52: Dashing Through Latin America

In our first coverage of Latin America, George Donnelly from Dash describes his work with merchants and businesses across the region. Particularly in Venezuela, there are growing pains and discontent as many households are living in poverty in an economy spiraling out of control. In the U.S., cryptocurrencies are treated more like speculative investments whereas in markets like Venezuela there are pressing needs for alternative ways to manage and use money. Hernando De Soto, the Peruvian economist, has said for decades people here lack systemic access to meaningful capital and credit to build wealth. In the informal economy, people mostly use cash, for their small businesses and other daily transactions. They don't own bank accounts. George draws insights from first-hand interactions with communities and merchants in Colombia, Venezuela and Peru. As a coordinator, he listens to their stories and challenges. Then he shows them how technology can remove frictions in their financial management. George ends with some thoughts on Facebook's Libra digital currency while highlighting some misconceptions that Americans have about "money" in regions like Latin America. Links:https://twitter.com/georgedonnelly https://www.dash.org/ https://www.ft.com/content/47f07086-ae0f-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2 https://colombiareports.com/imf-lowers-colombias-2019-economic-growth-projection/ ------------------------ Follow A Bit Cryptic Podcast: Twitter.com/keepitcryptic https://Facebook.com/abitcryptic https://www.abitcryptic.com/ ——————————— We are a Civil newsroom as part of a new global community network of independent newsrooms. For more, visit —> https://civil.co/ -------------------------------- If you like what you heard, please leave us a 5-star review and share the podcast! -------------------------------- Affiliates: If you don't have a Coinbase account, it’s a convenient way to buy, sell, and store smaller cryptocurrency online (it's FDIC insured to $250k). Use our link to get $10 free BTC after you buy $100 worth of crypto: https://www.coinbase.com/join/52dbff1652e0669dd500002d If you want extra security for storing your crypto i.e. if you have more than 1 month earnings in crypto, you NEED to be using something secure like a Hardware wallet: https://www.ledger.com/?r=b2a701a48333 ------------------------------------ Donation links: BTC: 1CsrHFn1VCpjofxRKxw1DQKGVURSxr8yWb ETH: 0xe612032F9AE393017141A5CBA6DFC00428B82cE6 LTC: MMPb9PpgdJvnXaXYynXQ728e4GNtyHGAbu USDC: 0xAa512a7F121e2781700f73D7B4a8b1FDA80E545a