Crypto Union: The Western Union Killer

There is an opportunity in the cryptocurrency space for those of us who want to 10x cryptocurrency adoption in the real world for real people solving real problems.

Remittances.

Global remittance flows are more than USD$500 billion per year. That is a multiple of foreign direct aid. In many nations, remittances represent a major source of income, as much as 40% of GDP.

By using cryptocurrency for remittances, we can create a feeder effect, whereby people receive their income in crypto. Some will choose to spend crypto directly. Some will choose to hold.

Fiat money is government money, so it is limited by national borders. Crypto money is human money, so it is not limited by national borders. It crosses them as if they didn’t exist.

This is why crypto is well-suited for remittances.

The average fee globally for remittances is 8%. Sometimes it is higher, sometimes lower. Current remittances solutions are highly varied and irregular, sometimes confusing, sometimes inflexible.

Crypto can be cheaper. It can be cooler. Crypto is futuristic, it’s the next thing. But more importantly crypto is flexible. You can send it from Kansas City to Guatemala City in seconds without having to visit a retail shop. You can send it back from Guatemala City to Kansas City, again in seconds, and with sub-cent fees.

This kind of flexibility enables all kinds of value to be created for people that a once-monthly send of USD$200 via Western Union or Moneygram can never match.

This “Crypto Union” concept can be exclusive to 1 well-suited crypto, such as Bitcoin Cash, Dash or DAI. Or can be multi-crypto.

But what it can’t lack is stability. It must be possible for people to “freeze” the value of their crypto immediately, painlessly and cheaply. If the only, or best, way to stabilize the value is via exiting to a fiat bank account, we are failing.

We need stability in-wallet.

The pieces of the puzzle include:

• on-ramps (places to buy crypto in remittance source countries)
• off-ramps (places to sell crypto in remittance beneficiary countries)
• wallet (should include options to spend crypto and to find merchants, must include cheap stability)
• merchant adoption (optional but helpful since beneficiaries can spend their crypto directly and save on off-ramp fees)
• marketing (viral, affiliate, on-the-ground, and can not rely exclusively on paid social media ads)

Benefits include:

• Hard-working people keep more of their money
• Rent-seeking middlemen get less
• More investment in the developing world
• Get crypto into the informal economy, which is not the unbanked or the global poor but a rich economic powerhouse that needs blockchain/DLT.
• Follow-on benefits for the truly global poor, malnourished, diseased, etc

Why?

• solve the problem of global poverty and informality, bringing prosperity to billions who lack it
• build real use for your crypto in the real world
• make money
• help good, hard-working people
• realize the original vision of crypto, which includes digital cash and open, cheap use everywhere
• build a safety net for crypto since it has lots its soul in Wall Street
• have a lot of fun!

Want to be a part of the working group? Email me at [email protected].