RealFi Lightning Talks - Buenos Aires 2025

[music] I'm Sarah. I'm running Relay Funder and we are unlocking capital for refugee communities. So, right now, as you've heard from many of our panelists today, we are in a humanitarian aid crisis. 42% of funding was cut this year and we have 120 million displaced persons. And that number is unfortunately on the rise.

Numbers are predicted to be about 500 million by 2030 and 1.2 billion by 2050. We're also in a meta planetary crisis. We have climate catastrophes and intensifying and accelerating uh conflict. In addition to funding cuts, we also have just outdated aid systems.

Our our systems are really broken. Um they're top down and they're inefficient at getting money to the people who need the most. Also, traditionally, refugees are excluded from financial infrastructure and this is really problematic. Also, as you just heard on our last panel, refugees, a lot of them don't have ID. But hey, guess what?

Web 3, we're evolving. The tech stack is maturing. We still have the ability to potentially hopefully reach, you know, a billion users. And I think that this is literally the most important problem that we can be solving. Um, so that's what I'm working on.

I have a crowdfunding uh quadratic funding platform inspired by Gitcoin. I've been really inspired by a lot of the public funding goods mechanisms that have been developed and we are live in a soft launch right now focused on Kenya and Uganda and supporting uh campaigns of projects in refugee communities. Maybe it was a little ambitious to put a demo in my video. Uh but right now this would be taking you through uh my platform which is again I mentioned crowdfunding. Uh yeah look at this.

So, we're working with an organization called Refunite. Refuite has 120,000 trusted uh vetted community leaders and these people can come and apply to have a campaign. Uh we're attempting to disrupt crowdfunding in the sense that we we want the users, the donors who are engaging to feel more uh connected to the cause in a in a long-term way. So the way in which we're doing that is the campaigns get to provide updates and keep the users engaged so that they understand what's happening and all of this is on chain as well. We're built on cello and uh everything is on chain and I think we are still demoing but um really what we're trying to do is optimize a feedback loop um so that we can get more funds to those who need it most on the ground.

So this is an example so you can see everything's going onchain. Uh we're also working with Kickstarter's web3 protocol uh called CCP. I believe they might be uh identifying as Oak Network right now. Uh but we're using their smart contract treasuries to move funds as well. Oh, whoops.

Too ambitious.

[laughter]

So, I just came out of the funding the commons residency and I worked alongside with a lot of other builders and really incredible people and a lot of talent and I feel really fortunate because we had about four projects emerge working on the humanitarian aid space that were related. I'm almost done. Oh, [snorts] I'm almost done. Okay, keep going. So, these are the issues I'm tackling as well.

Identity, financial inclusion, income generation, and secure storage of value. And I just want to quickly showcase this one. Can you press play? This I developed with a cryptographer over the last two weeks from capsules. Um, basically what we did is create a digital artifact around a funding project that we did last year in Uganda where we raised money to build a music school in a refugee camp.

And uh we produced from that from that um experiment a 24-minute video. But now that we live in the attention economy and it's hard to capture, you know, people's attention, we put a digital artifact which is basically extracting some content from that video and I did a little bit of an editorial piece around my why and like why I'm working on this problem and why I think it's the most important problem to be working on. Um, so yeah, we'll just take a glimpse, but it's so cool. Look at this. [laughter] So this is my capsule uh that was created with the capsule team.

They've been really incredible to collaborate with. Okay, I'm getting the time button. Um, yeah, we can keep going, but this is all real world footage and uh look out for more more information. [applause] Okay, who's up next?

Thank you very much. So hopefully they have my slides. Uh, cloud. There you go. Okay, thank you very much everybody.

Um, my name is Clauddio. I'm co-founder of Metapple. We're a liquid multi-chain liquid staking DAO. I'm going to talk about basically what we've done the last two years and distributing more than $1.2 million.

So, okay. Hopefully, it's going to work. So, this is how we did it. Basically, what we did is all liquid staking, all the staked assets that were deposited on Metapple, we grabbed all the protocol fees uh through our multi-chain um DAO governance token and PDA. And so when you could vote either for grants or you can vote for validator nodes.

But all these activities what we did is we signal folks that wanted to support different type of projects. Uh we supported projects on Ethereum. We supported projects with Gith Gitcoin and we also uh supported projects through our own community. What we wanted to do is basically want to build tools that empower sovereign individuals in what we're calling frontier markets. So these are regions that are at the border of massive crypto adoption and the best way and sustainable way to do it is through the staking rewards and the protocol fees that we generate.

