Next Wave of Mass Adoption via Local Stables - TOKEN2049 Dubai 2024

thank you so much now we made it thanks for making it happen um so my name is Marcus you maybe heard um that already I want to talk about the next wave of mass adoption via local stable coins um I think we've all seen in the past uh years that uh stable coins get more and more adoption especially stable coins all around the world are used more and more for transactions like payments remittances savings um and I think this is a great um great development we see more and more infrastructure that makes this happen that allows for these types of transactions we see cheaper on and off ramps in in many different countries we see more scalable chains um I mentioned before on Cell already today you can send a stable coin transactions um that costs less uh than a basis point in fees and you can pay for these gas fees also in stable coin which I think is a is a um great use case but today I want to talk a bit more about why also non-dollar stable coins so different local currencies in different markets are also really important for the next wave um of adoption and I want to talk about that because I'm working on Mento Mento is an open- Source evm platform um that allows everyone to launch and operate decentralized permissionless and fully transparent stable coins um it's combined with a highly efficient amm infrastructure so that users can actually swap their stable coin into different currencies and therefore either on board in local currency and then go into a dollar stable coin or the other way around on board in a dollar stable coin and then go into a different currency this then allows for local payments for use cases like lending and I want to explore a bit why I think these are extremely important for more adoption of of blockchain Technology um as you can see with Mentor we already have different currencies life we have a Brazilian real a West African Frank a Euro stable coin a dollar stable coin um but we also about to launch a naira a canyon Shilling Philippine peso Corin Wong and many other currencies and I want to explore um as I said a bit more why I think these stable coins are important for end user transactions in many countries and I want to focus a bit on Africa here um you can see higher and higher inflation this is data from The Economist and you can see here countries where you have like inflation of 5 to 10% 10 to 20% but even countries like Ethiopia Ethiopia and Angola and others Zimbabwe that um they experience extremely high rates of um inflation um we also know this from countries in Latin America like Argentina but um very high inflation is uh really really good use case uh for adoption of stable coins um in countries with high inflation if you offer people easy access to Dollar stable coins you actually allow everyone to save in dollars so you can for example um on board into usdt on Cell you can save in usdt on cell and then you are actually having access to a stable currency and therefore maybe um go around some of the inflation you're experiencing in um your your country um but the story is also um true the other way around if you don't want to save but you actually a small entrepreneur you maybe have a small business you maybe want to start a business uh maybe uh you are in one of these countries um that experience high inflations and you need to get a loan if the only way because um you don't have proper access to a traditional bank if the only way would be an onchain or digital loan um and the only stable coins that are accessible are dollar stable coins this can make your life really really hard you get a loan in a dollar stable coin your local currency depreciates and loses value also against the dollar but your revenues are in local currencies and um this makes it therefore then for you as a small entrepreneur really really hard to pay back um that um that loan therefore providing loans in local currencies actually can make your life as an entrepreneur or as a small business much easier because then on a blockchain for example on Cell you can access dollar stable coins if you want to save if you want to um borrow or get a get a loan for your business then you can also access a local currency stable coin and exactly for this we've built the mentor platform because then this platform allows you to easily go between these different currencies and swap your Kenyon Shilling stable coin into um a dollar stable coin or swap your Mentor peso into the the Shilling stable coin this allows many more use cases this also allows um FX use cases this allows um hedging use cases um we uh see more and more platforms going live that offer different kinds of FX plays so for example um currency forwards currency Futures options all um enabling different kind of FX plays and therefore local currency stable coins are also important for large uh companies that need to settle internationally and need um currencies uh for for settlement and this is not only like theoretical like stories about something that we want to build on the F in the future already today we um have microing projects live in different countries in Africa that allows users to get a loan on the cell blockchain in local currency um often um for micro or small entrepreneurs microloans um that give them some initial liquidity to get their business started um and uh allow them to pay back that loan in local currencies there's a lot of different partners that uh engage in this here I've mentioned a few um especially Mercy cor gine Foundation the world food program allow um already users to also get loans to build their business in digital currencies and therefore I think um this given a huge credit Gap um especially across Africa will drive a large wave uh of adoption going forward um so I've mentioned basically the FX trading use case I've mentioned also that local currency stable coins allow users to onramp much easier um into digital currencies um um I also want to talk a bit about micr funding I also think this is interesting not only credit but also Equity funding crowdfunding via local stable coins is a great use case for local currency stable coins and we see that um more and more users actually use this this also is linked to the fact that it's much easier now to use stable coins to uh make transactions with stable coins many wallet um are easier much easier to access um also for end users and this drives this adoption that we that we see now I want to call out one example for a wallet oppra launched a wallet um for Africa that is called minay and with minay users can very very easy um like send payments across borders um send remittances send um transactions to any phone number around the world all of this is happening um on cell and because of this we see basically um an increase of adoption um around the world um what we've built at molabs is something that we've called the stable coin Factory the stable coin Factory is in the end open source code that we make accessible for everyone who wants to launch a local currency stable coin you always need the same infrastructure for a stable coin you need smart contracts that allow you to mint and redeem a stable coin you need oracles that bring the price of local Fiat currencies on chain um you need in some form um uh a way how collateral can be stored and um users can actually see that um collateral is actually in place and um we want to make this infrastructure available to anyone um in the VM world so that in no matter where you are no matter where you build um you can actually access this um infrastructure for your local currency stable coins and then allow your users to lend save borrow transact um in in in stable coins um and I've talked a bit about microcredit um I've talked a bit about saving and lending I want to mention also remittances again because this is as well a great use case of stable coins um we've heard all about the statistics that for example in Ghana only onethird of the population has access to a bank account but 95% of the population have access to a mobile phone so making stable coins accessible on the mobile phone making them um usable in a very easy way um would actually help and we are not there yet and you can see that um on um looking at the price of remittances um if you want to for example sent money from Germany where I am from to Ghana currently the price of remittances is around 20 uh to 23% and we have all this technology um working already and prices are still this High therefore for me it's really exciting to see that now all of this infrastructure is there that we can change this as I mentioned more easy to ous wallets uh more accessible on and off Rams local currency state coins the ability to pay for transactions in stable coin cheaper transactions and all of this I think um can actually change these statistics um that we see here um that's it from my side already I only have 20 seconds left um feel free to follow us on Twitter this is the link to uh Mentor Labs um and yeah would be excited uh to meet more of you and and chat a bit more about stable coins thank you very much