Stablecoins as a Tool for Financial Inclusion | Ajayi Matthew (OnyxFi) @Web3LagosCon

Good morning everyone. Good morning everyone. Good morning everyone. Are we happy to be here? Good morning everyone once again.

Um my name is Matthew Aayi. I'm a product manager and um this is um my current portfolio. I'll be speaking on stable coins as a tool for financial inclusion. Um I know quite a lot of us have been hearing the buzz about stable coins and um I'm sure couple of us would have even used it to maybe perform a transaction at one point or the other. But um I also want to educate us uh most especially for those of us that do not know why this um tool or why this um technology is even gaining ground in Africa or in emerging um economies.

Yeah, there are 1.3 billion people across the world that are locked out of financial assets. Um and this is because uh they don't have access to financial tools that can make life easier for themselves and um is no um it's no surprise that most of these people are from emerging economies. Um so in essence financial exclusion um is synonymous to emerging economy or developing economies which Africa is um a champion in that regard. And why why is this because most of these tools are not accessible to us or they are too costly or too complex for us to understand.

And um while I know we have um young people here um most people who are also excluded from financial instruments are majorly old people who cannot use um these tools and then too costly for them. So what is a stable coin? What is even this tool we're talking about? I will not be saying um a lot of jagons. Um, a stable coin is a digital dollar that moves like a text message.

Um, I used a digital dollar because most stable coins are um take the form of um dollars while there are various stable coins um imitating other currencies. Um the ones that dominate the industry are the ones in dollar. So they are stable meaning they hold their value. Um they are instant once you send them the other person receive it almost immediately and they are borderless. You don't have to be restricted to any geographic location before you can use this tool.

And um these are the things that um are accessible to us like every other part of the world. um these are not things we were used to but now we have these things all thanks to stable coins. So why does it beat traditional finance? Because when we are saying something is better, it has to be compared to another thing, right? Um speed.

Traditional finance um anyone who have used Western Union or other um financial tools for crossber remittance will know it take days. Whereas in the case of stable coins, you can get it instantly. Just think of your OP but on the blockchain cost IS traditional finance take quite a huge chunk of your money um just to settle these um transactions while stable cons are near zero access. You will need a bank account at least you need um to be able to access a banking institution or a financial institution. But with stable coins, you don't need to have your phone.

You just need to be mobile and be connected to the internet. Hours, this only works business hours only. So on a weekend, you cannot receive your money um cross brothers and some other um things which fintech now makes available to us these days. But stable coins gives us much much better experience with there because they are always open anytime any day and barely there's is there a downtime inclusion in everyday life. So when we say inclusion we have to define what are the things that make us say this thing is inclusive or exclusive right and u these are the things we use um our money to do.

You save, you make payment, trade and send money for cross border, right? So st stable coins help you edge against inflation um in emerging economies where inflation um is a thing um of concern. Stable coins help us with that dollar denominated ones. everyday payment. You can use stable coins to pay for anything anywhere at any time of the day.

Right? Small business trade, buy and sell across borders easily. You don't need any confirmation through any corresponding backs or anything before um your trade can happen. And this is all thanks to stable coin sending money. Yeah, we have a lot of diasporan communities abroad as Africans who are willing to send money back home and stable coin affords this easily and very very fast and all of these are the reasons why we say okay stable coin is a tool of financial inclusion.

It is built for us. While um the west might see it as a luxury because they have a good system that works fine already, this is a lifeline for us because uh and that is why it is gaining ground here in Africa because it makes most of our transactions easy. You don't have to worry about anything that used to cost us headache. Mobile first. Africa is a mobile first um population.

Most of us have at least a smartphone if not uh more than one, right? So we are mobile first. We are on the go with our smart force. Cross border. West Africa run on trades between neighboring market and also um developed economies.

Right. We interact with countries outside of our um geographical location and we need something that moves seamlessly just like trade and everything and stable coin affords that currency stability. currency. Stable coin um helps us to take the stability of the dollar um currency without losing assets but still take make it very very fast for us to use what still needs solving. So while stable coin affords us a lot of things, it has not come without its own um shortcoming or its own um thing to talk about and it is cash on and off ram.

quite a lot of uh people although we are having more solutions solving this now and onx finance is one of um the product doing that a lot of people cannot on ramp and offramp uh their fiat to stable coins and vice versa right and this is still one of the issues so if you're here and you think what should I build you should be looking at something like this clear regulation H there have [laughter] I I'll be careful here right um there have been regulatory orders um although if I would look back at 3 4 5 years ago I would say we are a lot better when it comes to regulation right u but we still need something clear something built with the mind of those of us in this industry something that will scale the industry because the regulation we have now um do not will not take us to where this industry is supposed to go to. So and that is why I said we need rules that protect users while allowing innovation to grow trust and education. Thank god for um institutions like web three bridge who over the years and um I have to say I was one of the foret of web 3 bridge 2019. So um kudos to Mr. Aya.

So we need tools to boost confidence and not just assess. We have to also educate right people on how to use these tools um correctly because um when the purpose of a thing is not known abuse is inevitable. So education and trust is very very important and paramount to the uh future we envision. Looking ahead while we can be talking of now I think it's okay to also talk about the future right what um the future of this industry will look like and the future of this industry will be the synergy of AI and stable coin and why do I think so because in the future where I think is a commerce um the tool for financial transaction will be stable coin right because AI will need something fast and digitally native, right, to make transactions. And that is where stable coin comes in.

When AI agents perform transactions, um, stable coins is what I think will be used, right? So, and why do I think that it is instant, no borders, and it is built for softwares, right? Agents are softwares, we know that. So stable coin is also one on the blockchain. So this is um why I think we should also be talking about the future now as we are building now should be building with the future we envision.

Thank you very much.