So this is what we did. So 1 1 now 30 million uh 1.3 million is what we distributed. We distribute this on a monthly basis and it's done all onchain. So there's no custodial service being used.

Everybody that supports our protocol can be part of the DAO and more importantly they can also earn rewards. So this is uh something that no other LST has done. Uh we do this in a very transparent everything is onchain. There's no governance forum post. You do you could do that.

All our governance is onchain as well. And so we allow anybody we allow a permissionless system to distribute all the rewards to more than uh I think like 65 projects right now. One of the important thing here is that we are also supporting node operators. So when we started to fund the different projects, we started to notice a pattern because many of them wanted to do their own project but they were not engaged with the ecosystem and what we did is that we allow them to run a validator node, earn the staking rewards and then support get support from the ecosystem and the community as well. So we're trying to create this loops of value creation through a sustainable manner because the only way that we are able to distribute more is by people staking on the protocol and so we've done that for the last two years more more excited for us is that we partnered with the University of Zurich and this year we did 16 scholarship for researchers in Latam and in Southeast Asia to participate in the blockchain center of the University of Surirk uh summer school program.

And this is something that or public organizations in our countries are not going to support. And so we felt that this was a common good that need we needed to support because more research needs to be done in the regions that are the core users of all this great technology that we're building. Here you can see how we started back in 2023. we did like I don't know like $1,000 and then subsequently as we progressed we were distributing $90,000 per month and so this is something we did it did we did this all transparently everything was onchain uh it was a tough uh uh program to support because you're on boarding folks that do not know what governance is how voting is and so it was a kind of like a chicken and egg problem but at the end of the day the the the the money was there and it was open for everyone. Shout out to Carlos Melgar who was at Gitcoin at that time and the give it team as well.

And so definitely this is a sustainable manner to do it through the protocol fees. Now what's the call to action right for us is through staking rewards we can build sustainable systems for growth. That's as uh and as more people stake more fees are distributed and so this create a virtuous cycle. Um further ado yeah more information please scan there uh reach out to me I'll be here for a few more minutes and thank you very much everybody for coming to funding the goods funding the comments sorry [applause]

cool next up Alishar. Hi everyone, my name my name is Alishar. I I work in logos in different projects and one of them is key card. Yeah. Uh and one of them is key cardart.

Keycart is uh hardware wallet smart card hardware wallet and it's all open source and uh basically very affordable and a builder can build it on their own desktop with smart card reader. And when I learned more about problem of refugees in displaced communities, I've seen an opportunity to apply uh kart technology to humanitarian problems. And I come with the idea of relay card. So it's offline smart card hardware wallet and ID for refugees without smartphones. Uh imagine uh you are forced to move somewhere else in another country and you don't have your passport, you don't have you don't have your bank card, you can't pay for groceries, uh you can't uh you even can't be paid for your work, you do for community.

And this is a reality for millions of refugees around the world. Um I personally have the same experience. uh my family and I fle uh the war uh uh between Tajjikistan and Russia in n uh in start of the '90s. Yeah. So uh during the residency we discussed uh a lot about problem of the last mile of a distribution uh uh such amazing uh such amazing uh platforms like fun relay uh like relay fun and relay ID already solving it in a in a beautiful way.

But what about the last yard? In this diagram, you can see uh how funds moving from sponsors to crow crowdfunding platform. Then they go to trusted web of community leaders and community leaders can distribute them among their communities to solve uh uh issues that their community have. But a lot of refugees don't have phones and uh and they can't use this apps like relay ID. So that's why I think it's important to to think about other ways So yeah, old ways are failing.

We know that uh banks and the SMS money not available for many reason. So in in some countries uh refugees are not allowed to use bank cards. So they they they don't recognized as as citizens and SMS is also not works because some of them don't have phones and they use the same sim cards and swap them inside the phone and it creates a lot of issues and uh even t sometime and cash also is not is not a not the best way because it's untraceable and unsecure. Uh so yeah solution I think solution can be a card like this. It's already a hardware wallet and what I did um during the residency I'm designer I'm not the developer but I vip coded the small app that can do uh uh things such holding verifiable credentials I think verifiable cred credentials is awesome thing because it can be issued uh in decentralized way for example you can have verifiable cred credential from your community leader that recognizes you as a member of community you can have verifiable credential from NGO that recognizes you as a refugee or you can even have verifiable credential uh from from from your uh from your family lead.

