grow.”

– Isaiah Jackson

This is why the discourse on inequalities is so interesting. It always is almost always grounded in wealth, money, and finance. Indeed it is harder for somebody with money – and therefore able to access a justice system – to claim inequality. The discourse around ‘systemic racism’ has been given a cursory glance in schools, examined only momentarily in recent weeks, yet known to all as real at least subconsciously. Changing an entrenched operating system would be analogous to turning an oil tanker given the huge political and social capital and humility needed. That said, would Bitcoin and the idea of decentralization be able to give that jump start?

Digital Communities with Bitcoin

Deeply entrenched issues from redlining , Jim Crow laws to police brutality and billions in asset seizures. During Jim Crow, 90% of those lynched were black business owners representing a exceptional violence aimed at black wealth. Today this financial discrimination is reproduced through events such as the financial crash of 2008 which burdened ‘sub-prime’ or black-owned houses the most. Furthermore in the USA the New Orleans flooding debacle, and of course, many instances of unchecked discrimination has led to a natural reaction in the form of protests but more importantly for Isaiah Jackson, a search for alternatives. At one point in an interview when discussing community currencies Isiaah Jackson exclaimed, “just leave us alone, I don’t know how else to put it!” This is an issue that strikes at the heart of ideals of justice or meritocracy in any society but in the West specifically the tension is that of a proclaimed equality and inalienable rights versus a clarifying reality. In truth this is nothing new and has been simmering for decades.

This is an issue that strikes at the heart of the mythical ideals of justice or meritocracy in any society and these issues have been simmering for decades in the west generally. Technology they say, is neutral. What you do with it, however, isn’t. Let it be clear and absolute: Bitcoin and blockchain will not end racism, nor will it change the system that is heavily skewed against Black Americans or minorities anywhere. If boycott is a tool for subaltern communities the idea that Bitcoin is the mechanism by which it is made possible is appealing, but given the inherent volatility of the asset and the low market capitalization there is risk. However, I interpret the idea behind Bitcoin adoption as a form of protest to a skewed economic system to be as follows;

1. Bitcoin will become a global foundational asset class, and is still only 11 years old. Get in early to be part of the foundations of the next wealth reset. Highly speculative but logical.
2. Technological education of this independent asset will facilitate communities growth in the medium and longer-term while growing a critical mass toward Bitcoin and Blockchain tech.
3. Seperation of Money and State will happen, and Black communities need to front-run this societal move.

Ray Dalio last year famously stated that ‘capitalism is broken‘. Banks are able to access negative interest capital and simply earn money by virtue of being closer to the Central Bank, while the velocity of money sharply decreased and investments in the young or black communities have all but dried up. Many others in the financial world agree and suggest radical change is needed even to maintain the current system as inequalities woven into its fabric have become unmasked. The coronavirus has accelerated this unraveling in a faster way than imagined possible. The lack of action to support people and smaller businesses has forced people to think about taking their destiny in their hands. However, is community wealth and identity woven with cryptocurrencies and without danger? If voting with your feet and money is a hard protest movement, doesn’t this simply enrich early Bitcoin investors ? Can communities put their fortunes at the whims of market volatility or are stable coins the answer? Can decentralized blockchained communities be interloped and remain respectful while interacting?

Clearly there are many questions that will be answered only in the future, but these are the questions I find myself asking. Feel free to answer in the comments!

Black America and Bitcoin

When discussing the adoption of Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies there is often a chasm between different ethnic groups over access and knowledge of the technology. Information is indeed power, and Jackson suggests while African Americans materially underserved by the financial system, financial education, and cryptocurrency knowledge is needed. Indeed Bitcoin is still only 11 years young and further to that, other cryptocurrencies are still younger. The learning by doing adage can indeed propel early adopters of the technology and this is a thrust of his argument.

