THINKING ABOUT: HUNGER & CRYPTO

Weekly inspiration for humans in crypto | #005

What is wealth to you?

This 👆 question initiated a long Twitter thread. And while a few people replied “passive income”, the vast majority replied “freedom.”

Did they mean being wealthy enough to do whatever they wanted? Or did they mean that anyone who is free, is already wealthy?

957 million people

… across 93 countries went hungry in 2021, says the UN World Food Programme. This number has surely gone up due to the pandemic, and will likely keep rising as the war on Ukraine continues.

It’s not just the new refugees

… from Ukraine that will sadly become part of the hunger statistics. It’s also the people worldwide affected by 60 million tons of grain, potentially lost due to the war. Another factor affecting world food security is the huge amounts of fertilizer, exported from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, now potentially lost too.

How can crypto help?

Because that’s what we’re talking about, right? Well, there are endless ways in which crypto can help reduce hunger, and also poverty, which is strongly interconnected with hunger. Here are two:

F**K HUNGER

F**K stands for FORK of course. This dad-and-daughter project (he’s a dev, she’s an artist) invites people to create and sell fork-NFTs, with 100% of proceeds going to charities fighting hunger. It might not solve world hunger, but feeding even one person is the next best thing. Check them out.

Having identity issues?

Identity has everything to do with hunger. If you can’t prove your identity, then you can’t get a bank account, can’t create long-term financial security for yourself, which in turn puts you at risk of slipping into poverty and hunger.

BanQu is a startup with clients such as Coca Cola and Vodacom at one end, and refugees, displaced people and last-mile-farmers at the other end.

BanQu utilizes blockchain to give its big clients transparency and accountability in their supply chain. And it gives refugees, displaced people and last-mile-farmers the means to establish a verifiable digital identity, turning the unbanked population into people who can participate in the global economy. Now that to us is a win-win situation.

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We will be learning much more about how crypto can reduce hunger in our new 😎 Smesher Podcast 📻. In our first episode, we will host Eve Guterman — a research fellow at the Boris Mints Institute at TAU. Guterman focuses on Blockchain for social impact.

Don’t miss the next Smesher newsletter and podcast. Follow us on Twitter to stay updated.