Sorry, it should be a video. Yeah. Of this app. So basically I built a very simple uh Android app proof of concept that shows how those verifiable credentials can be written, read, [snorts] encoded and decoded uh in a in a very simple proxy app. So this uh app like this with with these scenarios but with better UI in UX is just proof of concept.

Yeah. shows how uh uh shows how a community leader can issue those cards and write verifiable credentials to uh their community members. Uh can we go to the next slide please work? Yeah, this is QR code uh code is not great. I said I I coded it but it works.

It builds and it shows that it's possible and it's the something is uh very important for me how it works right. Okay. Yeah. So idea is to shift from reaching most community members to reaching all of them with very affordable smart card running open-source uplets. Yeah, [applause] last 10 seconds.

Last sorry last 10 seconds. So my ask I want to co-design a pilot with relay ID app. Integrate this key card SDK. We can modify it for humanitarian causes and deploy small field test uh small field tests somewhere uh in displaced communities with a little community to just check how it works and uh gather feedback and understand what we can do uh as a next step. Thank you.

Let's build more decentralized and inclusive future. Hi everyone, I'm Shia co-ounder of Bon Rebels and today I I'd like to talk about the importance of evidence-based public funding you know anyway how do you feel about a current public good funding systems I think I think um current public good funding systems so need to reflect more polar values you know I think in order to reflect more polar barriers in public funding space. We need a impact evalation and evidence best practice. You know actually evidence based practice is more related to impact evaluations. You know [gasps] generally impact uh no evidence based practice has a three processes create evidence communicate evidence and utilize evidence.

you know impact evation basically means in our context um create evidence I think we need a evidence layer so for impact evaluations I mean evidence layer is composed of open source project contributing to evidence-based practice you know these project by the way impactation means that means the measurement means a measurement of the difference in outcomes. This point is often misunderstood understood. I think you know by the way impact means the difference between observed observed outcome observed outcomes and unobserved outcomes. I mean unobserved outcomes. So it's counter you know by the way are you able to evaluate impact?

No

no no right actually it is hard to everate impacts because we don't have a plan I mean plan is a causal hypothesis like you know causal model including logical model so we don't have a plan we cannot identify the baseline before the project you know we don't have a um baseline so we cannot we cannot identify the you know We cannot correct the dealer and monitor the dealer. You know if you have a plan this cycle is working planning execution monitoring and evaluation and certifications. We labels is building a muse as a missing evidence layer for planning. Muse is curating evidence so from existing research papers automatically and manually. Um anyone can make a causal model I mean logic model by using music curated music curated evidence you know the the logic model so we'll be eventually issued hyper as a hypers01 congratulation um hypers b 02 I'm excited hypers new upgate also so if evidence layer is working is working.

Um this cycle is also working and then if evidence is working we can hover both funding mechanisms outcome based retrof funding and evidence-based prospective funding. I mean evidence-based prospective funding can fund more diverse public goods with a causal model with a causal hypothesis you know because

sure okay I mean outcome based retro funding um you know evidence-based prosecute funding um can be leading to polarity eventually um because of reflecting the diverse um diverse barriers and funding diverse public goods with a causal model through impact evalation and evidence best practice. You know actually evidence uh actually eth space um has has produced many logical use cases like quadic funding and production market in the real world. evidence um evidence based practice and impact evalation are also in the ex experimental phase. You know we we have to produce the use case of impact evaration and evidence evidence based practice from this public space including Ethereum space together. Thank you for listening.

[applause] So, hi guys. I'm Victor. Uh, people call me Torugu. And today I'm going to show you the Moonlight. So, Moonlight.

Yeah, Moonlight. It's a private layer that makes public blockchains usable for regulated system uh finances. Um, we are in spin-off company from the DIA company. Thea company. It's a stellar integrated partner and we have a lot of exposition and stellar network ecosystem and we've been working with systemic banks like social from France.

So guys I would like to bring your attention to how people has been forced to choose between privacy and compliance. So during the the last years uh we can see the compliance pressure index growing up followed by the privac um um uh the privacy the listing in the exchanges. So represented by the blue line we can see the private tools usage and we can see uh a big down movement when tornado cash was cioned in 2022 and mika start to uh operate in the Europe uh in 2023. So it makes me think about why privacy is too difficult to active in public blockchains. So the first point is account balance is visible to anyone and transaction are not confidential.

It make me think about um anyone can see the account balances and uh look at the transactions history. And last but not least we have the regulatory needs are very unique depending on the region and the uh jurisdictions. So looking at these points we can conclude that privacy is not that we need compliance privacy. Uh based on these points we start to create the moonlight. Moonlight create uh privac layer that help us to fix account balance and transaction visibility when we ensure um the regulatory needs.

