thanks for being here and thanks for
staying to spy the typhoon
I lead a project called the open money
initiative and today we're going to
leave behind a little bit for this talk
for these twenty minutes these very
technical talk these very technical
keywords and we're gonna go back to
basics to why this technology matters
and how do we help people that need it
the most
so I wanna introduce you to Loreena who
is a baker 48 year old she's from
Venezuela the country where I'm from and
she in order to get her money out and in
order to herself escape from poverty
scarcity
she needs to convert her savings into US
dollars which she did by using the black
markets well back when it was illegal
and dangerous and after that she need to
fold the bills into her hair so she
could cross the border safely because
the border between Colombia and
Venezuela is very dangerous the guards
are very corrupt and they're just
looking for any way to make income
because the guards are as any Venezuelan
living through a very difficult
situation of economic collapse and
hyperinflation as you may know so are
the over money initiative we research
how people use money in closed economies
and collapsing monetary systems and this
year we focus on my home country
Venezuela and we did some what people
called azide research we do we follow we
borrow this approach from I do as one of
our partners and collaborators we try to
go to the places where these people live
we have served them we set up different
research methodology to collect
qualitative data that tells us a lot
about why people do what they do how
people do what they do and we go beyond
the statistics of this million percent
inflation or whatever and really look at
the human experience of what that is
like and so you can think of it as a
process of search more than research we
are searching for inspiration for
products that could help these people be
more resilient and
and better prepared for calamity so our
methods vary depending on what our goals
are this this year and this for this
project we did ethnographic interviews
which means we sit down with people we
talk with them for about two hours and
we try to get them to open up and money
is a very difficult topic and subject to
get people to open up about so we
present them with some emotional cards
and we try to like get them to get
acquainted with us and sow some rapport
and so we did some interviews in person
in Colombia and we did some interviews
remotely because we unfortunately
couldn't enter Venezuela for this time
around long story and we also did a dire
studies we wanted to know what people's
experience was like day to day and we
followed people during week and these
people were located in Venezuela
thankfully what's up works and and it's
possible to run a study so like this and
we did what do we call displacement
which are ways that we we could tell
people hey you know for example this is
there here some Bitcoin use it to buy
something and tell us what you did and
of course this is not to really get at
the waste that people would be using
Bitcoin ordinarily because it's a very
like it's a very rough intervention but
it's more about getting to know what is
difficult about these technologies and
and how do we overcome that and get
inspiration for that and so the process
in the end looks a lot like this we we
have a lot of post-its from all the
different interviews we try to sort them
organize them and try to detect patterns
in the data and so I'm gonna run quickly
because this presentation is supposed to
be 45 minutes but I'm gonna try to run
quickly through the main themes where we
organized our research insights on so
first it's about confidence in Venezuela
and networks of people have replaced the
roles of companies and institutions
which means the state and the companies
are no longer operating or they are
diminished in their way that they are
cooperating so what is the fallback in
those cases is you go and trust your
neighbors or you
your extended family and/or you go to
the Internet and go to websites that
that replace the need or replace that
the use that you have for traditional
institutions so for example instead of
exchanging money by going to a bank the
way you do it is you go through Facebook
or Instagram and search for places that
offer these informal service of
remaining and transferring money abroad
and then yeah like this here we see an
example of this is a money changer who
lives in Medellin and every day he
prepares these images and sends them to
their his entire network because he
works as a money changer and one of the
few ways that you can earn money in
foreign currency in Venezuela is by
doing a currency exchange so his sister
in this case lives in Venezuela I mean
she collaborated with him so they can
get money moving from one country to
another and this by the way does not
involve cryptocurrency in any way I'm
gonna be talking a lot about how people
use money in general and a little bit
about cryptocurrency because we did
encounter some some use of that and then
you know this is another example people
use these like the feature of whatsapp
that is like in circumcise their
services and sending and receiving money
because the thing is in if you are in a
normal country like Japan like the US UK
you can send money by just going to a
bank and say oh I want to wire money to
this bank and you know the corresponding
banking system is complicated clunky has
a little fees whatever but it works in
Venezuela the this system doesn't work
because the government doesn't allow
banks to talk to banks outside we've had
these sort of capital controls for about
20 years so the way that you do it is if
you want to convert your money to money
abroad you have to find someone that has
a bank accounting the other country and
you need to send him money first and
then receive the money on the other side
and this of course is prone to scams and
abuse and which we'll see so this leads
me to the second one in the Venezuela
every transaction is forced to feel like
a drug deal everything is kind of
underground here I'm trying to send
money to a foundation in Venezuela and
I'm in Colombia and cinnamon in this
booth this guy's telling me here you
have to watch this number and it
we'll let you know when the transaction
is clear and everything's like it's like
doing drug deals it's like doing doing
you know very Shady it feels you know
that you have to trust somebody and
there's a lot of scams something that we
