02-08-2022
8: Cash not Accepted with Sofie Blakstad
The utopian future of blockchain promises a future of more inclusion for the underserved and unbanked. But in a world where it’s been reported that 9% of accounts hold 80% of the NFT market and 2% of accounts hold 95% of Bitcoin - is inequality being solved? Blockchain technology has created new opportunities for emerging markets, including digital finance solutions to help communities access affordable credit, insurance, and savings in the informal economy. Today we’re excited to be joined by Sofie Blakstad, founder of hiveonline to talk about the financial inclusion gap and how they are giving rural smallholder farmers access to credit and markets through decentralized finance. In this conversation, Sofie and I talk about the complex barriers that have kept so much of the world’s population unbanked and without access to financial services, why infrastructure matters, what decentralized finance means, and why it’s a good solution for creating access, how hiveonline leverages existing social systems to work with local cooperatives and farmers in Mozambique, the opportunities to connect DeFi with centralized banking systems, and more. Highlights Welcome Sofie Blakstad Sofie’s accidental entry into technology and banking How lack of infrastructure impacts populations The complex reasons why many people around the world remain unbanked Bridging the financial inclusion gap with decentralized finance (DeFi) Why Sofie wanted to focus on working with cooperatives in Africa How DeFi reduces costs for end users Some of the issues with preexisting FinTech solutions Leveraging existing social systems to allow access without infrastructure The founding premise of Hiveonline How traditional savings groups work Connecting DeFi with centralized banking systems Hiveonline’s plans to digitize alternative value systems The difficulty with validating whether protocols and ecosystems are truly green Key terms Decentralized finance (DeFi): a major growth sector in blockchain that offers peer-to-peer (P2P) financial services and technologies built on protocols such as Ethereum, Cardano, Polkadot, and Solana. DeFi loans, investments, trades and swaps are typically transparent, permissionless, trustless, and interoperable. Smart contract: a self-executing code or protocol that carries out a set of instructions verified on the blockchain. These contracts are trustless, autonomous, decentralized, and transparent; they are irreversible and unmodifiable once deployed. Definition source: https://www.gemini.com/cryptopedia/ Connect with Sofie Blakstad Hiveonline https://www.hivenetwork.online/ MyCoop.online https://mycoop.online/AboutUs Sofie Blakstad on Twitter https://twitter.com/sofieblakstad Connect with Eve Wealth DAO Go from crypto-curious to crypto-confident with the DeFi Curious Course https://www.evewealth.com/defi-curious Check out our social channels at @evewealthhq: LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/eve-wealth-hq/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/evewealthhq/ Twitter https://twitter.com/evewealthhq Facebook https://www.facebook.com/evewealthhq Eve Wealth Website https://www.evewealth.com/