Jacksons call to action is to galvanize a community in America where 1 in 5 is unbanked and 1 in 3 is underbanked. Central to his call is keeping the wealth or value creation within the black community which has been robbed of its wealth so many times and in fact, is the largest consumer group in America with a buying power of approximately $2 trillion dollars. Nipsey Hustle who also encouraged a broad, black adoption of blockchain technology before being shot and killed is who the book is dedicated to. Jackson lauds the hustling nature of black youth and compares Bitcoin adoption to a basic community safety net.

He states that the unconfiscatable nature of Bitcoin means that regardless of police aggression or intimidation they cannot take the private keys of the Bitcoin wallet like that have been confiscating billions from those ‘suspected of crimes‘. Furthermore cryptocurrency is a good way to circumvent the disenfranchisement in banking services and predatory practices by payday lenders. It realigns the incentives into that of a saving currency and encourages investing locally. These ideas underline how Bitcoin acts to underpin the financial sovereignty of the individual. These locally based saving and investing incentives also challenge this evangelical idea of the Venture Capital world which shamefully only invests 1% into Black communities. Instead silicon valley and venture capital has been accused of diversity theatre and outright racism.

The wealth disparity is stark when compared to other ethnic groups. Recently there has been a revival of ideas such as #Blackdollarsmatter and Black Wall Street – where Black-owned businesses are logged and community members are encouraged to shop there to show a revival of local awareness and identity. Maggie Anderson in her 2014 Ted talk explained the power behind keeping money in circulation within the community. She describes how the simple but powerful issue of where your money goes has a ripple effect through society. Anderson states that “a dollar circulates in Asian communities for up to 28 days, in Jewish communities for nearly 20 days, in white communities for 17 days and in Hispanic communities for 7 days. Yet in the Black community, a dollar circulates for only 6 hours.” She suggests this can be combated by pooling resources into supporting black companies or suppliers which eventually stimulates growth in black employment and black entrepreneurship. After reading ‘The Colour of Money‘ by Mehrsa Baradaran Netflix stumped up 100 Million dollars toward a Black Fund aimed at community investments. When ideas matter and networks are powerful, change can happen incrementally and then all at once.

Finally, when discussing the tragic and avoidable death of George Floyd’s murder, formally charged with using a counterfeit $20 bill, Jackson said “the irony is crazy, with digital money you don’t have to worry about counterfeit ever again.” Indeed in the context that Wall St. has just received trillions in bailouts to support inflated asset prices as the systemic primary scaffolding. Lending and thus read banking- at beneficial rates are at the core of the solution for Black America. Despite Netflix’s call that 1% of Wall St wealth be ring fenced for Black America to kickstart community investments and build entrepreneurship and strength, the answers will not come from Wall St. Either through Bitcoin an equally sovereign stablecoin or within a Black banking model the funding architecture will be decided by how the system reacts to the protests and how communities vote with their money. Jackson underlines the point that “I am not saying that Bitcoin is the savior of police brutality however what I am saying when you own it and control your communities it is much harder for police to come in and take your wealth today.”

Bitcoin and Human Rights?

These are powerful arguments, and serve to remind that there is an expiry date to systemic abuse. I do think there are ways to pool Bitcoin together and encourage saving. There are ways to hedge downside risk so the community does not become exposed to highly volatile negative movements in price. The management system can be decentralized and verified through the protocol to ensure there aren’t accounting abuses. There are real questions that Bitcoin helps pressure the current structures with, and this ultimately is a good thing. There needs to be caution about the possible negative effects such as actually exiting the current system will make reentry more difficult and perhaps there is a risk of re-establishing ‘hard’ boundaries between black, Indigenous, white, and Asian communities.

This accumulation of wealth in opposition to each other can be problematic and perhaps leads to the balkanization of communities in the real world. In electronic format balkanization is decentralization and can easily work; it is just in how this translates in the real life world that needs to be well managed. This piece serves to underscore some serious attributes that Bitcoin has to re-energize Black communities, hold wealth within and stimulate investments. There are pressures that Bitcoin places on the existing system that cannot be ignored, nor should they as they have not served to heal society. However as with radical break away from something existing and common, misunderstandings and misinterpretations can be formed and avoiding that is up to society. At the end of the day the goals are genuinely inclusive finance and sovereignty. If this is not at the heart of the next reset following coronavirus we will be guilty of pushing communities away at a time of crisis.

