#GoodData

It's been seven weeks since GoodDollar launched our basic income wallet and protocol and the total number of GoodDollar coins distributed as basic income has surpassed 6 million. It's 6,104,793 G$, to be exact, as of October 26, with the number of unique Claimers nearing 40,000.

For more data – including cool graphs – please explore our stats dashboard here.

A Week Of #GoodNews

• It really is a g'day, mate! The Sydney Morning Herald, with the help of three academics, has exclusively revealed a proposed “Australian Basic Income”, calculating that by affording every adult AUS$18,500 (US$13,182) a year through the scheme it “would lift tens of thousands out of poverty and dramatically reduce inequality in Australia”. The associated study suggests that the programme could be funded through a slight tax increase. As the SMH article states: “Australia’s overall level of taxation would need to rise from around 28 per cent of gross domestic product to 34 per cent but that would still be in line with the average for the OECD, a club of mostly rich countries.”

• A research paper published earlier this month confirmed what we at GoodDollar know to be true: even a modest basic income can help the world's poorest and most vulnerable populations survive crises, such as the COVID-19 fallout. The paper, Effects of a Universal Basic Income During the Pandemic – authored by MIT professors Abhijit Banerjee and Tavneet Suri, among others – found that rural Kenyans who received a daily basic income equivalent to US$0.75 were less likely to go hungry and even recorded improvements in their physical and mental health, reports MIT Sloan School of Management.

• Meanwhile, Vox has published a handy list and accompanying map of the 13 countries that have experimented with basic income, and offers an assessment of the small-scale trials. See above.

• Brian Brooks, the acting Comptroller of the Currency in the United States, predicts that mainstream adoption of decentralized finance (DeFi) is “inevitable” and will supersede most of the financial services offered by banks obsolete, CoinTelegraph reports. The Comptroller – the person responsible for supervising the quality of accounting and financial reporting of an organisation – believes DeFi will disrupt banking in the same way email significantly reduces the need for the postal service. Speaking at DC Fintech Week on October 19, Brooks said: “We [...] see a future where decentralization is very likely an unstoppable force out there. Decentralized networks, by definition, are cheaper, faster, and more resilient than any kind of centralized structure.” 

• And finally this week, Ivan Vilibor Sinčić, a Croatian Member of the European Parliament, has written an open letter in New Europe to push for a continent-wide basic income. “The only solution to get out of this crisis, to save the economy and human lives, to prevent all crises in the future is a universal basic income for all,” he writes, adding there are “more than 120 million poor citizens” in Europe. “I will not give up until poverty is eradicated,” he continues. “It is not just an economic, but also a civilizational issue of the 21st century.”

#DoBetter

October 24 marked 50 years since high-income countries committed to spending 0.7 per cent of their gross national income (GNI) on aid to low- and middle-income countries. A new Oxfam paper calculates that in the last half-century, high-income countries have failed to deliver a total of $5.7 trillion in aid to the poorest people on the planet. Not exactly pocket change, is it?!

#GoodInfluence

Jack Ma, Co-Founder of Alibaba Group, has seen the future: and it’s powered by digital currency. The owner of one of the largest tech companies in Asia used an opportunity at Bund Summit in Shanghai to extol the virtues of DeFi and predicted that, much like the smartphone was a giant leap for the mobile phone industry, digital currency will enable a new financial system, in both developing and developed economies, according to Bloomberg. “Digital currency could create value and we should think about how to establish a new type of financial system through digital currency,” he said.

#GoodFuture

A new report, the Digital Currency Group’s State of Crypto 2020, has found that those in developing countries are embracing crypto assets, which is great news for GoodDollar adoption. “In emerging markets (EMs), across Africa, the Middle East and South America, signs of a global economic slowdown exacerbated fears of local currency devaluations and capital controls – prompting many to look to cryptocurrency as a haven for their savings,” the report states, adding that net profits in five EM-focused exchanges examined improved 80 per cent between Q4 2019 and Q2 this year.

How To Get Involved

• Sign up to begin to claim G$
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• Sign up to receive the weekly GoodNews on basic income and open finance