2:15AWe had guys from Malaysia, we had guys from Kenya. So if you’re dealing with Kenya, the way people go through these 3 problems is through M-Pesa, right? M-Pesa can get you all this because it, it short-circuits the need for all these things by just this simple concept of your SIM card being your bank account. If you have a SIM card, you have a bank account, right? So that’s M-Pesa for Kenya. There’s also Pix, I believe, in Brazil, right? So Pix also short circuits, right? Gets to offer some of these services, right? There’s UPI in India, right? So UPI also in India works very well, especially on the biometrics front, because they just need your iris or they need, you know, your fingerprints, right?
3:00AThe problem with these particular solutions is what it means, right, for you. What are you giving up? And a lot of the times people are giving up their privacy, right? That’s one of the challenges that we saw with this particular system. It’s also very centralized because you have several players who are controlling the whole economy. So today in Kenya, if M-Pesa shuts you out of the financial system for whatever reason, it’s going to be very hard for you to scale, right? Even as a founder in Web3, if you’re shut out -- if you’re shut out by M-Pesa, very hard for you to scale. So what do people currently use crypto for in these countries?
3:35AAnd so if the local problems have already been solved, KYC, ID, credit history, and minimum requirements has already been solved by fintechs. Malaysia, I believe you said there are about like 10 e-wallets that people use in Malaysia. Then what, what, what is crypto for? And we could identify some, some things that crypto is used for. So in Africa, And to some extent in certain LATAM countries. So one of our brothers there told us Brazil doesn’t have this problem, but if you’re in Argentina or Venezuela, you’re probably going to face these problems. So one is, of course, and you’ve heard this a lot, currency devaluation. It’s a big deal.
4:11AIf you’re in Nigeria, you know what this, you know, this problem looks like, uh, because your currency has lost something like 80% in the last 3 years, right? So you hold your value in a stablecoin or in cryptocurrency. Currency devaluation. There’s also payments fragmentation. Payments fragmentation has to do with the evolution of payment systems in Africa. So in Africa and other places, so systems -- these payment systems co-evolve with the economies. So if you’re an oil-dependent economy, there is a certain way in which your economy is structured, and so you get a certain kind of payment system, like the banking system in In Nigeria, but if you’re a service-based industry like Kenya, where you have tourists paying all the time, you need then a system like M-Pesa, and that’s basically what we have.
4:58ASo with payments fragmentation, it basically means I cannot send money to a Nigerian. The systems don’t interoperate; they don’t speak to each other, and there is no incentive by the people running the payment systems to actually cooperate because they are giving away their customers. So they build these walled gardens, and that makes it very impossible for. The consumer to kind of send money across, right? So stablecoins fill this gap because the easiest way even today for me to send money to Njoku or any of my friends in Nigeria is through USDT. The easiest way for them to send me money is through USDT, USDC. So stablecoins fill in a gap there.
5:32AThen finally, there is also the dollar scarcity problem in Africa as well. So quite a number of people do import-export business. And what, you know, if you’re, uh, if you’re owning a business that exports, for example, chemicals from South Korea, South Korea doesn’t accept your local currency, doesn’t know what that is. They want USD. The US dollars on the continent of Africa are prioritized for dollar-denominated loans. All our governments took loans for over 10 years, and all of those loans were denominated in dollars. And so they are now currently in the process of paying for those loans, which means they basically suck out all the dollars from the banking system.
6:12AThey are prioritized first. So if you’re a business that’s dependent on dollars, the only alternative you have is stablecoins on a blockchain, right? So in Africa and LATAM, there are certain characteristics that are shared across, right? In upper middle income countries, there is the element of, um, this element of investments. Right. So you probably can’t invest in stocks in the US. You can invest in global marketplaces, but you can invest in meme coins. You can invest in crypto. Then how do we get to a point where, you know, the system is open? So we have moved from a place where fintechs and telcos in the, you know, in this developing market actually solving for this basic problem to a place where crypto is is solving this problem for us.
6:59ANow, the problem again also with current financial systems is all the value is created down here at the community level, right? This is where the value is created. This is where seeds are planted. This is where harvesting happens. This is where people do actual commerce and everything else. But all that money is shunted to the global financial system. So the people who make the most money are people up here.
7:25BRight?
7:26ASo the question for us was, how do we ensure that instead of this value being shunted up here, it stays within -- it stays within this ecosystem, right? And there are quite a number of good ideas when it comes to, like, crypto. So this is how crypto is being used today. Used today. But there is how crypto can be used tomorrow. Right, so people are experimenting on various things. So one is local stablecoins. You know, Haraka Finance is here, so, uh, that’s a project to like look at. But Haraka are doing lending via local stablecoins. It makes sense because you have a lot of liquidity within the crypto ecosystem, so you can get actual liquidity providers provide liquidity to these pools, right?
8:18ABut when you’re lending out, you don’t want to lend in a US dollar-based stablecoin. Because if I lend you a US dollar-based stablecoin, and your currency moves by 20%, you’ll have to pay that 20% plus the 6% interest, you end up paying 26%, right? You want to loan it out in the same currency as somebody is getting. But in terms of liquidity, it opens up because like you, you You’re now not dependent on the local banking system. You’re actually opening up these communities to global financial ecosystems. So that’s one way to shunt value back to communities. The other one is community currencies. Will couldn’t be here, but he’s also -- there’s a project called Sarafu in Kilifi.