So, okay, Torugo, how how Moonlight do this? Uh, Moonlight shield client data and so sensitive account info never hits the the public view. We blended the transactions. So, found uh movements are invisible to outside observers and we use the selective transparency using controlled disclosure uh that satisfies compliance in and money laundering. So this is the moonlight core building blocks.

Uh on moonlight we don't use just one address for the accounts. We split the account balance in many addresses and UTXO's entropy model help us to do this. We have a standardized derivation that help um the users to manage both of these uh keys using just one passphrase. We have trusted providers uh trusted privacy providers that is the entity who connect the users with the regulation and we have the privacy channel. Privacy channel is responsible to ensure the moonlight uh patterns onchain and it could be different uh based locations jurisdictions and regulations.

So what are planet as a deliverables? We start to create a tool set to build a regulated private first ecosystem and uh this uh two set are composed by an open-source and audited onchain smart contract. We have a client SDK who has um capabil capabilities like a standardized key derivation, account management tools, transaction bandling and custom protocol XDR encoding. We have a provider integration services as a uh conf um configurable service that facilitate privacy provider integration and adaption to the ecosystem. And we have a moonlight open source and white label wallet.

So this is the dream team behind of the project and we will be on the with our solution on the stellar test net very very soon. So feel free to scan to chat about private or book some moonlight demo and I really appreciate your patience and your attention and thank you very much. See you around.

[applause]

All right, light lightning talk on new rails for global finance bringing real world impact to where it matters. Hello everyone, my name is Alan Shvit and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Upright Ventures and in this talk we're going to cover upright's mission our latest programs infrastructure for change and real world impact through the eyes of our graduates. We're going to look in into some case studies and upright's mission is to guide web 3 founders towards building sustainable businesses. What makes us different is that we build ecosystem specific programs user experience and go to market centric and focus on founders personal growth. And one of our flagship programs is Cello that has been a global accelerator for blockchain founders since 2019.

Our alumni have raised more than $350 million and contributed to more than $2.5 billion in onchain transactions. And you can see some familiar uh names there. Some of them also spoke here today. And the reason we are super excited about Latin America is that it's growing to be one of the most um dynamic regions in term of volumes of cryptocurrency volumes in the last few years.

Latin America record in nearly $1.5 trillion in cryptocurrency transactions. Brazil and Argentina actually accounts for nearly third of the entire volume on chain. And big share of that volume is around stable coins. And 86% of Latin America firms report having already established partnership to support stable coin integration.

So the adoption is already here. And on that note, we partnered with mini which is a stablecoin wallet that is developed by Oprah. If you uh remember the open-source browser and um they have very big market share in developing countries in Africa and they are expanding rapidly also in Latin America and in our latest cohorts we really focused on helping founders on board to the marketplace of Minipe and um the wallet actually has more than 11 million uh wallets created and processed more than 200 million transactions on chain. So we are very excited about it and I want to share with you some case studies on startups that actually h launched. One of them is Bit Gifty which help user pay bills with stable coins.

They are scaling across Africa and Latin America. They have close to 200k monthly active users on mini and they are live in 14 countries and uh 1.4 million monthly views in miniipe and that just goes to show how uh founders can leverage this type of uh channels to get to actual users in emerging markets. So uh this is a very powerful tool and users in uh in many countries in Africa in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia now rely on Bit Giftly for everywhere everyday payments using stablecoin and this is truly exciting um and uh quite remarkable and another project I want to highlight here is PESA's kitchen who are uh h rescuing food and fighting hunger one meal at a time. The problem they are solving is that over 35% of all food produ produced is wasted while more than 20% of the population experience food insecurity.

And Pesia's kitchen actually rescue 3 million meals a year, distributes to uh 10,000 families each week and with a meal cost of 40 cents uh from the farm to the table. So uh they built their solution with good dollar which you also heard from uh today and it's quite a brilliant and simple solution where volunteers and also recipients can scan this QR code and you can all scan this QR code right now and experience it as a as a user will will experience it and by doing that you actually record the uh the action for good on chain and the next meal is actually been um been sponsored. So, if you'll uh scan this right now uh as a test, this will actually sponsor uh the next meal. And these are actual footage from the ground of people uh volunteering, rescuing food, and uh scanning those be uh those QR codes. And this is uh thank you guys.

[applause] So, yeah, we're right in the end. So, thank you. And uh please join Celloam. This is the uh the link cello.com.

Thank you so much. [applause]