found that was kind of unexpected at
least for me was that despite scarcity
and economic collapse some people are
thriving
you think Venezuela is a country that
has impoverished so quickly that
everyone must be you know suffering but
in fact hyperinflation has made some
millionaires because if you are
well-connected like this guy we talked
to the airman he was able to get a loan
issued in bolivars and he bought an
apartment in New York City with that
loan and then since the bone was in
bolivars he was able to repay it the
next year I only if there was a million
dollar loan and he paid it with $20,000
because the the value of the loan just
collapsed right so there's people that
can gain this system and and can get
huge benefits and so that tells me that
the system the economic system that in
Venezuela are trying to impose actually
elevates levels of inequality rather
than making things more equal just
really terrible and we also see people
trying to take advantage of others by
scams you know like this pyramid scheme
type things where cryptocurrency is
sometimes used because it's the easiest
way to move money kind of in the in the
in the shadow banking system like if you
these people tell us that they they're
not they don't see themselves as
scammers that you see themselves as
financial innovators but if you look at
the the way that they are operating they
it's probably not sustainable and so the
the most vulnerable if you were
interviewed this six-year-old lady who
was about to fall for one of these scams
and it's very common that the people
that don't know or that are not very
financial literate are falling for these
things so this this happens in a
situation of uncertainty and
and economic collapse when people's ways
to earn money are diminished we go to a
resilient
so when Italians have to endure constant
swings between modern and primitive
existences sometimes you are having a
perfectly normal afternoon or or a
normal day you go to work you have
electricity internet it it looks like
the same things are normal but then it's
like the typhoon that's gonna hit that
hopefully will not hit you know
everything might just no we might lose
power we might lose internet and these
things happen in Venezuela so frequently
that it's impossible to plan in advance
sometimes if you have to take your kid
to daycare and then they care that
doesn't have that you seem like they can
take care of them for you then you have
to stay at home and then you can work go
to work so these things pile on top of
each other make like a domino effect so
this is something like that's very
important to take into account when
you're designing for a product or
products for for people like this right
and of course it makes it very
challenging income from the informal
economy of an eclipses space to salaries
so we interviewed this career woman who
is a professor at the University and a
professor at the University and she
spends her days doing tasks that are way
below her level of ability because she
makes more money doing that than at her
job as a university professor for
example and this is not the only the
only time that we encounter this we also
talk to people who work as drivers
doctors who yeah also those taxi drivers
and if you notice it's very similar to
what happened in Cuba any any profession
or any occupation that interfaces with
the outside world that is able to earn
hard currency is then you know valued
more and look because you can earn more
money in it and then you do your job as
part of like your role in society if
you're a teacher if you're a doctor but
you also have to have enough for your
family to eat so you need to have taken
these two jobs leaving Venezuela is
going from a sinking ship to a life of a
few provisions this we got especially
because we focused in
Columbia and we noticed like there was a
lot of migrants coming which spoke with
a lot of migrants people have this
expectation that when they leave in as
well everything will be all right but
when they find themselves in a new
country they don't have their support
systems and as I mentioned the
institution's probably don't work for
them because maybe they don't have
papers maybe they can't get a bank
account so this is something that could
take into account and then lastly this
is my favorite category open nobody
wants the Bolivar but it's necessary to
survive so as you can see the Bolivar is
only useful now to make home decorations
and things like these and they're
beautiful but it's also a sign of the
tragedy that that's occurring right and
then you know and you might think oh
well no one's using the Bolivar like
this is because like who would use such
a worthless currency but in fact it is
the currency that's most widely
distributed and then if that's what
people have to trade it will take a long
time for it to be replaced by something
a lot more convenient like say die or
say the US dollar in cash even though
it's making inroads especially use
dollars in cash or making big inroads in
Venezuela it takes a long time for local
currencies to be replaced when someone
is selling a product they have the power
to choose how they get paid they have
that like a symmetry of power right so
for example we spoke with this guy who
was trying to find medicine for his mom
and he didn't have zel which is a
interbank transfer platform in the
United States it's very popular in
Venezuela because there still are many
people who have not many many but
there's thousands of people who have
bank accounts in the US and have
registered Frizzell so this guy didn't
have access to that and he the medicine
he was supposed to purchase to require
that like the guy who sold medicine was
like okay do you you give me the money
in zel or else I won't sell you the
medicine which you know is it's kind of
terrible for him but eventually he was
able to find an uncle that could lend
his account to him so you know just just
he keep like the
- mind-blowing right when you live in
Venezuela there's no good way to say
there's no ideal way to say so what we
noticed was we spoke with three
different people that have had it in
different approaches but you'll notice
that none of these approaches are
actually ideal so we spoke with one very
bright student who got into mining
Bitcoin and save her money in Bitcoin of
course it's volatile but she preferred
it to having US dollars because she
could pull it out at any time but it
turns out that local bitcoins is the
most liquid the most convenient way to
