We’re pretty happy with the work we did for the Humanity Cash platform and their digital BerkShares project.
Photo by Oleg Laptev on Unsplash
As discussed in last week’s post, we’re pretty happy with the work we did for the Humanity Cash platform and their digital BerkShares project. We said it there and we’ll say it here again: using web3 tech to digitize a community currency AND integrate it with the standard ACH banking rails is quite a feat. #BraggingRights
Today we’d like to tell the world that we’ve decided to make all that work available under an open source Apache 2.0 license! #MegaBraggingRights
We’re doing this because…
✔️ We feel this can speed up the web3 vision of financial inclusion.
✔️ We think this can be rocketfuel for buidlers buidling finance dapps.
✔️ We believe this can turn the WAGMI dial all the way up to 11.
HEAVY LIFTING DONE. NOW, HAVE IT
See, we’ve been thinking…
Financial inclusion is in Keyko’s DNA. We believe it’s a fundamental aspect of building digital ecosystems. Getting involved with Humanity Cash taught us a lot about the importance of local economies in the US and, by extension, the role that community currencies and community banks can play in that.
Vision: ✔️check
Project delivered: ✔️check
So…
The first reason for our decision to open source our hard work is that we see a lot of projects with similar ambitions to Berkshares and Humanity Cash. There’s Health Bucks in New York, there’s Black Wall Street, there’s the Brixton Pound in the UK… Community currencies are all around us.
They all have the same issues around optimization, cost efficiency and scaling. We fixed these issues for Humanity Cash, and we don’t believe all these projects should have to do the same heavy lifting as we did. So here’s the code. Keyko’s got you covered fam!
WAGMI FOR REAL — FINANCIAL INCLUSION
But then we did some more thinking…
While we wholeheartedly believe that these community currency projects are banging the drum for the cause of financial inclusion, Keyko’s vision is broader. We believe that crypto as a whole can be a catalyst for financial inclusion. That makes us part of a network of many crypto projects and wallets that have the same mission: lowering the barriers to the financial systems. Think of Celo’s Valora, just to name one.
This isn’t “WAGMI”, and then #rugpull.
This is WAGMI like, We’re ALL Going to Make It.
And then we realized that the solution we built for Humanity Cash has 2 super significant USPs:
- Our solution allows for easy on- and off-boarding between a blockchain based token (aka crypto) and fiat
- Our solution is a bridge between on-chain wallets and settlement (i.e. the Celo blockchain) and off-chain reconciliation (i.e. the ACH banking rails into community banks)
So…
The second reason for open sourcing the code we developed is that it can be used as a solution for 2 major hurdles that are as real as they are old: crappy UX + compliance/regulation.
Going from fiat to crypto is a pain in the ass, especially trying to link your bank account to a crypto wallet. With the Humanity Cash solution, this process can now happen directly between a bank account and a blockchain wallet, in both directions for any kind of ‘on-chain token’, whether it’s crypto, a community stablecoin, or any other programmable form of ‘money’.
Compliance is another major hurdle for adoption: auditing, AML and KYC are real challenges. The Humanity Cash solution is a technical bridge between two very different systems: on-chain and web2 infra. This gives it the potential to create better compliance solutions for all parties involved. Just one example: imagine if, as a dapp-team, you could use this component to port a bank’s KYC capabilities into your dapp.
More importantly, it also closes the conceptual gap between dapps and banks. Mahatma Gandhi once said: ”First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” For the web3 community this is a familiar feeling and it’s fair to say we’re in phase three right now. But after phase three comes phase four and smart web2 companies will make a shift and become part of these ecosystems. Our contribution is to speed that up with solutions like the ones we built.
Banks are not ready for this, we hear you say? Not in our experience. As part of the Humanity Cash project, two existing brick and mortar community banks signed on, both from a technical as well as a regulatory point of view. Lee Bank and Salisbury Bank recognize the opportunity this paradigm shift presents, and they realize the increased relevance this can give them. We say they’re right.
SPREAD THE WORD
Keyko is in this space to build unstoppable ecosystems, but ecosystems stop when they have to waste time rebuilding what already exists. We don’t want all these projects to do the same heavy lifting that we had to do. So we decided to give back and open source our hard work.
With any luck, this will help the projects that share our vision to accelerate instead of languish, so that they can roll-out similar projects that are crucial to strengthening local economies or any other financial inclusion strategy.
In other words, we think we’ve made two key contributions to open up the largest market on the planet. Use it!
We just ask one thing: help us help #Web3.0 take another step into increasing adoption by:
➡️ Forward this story to your Community banks.
➡️ Loop in any crypto projects that need a simple fiat to crypto on-board and off-boarding mechanism.
➡️ Connect with a local currency project that can benefit from this substantial tech advancement.
➡️ Send it to people you know at that neo-bank that’s carefully dabbling in crypto.
Much appreciated ❤
If you have any questions or want to collaborate on similar projects (IBAN anyone?), get in touch.
Explore the open source code here.
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