[Music]
in 2018 a cup of coffee in Venezuela
cost less than one venezuelan bolivar
the same cup of coffee by March 2019
costs 2,800 Venezuelan Bulova that's a
crazy jump of almost 400,000 person such
currency volatility led three million
Venezuelans to flee their home in last
two years because of the currency
volatility the prices of commodities
like food water medicines almost become
impossible to a phone and poverty let
street violence is expected to drive
another two million just this year the
self the sad thing is it's not even a
unique story one out of every hundred
and eight percent in this world is
forcibly displaced by corrupt
politicians in efficient management of
international loans mismanaged taxations
are just some of the reasons which can
cause a currency to lack trust and lose
its value in an incredibly short period
of time today it is worth something
and tomorrow almost nothing there is no
single solution which can fix this but
there is a change a magic wand which
largely seems to be ignored because it
seems complicated almost impossible and
perhaps even undesirable for some a
single stable decentralized global
currency it would reduce currency
volatility irrespective of your local
economic or political unrest it would
open up a true global marketplace it
would enable freedom of movement using
global identity and yet it will be more
secure with
better data privacy than anything but we
have today magical right I've been
traveling last 15 years
all over the world from Africa to Middle
East Asia America studying and investing
in FinTech blockchain and cryptocurrency
I've seen the gaps and the possible
solutions at the grassroots in my
opinion the biggest revolution since the
digital payment systems such as PayPal
venmo has been blockchain and
cryptocurrency as many of you would know
blockchain is a decentralized immutable
timestamp ledger which provides
transparency of transactions and data
privacy it underpins crypto currencies
such as Bitcoin ether ripple well there
are over 1600 of them today which aims
to settle across the bottle immediately
thanks to these platforms I do feel like
that magic is almost becoming a reality
and yes it is an evolving space so there
are lot of roadblocks such as
governments they don't want to lose
control of their monetary policy in fact
you can go to jail and I'm not kidding
you can actually go to jail for using
crypto currencies in some part of this
world
volatility cryptocurrencies themselves
have become so volatile most of you must
have read about the crazy Bitcoin price
swings from $20,000 in December 18 to
$6,200 two months later and scalability
is still the biggest bottleneck for the
technology today we have reached 10,000
transactions per second but we have yet
to reach 10 million so acknowledging
this and way more and I am NOT saying
that cryptocurrency
is going to be the solution for the
global currency but this is close as to
what's touching people's lives let me
actually take you where it's changing
people's lives do you remember when
Israel ah just the week of July
20th in 2019 this year a local Bitcoin
exchange alone generated a volume of
over 56 billion
Bulova various local nonprofits such as
gift crypto org open money initiative
Bitcoin for Venezuela have started
dispersing bitcoins for humanitarian aid
relief over 40 Bitcoin exchanges have
opened up locally just to provide
liquidity and even Bitcoin ATMs have
opened up on the border of Venezuela and
Colombia for Venezuelans to convert the
Bitcoin into Colombian pesos as soon as
they cross the border imagine if such
movement would spread across to more and
more countries the stability for an
average person would increase
cryptocurrency would not just be a way
for a lead to diversify their portfolio
but for an average person to increase
sustainable wealth now let's talk about
global identity having verified
information such as your age education
qualifications and financial credibility
securely saved over blockchain network
which moves with you
irrespective of your country of origin
or your citizenship is a magical
powerful key global currency match with
global identity is providing such power
to various international humanitarian
aid programs to help refugees rebuild
their lives with dignity
UNDP has recently partnered with Irish
Red Cross and Lebanese humanitarian
groups to launch the first-ever
international aid delivery program over
aetherium blockchain network to ensure
that refugees receive aid in a
transparent manner and with dignity
that's more than magic just imagine if
you and I all of us would have a global
identity even vivan need days and months
to prove our education qualification in
a new country or even years to RIBA
financial credibility again that's just
powerful
apart from volatility and global
identity a global currency also help
open up a true global marketplace
something which is very close to my
heart a project which is bringing us
closest to it as of today is libera
launched by Facebook and 27 of its
partners this year Libre is a
cryptocurrency built on a stable and
secure open-source blockchain network
backed by assets of real reserves and
governed by independent organization
when members such as MasterCard Spotify
uber among others Libre aims to be a
single digital transactional currency
for many apps such as whatsapp Facebook
Instagram Boober for millions of its
users and 1.7 billion unbanked users
that's powerful there is a man I know
very dear to my heart named Jamuna he
makes beautiful carpets in Iran 100%
Wulin depicting the old world poetic
charm of Rumi but he cannot sell his
carpets in international market due to
archaic technology banking restrictions
and a very high cost of settlements so
the billion dollar market of Amazon and
Alibaba does not exist for Jamna so a
market least like libera could be
life-changing for him and I'm not even
talking about Iranian restrictions or
politics here with Libra all Jim now
would need is a decent phone internet
connection and probably a bank account
Jenna could showcase his carpets over
Instagram connect with his potential
buyers over whatsapp and then receive
his money using facebook messengers
Wallet calibra the money would be
credited to his account immediately over
a secure and traceable network enabling
him this
same opportunity as you and I have
chimney code pick over back home pay for
his son's school fee or buy food using
peer-to-peer libera transaction or he
could save it in the future to converted
directly into international currency if
needed thus enabling him a true global
marketplace which he didn't have before
this is actually more than magic
but libera is just one such initiative
big banks like JP Morgan Santander
Deutsche Bank are coming up with their
own blockchain architecture some very
excited about all this movement in a
global currency to make global
marketplace happen but I'm still worried
about a corporation having so much of my
data and so much power over me despite
this I do feel like among everything we
have Libre is closest to spreading money
more evenly in this world and of course
we can talk about evolution of currency
without talking about technology
decentralized databases and filing
system provides extreme measurement of
security today the days of taking two or
three backups are over it just makes us
vulnerable to more hacking decentralized
projects such as storge see our file
coin among others takes all your data
fragments it into millions of pieces and
then stores it over thousands of nodes
thus enabling the highest level of
security possible today all of this is
happening today and there is so much
more which is already becoming a reality
we are teaching blockchain and
cryptocurrencies to our next generation
in schools and colleges World Bank has
recently launched an aetherium based
bond raising 110 million Australian
dollars cities like Zook and CSO
provides you a digital sovereign
identity and then let you do
transactions pay your taxes by land
online using cryptocurrency startups
like bit Poisson coins dot pH allows you
to send money back home using crypto
eliminating the high volatility and high
cost of settlement from the remittance
market block fire neo even let you lend
money in crypto globally and with dusk
you can buy and sell bonds share stocks
all over the world using cryptocurrency
and with libera with its single
transactional currency I hope it helps
to open up a true global marketplace
all of this inches us to words to more
stable secure place where we inches
towards a true financial and economic
inclusivity where every citizen in this
world has the same choice same dignity
and same opportunity a single stable
decentralized currency a global one and
I really really hope jail free for you
and for me thank you
[Applause]