convert from a foreign currency if you
consider Bitcoin a foreign currency to
to bolivars if you keep your money there
in a matter of five minutes you can get
the money in your bank account and you
can pay for things which is really
amazing then there's people that save
money in dollars in cash but then it is
unsafe so if you have someone that can
keep the money for you especially if you
live in an area where it's more unsafe
then you try to keep it keep the money
there and then we are starting to see
digital money platforms being used so
there's there's a company called err TM
and uphold that are like enabling these
kind of services they're not using
cryptocurrency quite yet and some of
these are still in its infancy they they
have to become better at being mobile
first and so on and at so the government
actually blocked err TM from operating
but it's a very simple block - to bypass
so people need to have be PN's to access
these serve some of these services and
if you made a mobile app that like would
bypass under there people would need to
use VPNs that most in fact most people
don't want to use VPN
so as long as that is the situation then
this will not reach you know mass usage
so I want to talk quickly about
opportunity areas we want to enable
access and I'm gonna also go into the
three ways the way that the the
hierarchy that we establish right
confident so we often say that you
should make products in the crypt of
space that avoid avoid having trust will
challenge that and and we would say try
to leverage the trust are is already
existing between people right so what if
for example we've had these are product
plug ideas that like
provocations from the research that we
have so what if you had for example a
program where there are digital banking
ambassadors that would onboard people
onto using some digital money platforms
and you know the most exciting person in
your community could tell the others you
know this is how you would would be able
to load up money and and use this these
kinds of money systems in resilient
category we need to ensure consistent
access to our systems even under bad
infrastructure so what if there's a way
that we could enable offline mobile
transfers even if it doesn't turn out to
be extremely censorship persistent or
extremely double span resistant because
people often transact with with people
that they're going to transact with
again so it is in their best interest
not to cheat the system in in most cases
crypto bills I saw there's there's there
are some crypto bills floating around
this conference as well so this is like
nice to see some look into the sinner
idea and of a bill where you can verify
that you know the private key has money
and then you can like just use use as if
or as if that it were a bill of foreign
currency and then open we have we want
people we want these services to be
accessible to everyone in practice and
not just in theory so if you had for
example I USD wallet that you could cash
in and out very easily that doesn't
exist yet and USD wallet it can be a
stable point it can be you know it
doesn't have to be crypto although we
would very much prefer if it were right
money change your multiplier so we
noticed that one of the things that
people do to earn money in Venezuela is
to be money changers to to be able to
exchange money from one system to
another and they earn some money
hopefully in the in the good currency so
what if we trained a lot of people to to
become more nodes in this network of
money changing and then we did it in a
way that was safe for people to interact
Universal point-of-sale system so if
there were there was a way for people to
pay in the in the mechanism of payment
that is required of them and for example
this this guy that had to pay was Elwood
been in such a rush to find the way to
pay because there could be a way for him
to convert you know if he had those in
cash there could be a way for example to
convert to other currencies and then if
we could have joined crypto accounts if
you have a family member that knows a
little bit more about crypto and is in
Colombia for example you wouldn't even
need to send the money if you share an
account and you could load it up in one
country and then you could use it in
another and that could be interesting as
well so when it quickly because I don't
have that much time and to use a new
crop of useful products that we've found
since we did this research so coin is
just released their wallet the light
version of the wallet and give crypto is
actually giving out cryptocurrency to
people that don't need it
and they're running some pilot programs
or just interesting there is a new
framework for open source wallets that
are running on all low versions of
Android which was not like this didn't
exist before and this is like oh now
open-source I'm going to present this in
room D in a few minutes as well there's
a committee called reserve that's
actually allowing people to buy and sell
dollars digital dollars and they have a
stable coin so they are allowing people
to do that with their bank accounts in
minutes whele and they have a very
seamless and very easy to use
application for that but this it's great
and then there's a company called value
that's a lot of people send money from
Colombia to Venezuela and there's
something a huge problem for the 1.5
million migrants that are in Colombia
and perhaps they could integrate some
some of these ideas too for example
instead of sending the money to bank
everyone in Venezuela they could send
the money to a wallet and it would stay
in dollars that would be super cool as
well so some quick takeaways for
builders I want us to focus on what is
useful because there's a lot of focus on
what is usable and usability it's a
great it's great conversation to have
that you excited it's the design track
it's all cool but I want us to focus on
you know things that are actually very
very useful rather than just useable and
then I would challenge you know that the
idea that we all need to work toward
master
and I would push us to go and work for
products that some people really really
need and it's easier to focus you know
in you know solving a local problem
a smaller problem and I want to just I
want to think where is money restricted
where are other places where we could
conduct this research and we could get
you know inspiring results and inspiring
new products so thank you these are our
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[Applause]
you