Leveraging the growth of DeFi to build a more inclusive economy

Decentralized finance was developed as a way to dissolve generations-old barriers to entry in the global financial system.

Yet even after a boom in value that saw assets locked in various DeFi platforms quintuple to a record $88 billion in May from just $17 billion in January, activity remains concentrated in relatively few hands, most in the world’s wealthiest economies. And while the appetite to be part of the crypto economy is large and growing, many potential participants feel they lack the technical tools, know-how, and capital to join in.

GoodDollar is using DeFi’s cutting-edge capabilities to rebalance that equation. Our mission? To onboard the next billion cryptocurrency users by giving people in every corner of the globe the means and the knowledge to join the digital economy. To do this, we have built a groundbreaking blockchain-based protocol that uses smart contracts to continually and sustainably mint a digital token–G$–that anyone can claim via our decentralized non-custodial wallet app.

The elements of the GoodDollar Protocol—the mission-driven philosophy, the GoodDollar Trust, the simple wallet—form the basis of an innovative distribution model designed to harness market forces and the principles of social investing to offer everyone everywhere a chance to take part in the crypto wealth boom.

And for those who want to help us achieve this ambition, GoodDollar offers a new paradigm for impact-oriented capital: one that draws on the flexibility of DeFi to deliver material as well as psychic rewards to supporters.

Proving a truly decentralized economy

GoodDollar is the brainchild of eToro co-founder Yoni Assia, whose growing concern about the dangers of growing global inequality back in 2008 led him to envision a new breed of financial system, one owned by its users and operated transparently for the benefit of all. Ten years later, he charged the GoodDollar Foundation with bringing his concept to life.

After experimenting with several blockchain-based income-distribution models, the team settled on the current incarnation and launched the GoodDollar Proof of Concept in September 2020.

In the few short months since, GoodDollar has outperformed even our most optimistic projections. Backed by a $58,000 founding stake from eToro, the world’s largest social investing network, we have to date minted and distributed $16,000 in reserve-backed GoodDollars (G$) to 220,000 people in 181 countries.

Today, with 90,500 DAI staked to the protocol, GoodDollar disburses between $50 and $200 worth of free crypto a day in G$, depending on interest rates and liquidity. All GoodDollar generation and distribution is handled autonomously, sustainably, and with total transparency, all via smart contracts.

As a currency, GoodDollar is also both liquid and highly stable. This is because although G$ is . not a stablecoin, it is backed by leading cryptocurrencies. Despite its tiny initial market cap of less than $200,000, G$ has proved more stable than the top 100 cryptocurrencies, along with many government-issued currencies–particularly those in volatile economies.

What the GoodDollar model proves that growing the pie is possible without redistributing money from the rich to the poor. Since all the cryptocurrency claimants receive is freshly minted each day, everyone gains a share of a growing pie.

The birth of a movement

Above all, the PoC has demonstrated that GoodDollar is far more than a new use case for smart contracts. GoodDollar is a movement: one that has already touched a quarter million people in more than 181 countries around the globe. And we’re only getting started.

Our community, meanwhile, has grown to some 220,000 members across four continents, including between 40,000 to 80,000 active daily users. This highly engaged group has helped make the GoodDollar wallet app one of the most popular distributed applications (dapps) in the blockchain universe. Transactions in G$ are growing as well, with a 55% increase in the past three months, resulting in an average of 594 transactions a day from community-built marketplaces and innovative ideas from our members collaborating with one another.

In the coming months, we plan a number of updates to build on our momentum. First, we will throw open the protocol to anyone who wants to further our mission by staking their crypto. We will also open up governance, via the launch of the GoodDAO: the decentralized autonomous organization that will steer the project into the future.

We expect this next phase of growth to include major advances toward making G$ negotiable for a full range of goods and services, including new spending partnerships and community-led initiatives.

In April, we forged a partnership with U.S-based fintech BitMinutes that will allow GoodDollar members in key markets across Latin America and Africa to exchange their G$ for BitMinute mobile phone minutes. The GoodDollar community has already set up a global digital marketplace for commerce in GoodDollars, with more than 40,000 users who have listed thousands of items for sale across the globe. Community ambassadors have established over 20 different social media marketplaces and language community groups, facilitating GoodDollar adoption in key markets, and providing country-specific destinations for members to use G$ to buy and sell used goods and exchange services.

Doing good with GoodDollar

GoodDollar members are also finding novel ways to use their G$ to help others and achieve their goals.

One user has built an Ethereum Cities project that helps develop free tools and services for community organizations and has given away more than 1 million G$.

Yonatan Ben Ami, the general manager of the Tel Aviv-based charity Pessia’s Kitchen, opened a G$ account to raise money for free meals. Through daily claims and Facebook appeals, he amassed 1,427 G$, only to have a generous benefactor match that in shekels. The total funded 1,427 meals. The GoodDollar community, inspired, then raised enough to pay for 100 more.

Nigerian GoodDollar member Steve was the first community member to successfully use G$ to pay his school fees and pay for the upcoming semester’s electrical engineering courses. Using a mix of G$ collected through daily claiming and crowdfunding from the global community, Steve raised 250,000 G$ to pay his tuition bill at the University of Benin, with enough funds leftover to buy books and materials.

Opening the GoodDollar protocol to the world

By exposing the scale of inequity across the globe, the pandemic has left many people asking how they can help close the gap. Now, with the opening of the GoodDollar protocol so that anyone can join and support the movement, there is an innovative and efficient way to do just that.

In the release of GoodDollar V2, any GoodDollar supporter who wants to support GoodDollar will be able to do so by deposits, or stakes, of cryptocurrency into the GoodDollar Trust, the set of staking contracts that fuel the minting of GoodDollar. Per the model, each supporter increases the amount of G$ we can issue each day, while at the same time earning returns on those assets. This is because GoodDollar “wraps” around popular staking and yield-farming protocols such as Compound, allowing supporters to earn interest on their stakes while simultaneously helping others in need. The release incorporates smart contract upgrades and enhanced functionality, the protocol dapp (UX/UI), and the initial governance model, which will handover all future upgrades to a community-led governance model. More to come soon, in a forthcoming roadmap post.

Inequality is the plague of the modern economy. With GoodDollar, we can use the innovations of decentralized finance to truly build a healthier future.