From a small product to a large track and industry, what truly endures is the creation of positive value for society.

Author: Athena Y

As Token2049 comes to a close, after deep social interactions with colleagues and the pervasive negative emotions, the question of "Is the Crypto industry finished?" comes to mind. This reminds me of a small incident a few weeks ago.

I have been living in Paris for two years now. One day, while working remotely at a small café near my home, I received a call from Uganda on WeChat. After the initial surprise, excitement, and confusion, I realized that it had been 7 years since I left traditional industry work in Africa to enter the Crypto industry.

The call was from a senior advisor to the Ugandan government, who was in China with the president for the Central African Cooperation Forum. During my years in Africa, I had worked for state-owned enterprises and the UN international development system, aiming to promote Africa's industrialization process and inclusive finance. With his assistance, I collaborated on various projects such as Sino-Ugandan investment promotion and the promotion of Ugandan women's handicrafts, forming lasting friendships.

I could go on for half a lifetime about my experiences in Africa, from the prestigious, such as lively discussions with the President of Senegal at his home, to near-death experiences, such as the tragic death of a friend's boyfriend in a terrorist attack in the commercial district of Kenya's capital, which we used to frequent, and narrowly avoiding the deadliest air disaster in the history of Ethiopian Airlines due to a last-minute change of flight. However, the decision to leave Africa was resolute and unwavering.

To understand the value of Crypto, we must delve into these seemingly romantic and ethereal stories.

Transfer of value—Where is the money, and how is it spent? Where is it spent?

Many of you may be familiar with Binance's resounding vision: "to increase the freedom of money." So, before we ponder whether the Crypto industry is finished, let's first raise our spirits and examine how several global shifts in value chains have occurred throughout history, where we currently stand in the course of historical development, and why Binance has such a slogan.

Let's start with the old "narrative." There have been three global industrial revolutions in history. The "steam revolution" originated from the invention of the steam engine in England, leading to a significant increase in productivity and the transformation of small-scale handicraft textile workshops into large-scale industrial production. In the "electricity revolution," breakthroughs were made in electricity, chemicals, heavy industry, and other fields in the UK, the US, Germany, and France, leading to the development and improvement of the entire industrial system in Europe. The third revolution is the one we are familiar with—the "information revolution." The development of information technology, computers, the electronics industry, and automation has propelled countries like the US and Japan to become important participants in the world economy. The "Four Asian Tigers" (South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong) also rapidly industrialized in the latter half of the 20th century, developing advanced manufacturing and financial industries and integrating into the global value chain system.

It is evident that each industrial revolution has brought about changes in production relations through changes in productivity, enabling some countries to participate in the system of global value distribution by leveraging their "comparative advantages." China, benefiting from the reform and opening up that began in 1978, learned from the rise of other Asian Tigers like Singapore and, in the developed coastal areas, established special economic zones and industrial parks. By utilizing China's low labor costs, large workforce, and diligent work ethic as "comparative advantages," and by opening up the market and attracting foreign investment, China developed export-oriented manufacturing industries in some coastal areas, becoming the "world's factory" and establishing and consolidating an indispensable position in the global value chain distribution at that time.

The details of these grand industrial revolutions spanning a century are extensive and beyond the scope of this discussion. However, it is worth mentioning that each industrial revolution is also a process of redistributing wealth. Due to its unique historical background of long-term colonization, complex industrial policies, and international political factors, Africa has not been involved in this "cake-cutting" process.

Is Africa really poor? Lagos, the capital of Nigeria, has the highest density of private jets in the world. After the launch of local payment channels on exchanges, the average transaction volume in Africa far exceeds that of European and Asian countries. The wealth of the rich in Africa surpasses our general understanding and imagination. Due to the abundant resources in Africa, especially in oil and agriculture, the upper class in Africa can live comfortably for generations by relying on the primary industry of direct raw material exports. Meanwhile, ordinary people are forced to eke out a living in the tertiary industry—services. The entire continent lacks manufacturing industries, the financial sector is monopolized, and due to the lack of infrastructure, the cost of financial services is extremely high, making it impossible for ordinary people to have a bank account or afford the cost of bank transfers. The absurd disparity between the rich and the poor is a common reality in Africa.

During a research project arranged by an international organization, the Djibouti government arranged for us to stay at the Kempinski Hotel. This luxurious hotel, located in the barren tiny country of Djibouti in East Africa, costs $300 per night, which is equivalent to half a year's income for many locals. I still remember a moment when, on the beach chairs of this hotel by the Red Sea, a white businessman, smoking a cigar, was talking animatedly, while a black service staff member stood upright with a tray, his white shirt and red vest contrasting sharply with his black skin, his eyes filled with numbness and confusion as he gazed into the distance at the mist over the Red Sea.

At that time, I decided to give up that job. Although our work seemed compassionate, discussing industrial shifts and the development of manufacturing in Africa, integrating into the value chain, and enabling ordinary people to work in factories and learn from the experiences of clothing and footwear manufacturing in China and Southeast Asia, I personally spent a month in a Chinese factory in Senegal, interviewing female workers who produced low-grade Adidas and Nike sportswear for export to Europe and the US. However, this was too slow. In the vast traditional "aid" system, the ones who benefited the most were probably not the African female workers who were "taught to fish," but rather the senior clerks sitting in London offices writing papers and conducting project audits, as well as us international organization elites who stayed in $300 hotels on business trips. Data also shows that in the entire chain, as much as 70% of the funds were worn down in "proving how the money is spent, where it is spent, generating audit reports and impact reports."