Special Recognition to @bitcoinzay a.k.a Isiaah Jackson for highlighting the Black America angle to the Bitcoin movement.

(Read the full article on Medium)

180 million Euros.

That’s about how much the EU has invested in blockchain-related Research and Innovation projects. How much for projects in the category “Environment”? Well.. 1%.

With Environment being on top of government’s agenda, we have good hopes at PositiveBlockchain that this trend will change. And this was exactly the point of the workshop held in Brussels on the 14.01 on the initiative of the EPE and hosted by the Sustainable Development Observatory of the European Economis and Social Comitte (EESC). The event gathered experts from various institutions, representatives from the commission, research organizations and companies working in the fields of blockchain for SDGs with a focus on Climate Change and Sustainability.

A new man-on-moon moment

Goal of the workshop was to propose to include blockchain and DLTs in the program of the upcoming European Climate Pact which will be launched in March 2020 as part of the EU Green Deal, the so-called “man-on-moon moment” announced recently by the EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. The plan has the ambition to reach a total of 100 billion euros of funds in the next seven years and will be the horsepower of the “new European growth strategy”.

Participants have all acknowledged the transformative potentials of blockchain and DLTs to fight Climate Change. Presentations addressed potential benefits ob blockchain to fight Climate Change, streamline carbon certification exchanges, create incentives for individuals and organizations, provide transparency and trust in supply chains and food systems, etc. Potential ways forward as well as risks and current challenges of the technology (e.g. energy consumption) have also been addressed.

The slides presented by PositiveBlockchain are available here: http://bit.ly/EU-EPE-workshop

You’ll find in the slides an overview of:

• what is PositiveBlockchain and what are the key analytics of our projects database
• what are the EU initiatives in blockchain for SDGs/Climate Change: Ledger, Decode, P2P2 Models, My Health My Data, Next Generation Internet, PlasticTwist, Blockchain for Good Prize, etc.
• what are the main organizations fostering innovation, conducting valuable researches, curating communities and shaping the ecosystem of blockchain for SDG/Climate Change.

You may also want to read this previous article we wrote about 13 organizations and communities watching blockchain for good.

Spotted an error and want to make an addition? Let us know in the comments.

Enjoyed reading? Share to your networks and get in touch with PositiveBlockchain! hello (@) positiveblockchain.io

Followup the group on meetup.com here to receive future event invitations.

The topic this time was about Blockchain for a better Healthcare, in partnership with the Impact Hub Berlin, BerChain (Berlin Blockchain Association), the GIZ Blockchain Lab and Avertim (European consulting in Life Sciences). We had great speakers from startups Ribbon, IKU, HIT Foundation and PharmaTrace. We have summarized some slides, please find the link on this Medium post: http://bit.ly/2IYxRqw

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Other open slide-decks here: http://bit.ly/2pzJNrF

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Next B4SC Berlin meetups -> Aid Delivery in Nov/Dec 2019, Arts in Jan/Feb 2020 (contact us for partnership & speaking opportunities, or if you want to help organize!) ?

As giving, charity, aid and philanthropy have a humanistic foundation, on a matter of fact they became a Billion US$ industry. And as in other industries, there are currently some pretty amazing things going on in the aid industry. This post presents some building blocks of the development aid system and takes to look at some highly innovative approaches to improve giving and aid.

Just to get things into perspective, its worth looking at the fundamentals: It started in prehistoric times when someone with disposable assets handed something over — at these times most probably food — to someone less fortunate without expecting a direct return. No intermediary, no service provider, no charity, just two hands — one giving, the other taking.

Building blocks of the giving system

Things became a little more complicated as charity started to deal with greater challenges. Why?

