Thank you. Yet another talk about billion users. Uh when mo when uh most apps uh sometimes struggle with a thousand or 10,000 users. I do think that I'm extremely uh passionate about um you know stable coins. Uh my journey started actually I'm not an OG.
So uh I wasn't here in 14 16 or 18. Uh started in uh 2020. uh have a Trafire background been uh five years back roughly in crypto but uh because of my background I was born and raised in the Netherlands as you can see from my uh skin color but my parents were uh from uh somewhere in the global south and I'm extremely passionate about um the people that are unbanked and what stable coins can basically do for these people. Uh and so my dad comes from a very rural area you know where there is not even actually clean water but you'll find people with smartphones. Uh and it's pretty pretty crazy to see that some parts of these fundamental infrastructures are actually already in place.
Uh and so we often talk about let's say net new users, net new capital um and then what you see is we just fall back into same schemes like same type of protocols and the same type of marketing where we we live on on crypto Twitter. Um and what I want to talk about uh today a little bit is about the use cases that we we've defi we've decided to go against sort of the grain and like really focus on um you know where crypto can basically make a difference and this is nothing new uh to be quite frank shout out to like protocols like cello who were very very active globe south specifically on the the African continent uh where they brought like the the tech but also the support for people to build uh the reals that would basically allow um uh projects to utilize crypto to be more efficient among other like lowcost transfers. Uh you know, you wouldn't need quote unquote the middleman. Um but what I'm very passionate about myself is and I want to talk about three use cases um that we've been focusing on at scroll in the in the past six months um uh and three projects where we've seen by being extremely hands-on going very very deep and making sure that these projects are successful uh targeting uh users that are today like not in crypto at all targeting capital that is like not in crypto at all and even like like we went into so I I went to Nigeria, Lagos. I went to Kenya, Nairobi, and and you know, some of these folks heard of scroll, but most of them only know Bitcoin or Ethereum.
And then and and they obviously know Tron and USDT. But then still, it's it's extremely fascinating to see how much the barrier to entry is uh when people are building applications or just like normal businesses, how do they use crypto? Very much still like I don't know, is it a scam? Like, you know, are my funds at risk, etc. And um uh project maka is one of my favorite projects.
Um and and and this looks like a hackathon project, but it really isn't. These are farmers. Uh every time I call with them, they actually call from the farm and then you see all these beautiful trees in uh uh in the outskirts of Nairobi. Uh and what they're doing is is they have a real problem. Uh how many of how many people in the room uh please raise your hand?
Uh do you drink coffee on a daily base? All right, that's quite a bit. Okay. Did you know that the coffee market uh the industry in Kenya is shrinking year-over-year? So the amount of farmers that are active is shrinking.
Uh and this might sound like a 2020 or 2022 talk. Uh but uh you know crypto has not delivered on the promise there where the that's funny. You guys are twins. Like for a moment I was like what's going on? But um uh it's shrinking and that's very much because of a problem that is still persistent.
uh farmers are being squeezed uh you know thin margins they have to take a loan to supply the supply chain to fund the supply chain um and you know again nothing new under the sun crypto can fix that and so what they're doing is is tokenizing let's say all the assets that are on their balance sheet and allowing let's say early investors to come in and for instance buy trees however like but to like there are a very few people who think about it end to end and that actually have an operating model that have the partnerships with let's say the farmers association all the people that you need to get the tech is really a small part of it and the chain is even a smaller part of it needs to be all attracted no one gives a about the chain what they care about is delivering that impact very very quickly are all the integrations there and project mocka is really one of my favorite project because they're like raza we have the farmers we have the farmer association we have all the contracts we need to build this and put it on chain um and they have successfully uh uh generated six figures in in revenue and and and uh the tripling the margins uh for for these farmers. Um and and so what we've been busy with is looking at how stable coins can accelerate this process, the infrastructure uh and and then this is for instance a project we're doubling down on and then and and it's pretty much like UC is at the heart of it. Uh and and it's it's absolutely fascinating to see it and um you know uh you I I don't mind being called out but I I think it's going to be a several hundred million dollar project if not a billion dollar project because these guys are going about from the right way. They don't think crypto web 3 is a feature. They're really looking at the endto-end problem to solve it.
Um and and and again there's nothing fancy here. No fancy chart. Uh they have actually they sell coffee beans. So they have charts uh and they have like a POS where you can like tap and pay but it's under the hood USDT. So and and basically all people know is like why is it cheap and fast and that's when the conversation opens it's like oh you just paid in USDT or when they settle between farmers and like you know the the beam producers it's like it's in it's in UT.
