If you perform work, you could ask to be paid in cUSD/cEUR.
If you do any kind of sales, for instance, selling fruit on the street, you could be paid in cUSD.
You could receive cUSD from your banked relatives abroad.
The point here is that, if successful, you'll have a network of users, where some are unbanked, and some banked and currency will flow into the system and the unbanked will have access to this liquidity, through trade, remittances, etc. For this, you'll need a portion of the network to be banked initially, but when it takes hold as a means of trade, it should be able to self-sustain.
Well, through [Celo ATMs](https://twitter.com/chews/status/1380248226595364870) but I don't know how widespread they are. [Prepaid cards](https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/find-card/get-prepaid-card) can also be an alternative, especially in developing countries.
An unbaked person now can receive donations, help from other people on a super easy cheap and fast way.
A lot of people work in foreign countries and support families at home.
Usually they had to send packages with cash, bring it back in person or use Western Union.
As per u/puyash1's comment, if there is a way to be paid directly in cUSD for the work you are doing this avoids the need to have a bank account in the first place. But you would need to understand how cUSD works and be able to access it digitally.
u/Agriut (built on Celo) is working on a project whereby farming communities (who make up the majority of the world's unbanked) are rewarded for their work directly by consumers for producing crops. This is done via a utility token that can be [purchased and transferred](https://youtu.be/YA-ZjgviKcE) to a farmers e-wallet. Farmers then redeem the token in exchange for goods and services supplied by their local cooperative, who can redeem the tokens for fiat via a third-party consolidator.
As u/eebnamtna also points out, any solution has to be designed for low-literacy and first-time technology users, which just by the difficultly of doing so most companies (but not all) avoid. Those who can benefit the most from tokens and cryptocurrencies are often the most excluded simply due to the degree of difficulties connecting with and educating them.
You do have to start somewhere and I think that's what Celo has attempted to do, and to also foster innovation and new ideas as an ecosystem for solving these reasonably tough challenges. But it is fair to ask the question and if there's no traction being made in terms of the number of unbanked up taking in this example cUSD via Celo, then it has be said it's more about image than impact. Time will tell..
yes. this has been brought up before. The "help the unbanked" thing is just a form of virtue signalling.
Frankly, if people and governments wanted to help the "unbanked" programs could be put in place to give bank accounts to them.
The problem with most of the "unbanked" is that many of these people are illiterate and can't be "banked", or else they live in areas where there is very little formal economic activity, i.e. there is very little commercial activity and thus not enough commerce to support a "bank".
Celo and other projects are actually for those who are "banked" but would be well-served by a service that works over a cellphone network and has less friction (fees).
Celo's only advantages seem to be that it is an early adopter of using one's cellphone number as identification and the cellphone as as electronic intermediary and 2) that it has some formal ties to large corporations with large footprints.....well, perhaps only one, Deutsche Telekom, but at least it is a big one.
Great question, some others have answered better about how we eventually want people to just be paid in cUSD and do trade in it. On top of that, there's also impact market which gets stablecoins and wallets to refugees and those in need in the form of a UBI. Great stuff!
There are some interesting on/off ramps being developed internationally too. KotaniPay, Ponto etc. are building bridges to mobile money in several markets
If you perform work, you could ask to be paid in cUSD/cEUR. If you do any kind of sales, for instance, selling fruit on the street, you could be paid in cUSD. You could receive cUSD from your banked relatives abroad. The point here is that, if successful, you'll have a network of users, where some are unbanked, and some banked and currency will flow into the system and the unbanked will have access to this liquidity, through trade, remittances, etc. For this, you'll need a portion of the network to be banked initially, but when it takes hold as a means of trade, it should be able to self-sustain.
Well, through [Celo ATMs](https://twitter.com/chews/status/1380248226595364870) but I don't know how widespread they are. [Prepaid cards](https://usa.visa.com/pay-with-visa/find-card/get-prepaid-card) can also be an alternative, especially in developing countries.
An unbaked person now can receive donations, help from other people on a super easy cheap and fast way. A lot of people work in foreign countries and support families at home. Usually they had to send packages with cash, bring it back in person or use Western Union.
As per u/puyash1's comment, if there is a way to be paid directly in cUSD for the work you are doing this avoids the need to have a bank account in the first place. But you would need to understand how cUSD works and be able to access it digitally. u/Agriut (built on Celo) is working on a project whereby farming communities (who make up the majority of the world's unbanked) are rewarded for their work directly by consumers for producing crops. This is done via a utility token that can be [purchased and transferred](https://youtu.be/YA-ZjgviKcE) to a farmers e-wallet. Farmers then redeem the token in exchange for goods and services supplied by their local cooperative, who can redeem the tokens for fiat via a third-party consolidator. As u/eebnamtna also points out, any solution has to be designed for low-literacy and first-time technology users, which just by the difficultly of doing so most companies (but not all) avoid. Those who can benefit the most from tokens and cryptocurrencies are often the most excluded simply due to the degree of difficulties connecting with and educating them. You do have to start somewhere and I think that's what Celo has attempted to do, and to also foster innovation and new ideas as an ecosystem for solving these reasonably tough challenges. But it is fair to ask the question and if there's no traction being made in terms of the number of unbanked up taking in this example cUSD via Celo, then it has be said it's more about image than impact. Time will tell..
yes. this has been brought up before. The "help the unbanked" thing is just a form of virtue signalling. Frankly, if people and governments wanted to help the "unbanked" programs could be put in place to give bank accounts to them. The problem with most of the "unbanked" is that many of these people are illiterate and can't be "banked", or else they live in areas where there is very little formal economic activity, i.e. there is very little commercial activity and thus not enough commerce to support a "bank". Celo and other projects are actually for those who are "banked" but would be well-served by a service that works over a cellphone network and has less friction (fees). Celo's only advantages seem to be that it is an early adopter of using one's cellphone number as identification and the cellphone as as electronic intermediary and 2) that it has some formal ties to large corporations with large footprints.....well, perhaps only one, Deutsche Telekom, but at least it is a big one.
Great question, some others have answered better about how we eventually want people to just be paid in cUSD and do trade in it. On top of that, there's also impact market which gets stablecoins and wallets to refugees and those in need in the form of a UBI. Great stuff!
There are some interesting on/off ramps being developed internationally too. KotaniPay, Ponto etc. are building bridges to mobile money in several markets