• Charity became a more complex business
  In 1443 the Hôtel-Dieu was established in the city of Beaune in France. The donor, a high-ranking government official named Nicolas Rolin, gave a substantial amount of money annually to run the hospital for the poor. Such a charity obviously needs some design work to set up the structure of the charitable „program“.
  This is what I call … Programming

• Charities needed more resources
  Such more complex and costly efforts need big money, often more than one donor was able to finance. Smaller donations had to be aggregated.
  That is why I call this … Aggregation

• Charity became a full-time job
  In 1473 the city council of Strasbourg handed responsibility for managing the cities charity program to a public servant. Later in the last decade the job profile of a professional development worker emerged, working with the poor in various ways, with the aim to improve the living conditions and creating opportunities.
  That is … Implementation / ”Assistance”

• Charities had to consolidate the needs and select the people they thought are in need
  In the early days of giving it was just the „poor“. At some point giver started to identify groups of people which from their view should receive charity whereas others are not eligible. Around 1370 the charity rules of the German city Nurnberg (in German: “Nürnberger Almosenordnung“) asked for two or three citizens to testify that the respective person really is poor.
  That is … Consolidation of needs/demands

• One more thing …
  However, increased complexity of giving created a major problem: A growing distance between donor and beneficiary, giver and receiver. So one crucial element had to be added for these blocks to work as a system: trust.

The system works as long as there is the confidence with the donor that funds are transferred without loss and used properly, meaning: as intended by the donor. The system which evolved over time was designed to maintain the ability of the donor to decide at almost every point of the process. Without a transfer/trust block the other building blocks would not work as intended.

 

So here is the point: Over time the simple act of giving became a complicated business. Each of these elements added another block to the structure one can observe today in the charity sector.

As this seems to be quite straightforward, it helps to understand approaches to innovate the sector, to even “reinvent giving”.

Innovation in aid by “Aggregating” and “Consolidating”?

• GoFundMe consolidated smaller platforms like GiveForward, Generosity, and YouCaring to a Billion US$ crowdfunding platform is forcefully addressing the aggregation segment. Programming, implementation and transfer in contrast is done in the quite traditional way NGOs work.

 

• GiveDirectly is innovating from the other side of the equation, by consolidating individuals or families in need and providing them with unconditional cash transfers. Beyond that the approach obviously also includes a transfer/trust component while transferring funds as wells as monitoring and auditing the recipients.

While there is already innovation in aid systems, blockchains may well change the game

But if it comes to trust and transfer of funds, no surprise, distributed ledger technology (DLT)-based projects are currently the big eye-catchers. Here are a few:

• Humancoin brings together the philanthropy industry, retail e-commerce and cryptocurrency markets based on a token system to built a global e-commerce loyalty program aggregator.

 

• Little Phil wants to close the gap created by the system of giving and link giver and receiver. With distributed ledger technology the project aims at building an emotional connection, proof of impact as well as need, and providing transparency as all transactions and costs are visible on the Little Phil blockchain. The project currently prepares a initial coin offering (ICO).

 

• Giveth is more radical to redefine the transfer/trust element: By using blockchain technology based on the Ethereum platform they are creating a Donation Application and a platform for Decentralized Altruistic Communities. This is a completely decentralized model of giving — which comes quite near the claim “reinvent giving”.

 

• TruBudget is a system a German development bank is currently developing to explore the use of a blockchain application to track payments to beneficiaries, again technically improving the trust block.

 

These are just very few examples of more than 60 thrilling and inspiring start-ups and initiatives in this field. At PositiveBlockchain.io you can browse a curated open-source database of hundreds of positive blockchain projects. These projects use distributed ledger technologies to generate positive social impact and solve some of our world’s burning problems.

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Do you know of any other projects? Add them to our database !

 

By Ronald Steyer, Contributor at PositiveBlockchain & Category lead for Donation & Aid.

Visit his blod at https://aboutronaldblog.wordpress.com.