I began to see Blockchain, Crypto, and the fourth revolution led by blockchain technology and artificial intelligence as a revolution of currency, a revolution of Africa, and a revolution of the vast impoverished masses.

True decentralization, at the Kampala market

The son of the Prime Minister of Uganda established a Crypto organization a few years ago, bringing together a few "second-generation officials" who had studied in the UK and the US and tech enthusiasts to work on several small projects related to Crypto. For example, they developed a way to transfer Crypto point-to-point in places without 3G networks using non-smartphones. Most locals in Africa use non-smartphones that can only make calls and send text messages. Since many Africans do not have bank accounts and are unwilling to travel halfway across the city to find a Western Union or one of the few banks to transfer money, the local method of remittance is straightforward: based on USSD technology, people can transfer money to friends by sending text messages, and each person's phone number serves as their "wallet/account," with the phone balance serving as the account balance.

I followed a friend from this organization and personally experienced the smooth "registration, KYC, transfer" process: I bought a $50 phone from a telecom operator near the Kampala market, queued up, and the counter staff, who had performed the KYC process thousands of times, completed the process in 3 minutes. The staff helped me top up "phone credit" with cash. There are many fixed and mobile official/unofficial kiosks in the village. When you want to "withdraw," you go to the "village representative" on duty at the kiosk, send them a text message for the transfer, and they give you cash. The process is smooth and entirely peer-to-peer, with no third parties and no trust issues. This product and process are not only in the capital but have also spread deep into the countryside.

Later, I joined Binance, and in the first year, I responded to CZ's "mass adoption" vision by laying a network in Africa that is entirely based on blockchain and Crypto. We started with the most basic charity projects, giving rise to Binance Charity. On this world's first completely "transparent" peer-to-peer donation platform, due to the nature of blockchain, every internet user can supervise every Crypto donation, which, without any third-party involvement, goes directly to the wallets of Ugandan villagers. The villagers then use Crypto to purchase potatoes and cabbage from suppliers who accept Crypto, with no fiat currency involved. When the suppliers need fiat currency, they regularly exchange Crypto for local fiat currency through local exchanges or OTC.

Later, we issued the world's first (and possibly only) "value-stable coin" on the Binance Smart Chain (now BNB chain): Pink Care Token. Unlike other stable coins, Pink Care Token is not pegged to any fiat currency "price" but is pegged to the value of an item: the value of one Pink Care Token is equivalent to the cost of a year's supply of sanitary pads for a girl in Uganda. The origin of this project was a conversation with locals while distributing potatoes and cabbage, where I discovered that "menstrual shame" still widely exists among local women due to a lack of sex education and the high cost of sanitary pads. Many girls use leaves and grass instead of sanitary pads during their periods, leading to serious gynecological problems. Additionally, many girls are married and become mothers at the age of 14, which exacerbates the problem, often resulting in deaths from infections during childbirth. Girls who receive Pink Care Tokens can "exchange" them for a year's supply of sanitary pads from our partnered eco-friendly sanitary pad supplier.

What still moves me to this day is that the Pink Care Token project received donations and support from almost all the big shots in the Crypto community at the time, despite the industry being in a deep bear market and undergoing profound self-criticism and self-doubt. The concept of a value-stable coin and the entire process based on blockchain, complete transparency, efficiency, and the practice of eliminating third parties, served as a small validation of the social value of Crypto. The value exchange attribute of Crypto as "currency" is also demonstrated in such a simple and straightforward manner.

As I become increasingly distressed by the increasingly complex business models and narratives filled with profound theories, and as the industry once again finds itself in a predicament, I always think back to the bustling market in Uganda, marveling at the clean, pure, and simple applications of Crypto. It is so simple and unadorned, and good deeds are rewarded. For example, the Kampala farmers who received only 6 BNB at the time for accepting the challenge of being at the forefront of the Crypto revolution. Perhaps they are the ones who truly have a steadfast belief in Crypto.

PayFi or FiFi

Returning to the bustling Singapore, PayFi has become a new hot topic at this year's 2049 event. The new narrative of Payment+Finance has revived many desperate capital and projects. The translation of the narrative is not very important, especially when another big shot jokingly mentioned that PayFi could also be called FiFi because Payment itself is finance. What is truly interesting and meaningful is that after a long detour, we are returning to the fundamental attributes related to payments in Crypto, beyond investment and speculation.

Just as the redistribution of value and wealth follows the basic laws of history, everything in the world develops accordingly. From a small product to a large track and industry, what truly endures is the creation of positive value for society. Returning to this essence, our beliefs will not be so fragile and easily shaken.

I truly hope that after so many years of wandering, I can go back and see those girls who bought sanitary pads with stable coins and the farmers who used BNB for accounting. Perhaps the original intention of Crypto is just that simple.

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