A consortium of leading decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols announced a collaborative $100 million financial inclusion venture titled “DeFi for the People.”
The DeFi applications involved in the project — Aave, SushiSwap, Curve, 0x and PoolTogether, among others — will together provide up to $100 million in educational initiatives, grants and incentives in an effort to educate individuals globally about decentralized finance.
The initiative — built on the Celo ecosystem — identified a lack of inclusivity and accessibility in the traditional financial markets and, in turn, aims to utilize the decentralized nature of crypto and blockchain to provide finance to the world’s 6 billion mobile phone users.
Celo is an open-source blockchain ecosystem consisting of individuals and organizations who work alongside each other to promote global financial inclusion. Its conscious arm, Alliance for Prosperity, includes 150 partners such as Deutsche Telekom, Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz.
The mobile-centric platform currently boasts over 1 million registered wallet addresses across 113 countries. Product integrations with PoolTogether, SushiSwa, Moola Market, Ubeswap and Valora are the first to launch on the platform, with additional integrations set to launch in the coming weeks and months. Also launching on the platform on Monday is PoolTogether’s $500,000 prize reward scheme.
The founder of PoolTogether, Leighton Cusak, believes in the power of reward initiatives to encourage market participation, claiming:
“Research shows prize savings is one of the most important and effective on-ramps into savings for underbanked people. PoolTogether on Celo can facilitate crypto and DeFi adoption for the unbanked and users in developing markets who benefit most from low gas fees and fast transaction times.”
Alongside Celo’s noted product partners, the firm has also announced that a series of educational organizations — including Chainlink, The Graph, RabbitHole and Wrapped.com — will support the delivery of education and resources.
Cointelegraph reached out to Celo co-founder Rene Reinsberg for his views on how the initiative promotes inclusivity and accessibility for the world’s unbanked:
“Of the roughly 5 million people around the world currently using DeFi applications, less than 10% live outside of developed countries. Cost, technical knowledge and internet access shouldn’t stand in the way of this revolutionary technology. That’s why we’re spearheading DeFi for the People."
“It will make DeFi accessible and get more tools in the hands of more users around the world, and bring the benefits of DeFi to anyone with a mobile phone. Mobile is the key to bring DeFi to the majority of people who primarily access the internet through their phones," he said.