9:05AAnd a lot of people here have come and seen what he’s doing in the communities. Basically, Sometimes the local currency doesn’t make it from central banks back to communities. There is a scarcity of local currencies among these local communities because unless you have a formal job, you’re employed by the government, you’re a doctor, you’re a lawyer, it’s very hard for you to get paid every month. But there’s also a lot of activity that’s happening at this level, right? Like people are actually trading. People are exchanging services with each other. You just need a way to tokenize that value, and you also need a way to index it.
9:43ASo community currencies is also another brave idea that people are carrying out at the community level. Is there any other idea? We also spoke about commodity currencies, right? So commodity currencies, I think somebody mentioned the project. What is it? Gate Forest?
10:01BGate Forest. GAIN Forest.
10:03AGAIN Forest, okay, GAIN Forest, right.
10:05CLast minute.
10:06AYeah, last minute. So GAIN Forest is -- so do you want to explain GAIN Forest for a bit?
10:13DOh, they’re just taking community-owned data and then mapping the forest in Brazil. And what you can do with that is now you can train AI models and you can now better tie maybe the economic value of a rainforest. And there’s no commodity currency tied to it yet, but what that what you can do from that is now, in theory, tie in currencies that are nature-backed.
10:39CNice.
10:40BYes.
10:41AAnd all these communities have these natural resources that can be tokenized and put on chain. And that comes to benefit the community as opposed to the global financial system. That’s it.
10:59EAnd I want to share a little -- oh, you have pictures. Please take your picture. Now, um, when it comes to the Gain Forest, it’s also like not just in Brazil but also in Southeast Asia too, in Philippines. And I’m working with them to bring it to indigenous communities in Malaysia as well. And I just wanted to share that it means that, you know, there is similarities of what we can work on together. The one thing I will mention is that Southeast Asia and Asia actually has this interesting model that I think Africa can also look for both inspirational and also what not to do. For example, now East Asia, let’s say Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, they have imported technology very quickly.
11:45EBut at the same time, mental health issue had also become a problem because I think it has to do with how they bring technology in a way that it’s like, oh, so back then people used to have a sense that we’re in a village together. We have a collective identity. And, but now, like, if you are, let’s say, a worker in Japan, and then you feel like, oh, if I lose my job, it feels like I have lost my contributing value to society. Therefore, I’m worthless, and therefore I become depressed. And suicidal. But the thing is, like this is the worst of collectivity and also individuality.
12:23ESo like the the way that I hope we can find out together, like the reason why GM is like okay. So we know that we cannot import that too quickly, but we also know that for example there is still a sense of like spirituality or wisdom. Like you are you guys are in Thailand, right? Like actually Thailand is a Buddhist economics practicing country. So where they practice Self-sufficient economy where things are small and beautiful. So instead of like you know trying to just like become like the West or something, my hope is that we can find models that can work for our own context, and we don’t have to be like big.
13:00EBut like this is more of a vision from Southeast Asia Solar Pang Group called Sea Pang. So they want to build like little like community currency like rice DAO. You know, imagine the farms, the rice farmers come together and form little community currency. But then you can have big commons that may -- what we need to do is, can we have interoperable standards that we can agree between the communities that we can trust, you know, to the governance point, like how to exchange between us? In that case, we don’t have to use USD or something. So like, again, keeping it back to this value. And I’m sharing this because I feel like Eventually, okay, the day after tomorrow in GM Day is where we get to deep dive into all of these things together and see like, okay, now we -- all this is a little teaser, right?
13:49EWe’re like, okay, maybe this can happen. But then, then the day after tomorrow is when -- this is a bit, again, this is a bit -- I think it’s a kind of practice that is indigenous, which is like back then people used to have sweat lodge. You come together as a village and then you’re like, okay, like, you know, you go through a transformation together. So I hope that we can do this transformation as GM together. So that’s why we booked out a place, onsen. Like, we’ll have sauna, we’ll have ice bath for GM day. And, um, hey, Yosef, the man is back! Okay, so I’ll let you have the last words.
14:23EBut, um, but all right, so, so then, uh, we have a Telegram group if you are not part of it yet. Uh, are you guys already in Global Majority Telegram? Telegram group? No. Oh, a lot not. Okay, so, okay, so I will, I will leave, I will leave, I will leave the group link here, or you can add your username and I’ll add you. Both ways. Okay, so I think that’s it. Tomorrow is Asia Day where our Japanese friend will make matcha for us. James from Pagoda. So 10 AM we’ll have matcha ceremony.
15:04AFirst come, first serve.
15:10BAnd then after -- oh no, on Saturday night we’re having a kick-ass Afro beats. Our own Static is DJing from 8 to Midnight. Like, it’s in the same venue, so you can go to your after parties after, but we gotta finish at midnight. It is like in a, like, your neighbors. It’s a really cool venue. It’s the same venue as the GM Hub. Yeah. So after GM Day, you can go have dinner and then come back.
15:45EYeah.
15:46BBecause it’s gonna be the sickest boogie night. Yeah. Because everyone just drinks and talks. Yeah.
15:52EOkay, okay. So then I just need to share very quickly, tomorrow 11 AM is when we are gonna do like untold stories about Asia ecosystem. So then we can also tell you more. And then after that, we’ll have a session around like Solarpunk in Southeast Asia. Like there has been --
16:13COh, cool.
16:13EYeah, there’s been a pop-up residency in Chiang Mai for the past, I think, 3 weeks. So there has been a lot. And I think after that, we’re gonna get into holistic development model. But we’re like, okay, if we’re not just becoming like the West, what are we? How do we do it? So I hope you guys can come. And with that, thank you so much for today.
16:33CThank you. Thank you so much.
16:43ABefore we leave, can we actually like just clean up the space a little bit so we can shoot it in a better composition?
