Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land

Chain Bazaar Make it easier for the blockchain to land

Picture丨From the Internet

Picture丨From the Internet

Picture丨From the Internet

For the past few years, UNICEF has been exploring innovations in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. One of the emerging themes is decentralized finance.

Decentralized finance, or what we call DeFi, is a set of financial services available on blockchain and cryptocurrency platforms. These financial services are accessible and usable by anyone with Internet access. A typical use case for services provided by DeFi is the ability for anyone to open a savings account.

DeFi is important because it enables people around the world to have access to basic and equal financial services. According to surveys, 31% of adults worldwide are unbanked due to various issues, including not having the documents required to open a savings account with a bank, and many people are struggling to access these basic financial services The service faces several challenges.

In order to further promote UNICEF's exploration of DeFi services, UNICEF is working closely with the blockchain technology group at the University of Berkeley to develop a mobile app. It can make it easier for users to access and obtain DeFi services.

This mobile app can be used by users all over the world to obtain DeFi services. The main content is lending, which allows users to deposit money into the mobile app and earn interest. Interest can be returned to users or used to pay other services.

The project they are involved with is helping UNICEF explore whether lending as a DeFi service can be useful for communities and schools around the world.

Why school?

In 2019, UNICEF and ITU launched an initiative called Giga to connect every school in the world to the internet. Giga's core pillars include Maps, Finance, Connect and Empower.

Maps: Map schools around the world to understand and identify connectivity needs.

Finance: Establish economical, sustainable, country-specific models for the financing and delivery of Internet connectivity.

Connectivity: Using technology solutions to connect schools and provide the country with a safe, secure and suitable infrastructure to support future digital development needs.

Empowerment: Working with government, digital learning and service initiatives to ensure every young person has access to information, opportunities and choices.

Once these schools are connected to the Internet, Giga will explore different ways to empower communities through open source digital public goods. Some of these digital public goods can be DeFi services. The blockchain group at UNICEF and the University of Berkeley is interested in how DeFi can be used to position schools as economic hubs for communities.

Berkeley's blockchain group created a mobile app called Satchel. Satchel hopes to use DeFi to enable the community around the school to collectively raise funds and generate income for the community.

Berkeley Blockchain Project Satchel

Satchel allows people in the community (around the school) to pool money together, which can be loaned out to earn interest. The resulting interest can be used to improve the community (and the school), while also providing income to lenders (e.g. parents, teachers, etc.).

This project is open source, but please note that it is still in beta and is currently only for prototyping.

How the Berkeley Blockchain Group Got Started

Berkeley's blockchain group began by examining a series of problems common in emerging markets. Panellists noted that, in some of the countries visited, wages were depreciating over time due to inflation.

Global inflation is around 3.6 percent, with the highest rates in countries such as Argentina and Zimbabwe, according to the World Economic Forum. People in these countries are looking for a way to preserve the value of the wages they pay over time. The group did some additional research and learned that some people were exploring moving their salaries into cryptocurrencies as a store of value.

With this knowledge, Berkeley's blockchain group researched various DeFi services. They wanted to figure out which services could be easily accessed by the average consumer and identified a reliable loan service. Based on the service, the team created a mobile app that enables community members to crowdfund improvements to their own community. The initial implementation of Satchel will focus on building communities around schools.

Here's a typical example of how someone might use Satchel:

1. Parents of students at a school offer $100 to Satchel

2. Satchel uses DeFi services to lend $100 and earn 3% to 5% of the principal each year

3. At the end of the year, the borrower earns income (e.g. 4% of $100 yields $4)

4. The amount of income is 4 US dollars, and the parents and the school will share half of it.

The team conducted design studies to make the DeFi lending service and mobile app easy to use. App design focuses on user experience. Through interviews with users as well as academic professionals in the regions where the team hopes to deploy the app, Berkeley's blockchain team was able to create an intuitive app that empowers users to invest in a community.

what's next

The team hopes to continue working on the platform. Three new features they hope to build in the new year include: enabling communities to self-organize events to raise more funds through the app; enabling people from around the world to donate funds to communities of their choice; and enabling Other users are able to join the platform and take advantage of the lending capabilities (e.g. small business owners can co-invest with the community).

DeFi is of great significance and value to inclusive finance, and the blockchain group at the University of Berkeley has set a good example for it.