So they just know it's fast and cheap uh and the farmer's margins increased. Great. That's all people need to know. Um and then this is probably the first project that uh you know we made a huge bet on and then again I think you know you heard it here first a billion dollar project uh the one of the co-founders Run is sitting over there uh is VIFI um VI started uh a friend of mine who I worked uh with at the previous protocol uh and I have to read it off because I often forget but VIFI helps solve liquidity gaps in emerging markets. uh you know it lets users swap UZ into a local stable coin.
Uh essentially when I was there what you understand is is that obviously we heard the typical stories uh inflation currency volatility yada yada yada but what does it actually mean and how do you actually solve for this problem you know the tech and the chain again very small part of it what you need is you need to align the OTC desk you need to make sure that there's enough dollar uh float you need to make sure that um you know uh all the parties are actually willing to work with you and and integrate. And so I'm going to read off a use case that we're actually we've been working hard is like if you think about crossber payment crossber payment like the China Africa route very very popular popular route the the amount that you lose out in fees inefficiencies and the amount that that that uh uh that you have to pay to convert between currencies is insane and you know yeah it's cringe to say but who suffers it's it's it's always like the people at the very end uh they suffer i.e. the people that want to do the trade and all the people in the middle are making money. Yeah.
Uh and so how do you solve for this? Well, to be quite frank, the infrastructure has been ready for like 3 four years. This is again nothing new. Uh but it requires you someone to do the hard work which is aligning all the parties end to end on both sides of the border making sure that then the tech is there and of course there's like a uh making sure that like the liquid is not fragmented etc. But what VIFI essentially is doing is that uh you could have local stable coins onboarded very efficient on-ramp offramp.
It allows uh far less let's say intermediaries where the money needs to transfer to and it's essentially like okay you have a local Kenyon sh uh shilling. So Kenya Kenya operates in the shilling uh uh currency local Kenya shilling stable coin and now you can swap for a Hong Kong based stable coin dollar. And so now you go left and right. No like six four banks and um like honestly if you know how many parties are usually involved this is a clear business case and again the people that benefit are on the on both ends and I'm running out of time. Uh and then and at scroll uh I I think that uh we're a huge fan of uh uh liquidity as well.
We will also still focus on the traditional D5 uh fundamentals because we just heard uh you know Katana and and their approach. I think that uh the fact of the matter is is that the DeFi ecosystem the yieldbearing ecosystem enables and unlocks a lot of these use cases where liquidity is still required and you still need possibilities for or destinations for people who would then have these funds. You now you brought net new users and net new capital on chain. you need destinations for them where they can not just preserve their wealth but increase their wealth and this is something that um uh you know even though we have the fundamental D5 building blocks we're again targeting that new users so we're talking to partners who now uh serve as PSP so payment service providers and they deal with merchants and so what happens is let's say if um you know I buy a shoe from a merchant uh and and I pay them let's say $100 that $100 is go directly their bank account goes through a payment service provider and that $100 sits with them and then they get to pick whether they withdraw in fiatbacked or nowadays a lot of PSPs give them the possibility to withdraw in a stable coin and then what we basically do is saying hey instead of withdrawing it deposit it and and based on a risk adjustment uh risk adjusted like uh uh preference uh and that doesn't just allow merchants to preserve their capital i.e.
they're in a more stable currency, but can they deposit it in a currency or in a type of stable coin that increases their wealth. Um, so yeah, those are my time is uh those are like uh uh the the three use cases I want to highlight where I'm I think that scroll we've been very focused on. Um if anyone has seen it, we we created or built started our own startup school in Koala Lumpur. Um I moved there with my family. Uh if you have any questions or if you're interested uh definitely reach out.
We just successfully finished our first season. Uh had a thousand signups, had 14 projects fly out from America, Argentina, Kenya, Canada. Um uh that the the the promise is very simple. We don't pay actually for you to come. Everyone has to pay themselves.
But when you come, we will teach you how to growth hack. We will we will actually teach you how to find your users. So these pe these projects there are four projects they're going to go out to raise um they found their first thousand users. Uh it's very funny when they when they come to us they're like okay how do we do TGE and we're like the first two weeks is like forget anything token what you're going to focus on is users and revenue. Uh and if your product is no of no value to users if you cannot generate revenue forget about raising and you can launch a token uh but no one's going to buy it.
So we've been and then so 14 projects at the end of it, four projects that actually going to raise and then um I'm very very excited. We're gearing up for season two. So uh founders mainly founders if if you're looking for a chain um especially if you're passionate about the global south uh you know we are willing to dedicate resources but we also expect uh a commitment and so we want um if you can't go to SF KL visa friendly I moved there very recently uh with my four kids and family um yeah pull up. Thank you.
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