#GoodData

Since the GoodDollar basic income wallet and protocol was launched, a month and a half ago, the total number of successful user claims has already surpassed half a million. At the latest count, as of October 20, the figure is 575,640. Can we surpass one million claims before December?

Other data:

• Countries in which people have claimed: 173 (89 per cent of the world’s nations)
• Total unique claimers: 36,099
• Total G$ transactions: 9,576
• Most transactions by one user: 445
• Total UBI distributed: G$ 4.4 million

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

A Week Of #GoodNews

• The Boston Globe notes that the United Nations World Food Program won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, however nearly 40 per cent of the agency’s assistance last year, for nearly 30 million people in 64 countries, was in “cold, hard cash”. The comment piece, titled “Just give poor people money”, points out that organisations are “increasingly handing out cash rather than goods” and argues this should be dialled up even more.

• To mark the UNs’ International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, on October 17, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the international community to stand in solidarity with people living in poverty – and called for “a new generation of social protection programmes”. Indian news channel The Rahnuma Daily reported that the Portuguese said: “The Covid-19 pandemic is a double crisis for the world’s poorest people. First, they have the highest risk of exposure to the virus, and least access to quality healthcare. Second, recent estimates show the pandemic could push up to 115 million people into poverty this year – the first increase in decades.” Guterres added: “Women are at greatest risk because they are more likely to lose their jobs, and less likely to have social protection. In these extraordinary times, we need extraordinary efforts to fight poverty. The pandemic demands strong collective action. Governments must accelerate economic transformation by investing in a green, sustainable recovery. We need a new generation of social protection programmes that also cover people working in the informal economy.”

• Some 800 low-income residents in Compton, California, will receive a regular cash payment for two years, in what is being called America’s largest basic income programme to date, according to CBS. The Compton Pledge, as it’s named, will launch later this year. It has already attracted US$2.5 million in private donations and will allow recipients to choose between multiple payment options.

• The Central Bank of Spain, which was the first country to adopt nationwide basic income earlier this year as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, has published a strategic roadmap for the next five years – and exploring a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is one of its priorities, reports CryptoPotato.

• And in Sweden, has gone all-in on a CBDC. And the top central banker in Sweden – which has been leading the cashless revolution – Stefan Ingves, governor of the Riksbank, has gone all-in on a CBDC, and called on the Swedish Parliament to do the same. “There shall be digital state money as legal tender, an e-krona, issued by the Riksbank,” he wrote, according to CoinDesk.

#DoBetter

“We have failed to listen and respond to … children and their families,” says Dr Dasha Nicholls, who is part of a You-Cope study into young people’s health and wellbeing during the coronavirus pandemic. “We risk having a whole generation unheard, forgotten and devalued. This generation is entering uncharted territory, where their opportunities have been devastated. People talk of the resilience of the young but this crisis has happened so quickly that young people have had no time to change and adapt. The impact on them could become entrenched, with potentially enduring consequences.” The number-one measure to soften the blow of the pandemic, as suggested by experts, is basic income, the Guardian reports.

#GoodInfluence

Yoni Assia, Co-Founder and Chief Executive of eToro – GoodDollar’s main sponsor – looked into his crystal ball for CoinDesk and predicted what the world will look like in 10 years. In the article, titled “Your wallet in 2030 will be full of free money”, he writes: “By freeing money, we have repaired democracy, and are moving closer to a world whose financial system is more free, accessible and fundamentally fair.”

#GoodFuture

The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and G20 countries have vowed to create central bank digital currency (CBDC) rules, which will help crypoasset adoption in developed and developing countries alike. By the end of 2022 the group will have completed regulatory stablecoin frameworks and research and selection of CBDC designs, technologies and experiments, reports CoinDesk.

How To Get Involved

• Sign up to begin to claim G$
• Follow GoodDollar on Twitter and Facebook
• Join our Telegram group
• Sign up to receive the weekly GoodNews on basic income and open finance