The World Is Working to Help Ukraine.
Even Crypto Is Doing Its Part.

For well over 100 years, our relationship with banking has been unique.  When everything is operating the way it should, it is easy to trust the system so much that it becomes a transparent part of our day.  We have faith that the banking system is sound, that we can hold our funds in the care of the bank, and we can access it whenever we’d like.

But it takes only a small glitch to shake our faith, create panic, and potentially tear down one of the foundational pillars of society.  

This sounds dramatic, and it certainly is, but it is not an exaggeration.  Scenes of bank runs from “It’s A Wonderful Life” because the market was crashing and people realized the banks didn’t have everyone’s money available.  Using over-leveraged financial packages made of bad mortgages was immensely popular until 2008, when it crashed the entire global financial system and took nearly a decade to recover.  These are small problems in an otherwise functional system that created chaos across the world.  So what happens when the problems are much bigger?  In Ukraine today, the banking system is at risk of collapsing not because of a lack of faith, but by cyber attacks and bombs.  The system is an integral part of any society, and because of this it is one of many infrastructures being directly targeted to do the most damage, not just to the country as a whole, but to each of its citizens.  It is cruel, indiscriminate, and deadly.  

The world has come together to help, but getting funds to where they are needed is a critical piece of providing aid.    Fortunately, the innovation of many individuals is building up perhaps the strongest alternative funding network that has ever existed.  IBM reports that with the rapid increase in technology, elements such as mobile devices, smart contracts, and software-driven interoperability, groups like Openledger, Aetsoft, and FLUUS have created an entire value chain that can bring funds all the way to the recipients’ hands, in currency they can use. 

A Long Road

Traditional international money transfers are problematic at the best of times.  Yes, they are possible, but the user is faced with a handful of equally bad choices and must weigh the lengthy transfer times against very high transfer fees.  Money wires can be helpful when there is no other choice, and there have been platforms created to make the process faster and more transparent.  But this doesn’t help in a situation like Ukraine when the recipient might not be able to access the funds at all.

Believe it or not, the alternative to this in past conflicts has been to literally box up a pile of cash, put it in an armored truck with guards, and drive it into the war zone.  It shows just how desperate the situation is when taking a massive pile of cash into an area where bombs are falling is seen as the best alternative.

Crypto’s Role 

The promise of what crypto can provide people is not new, and we have been dreaming about borderless use cases for years.  And for the most part, this dream is now realized.  With crypto, you can send money to just about anyone in the world, instantly, and depending on the platform you are using, the fees might be next to nothing.  So what’s the problem?  Why can’t we just use crypto and protect Ukraine’s banking vulnerabilities?

The problem, at least until recently, had been the final step.  If the current international transfer system is like a long, windy, and poorly maintained road, the crypto option is a wide, straight freeway.  However, the freeway stops about a mile short and there is a massive gap.  Users had been able to get funds from anywhere to the area of conflict, but it was still in the form of crypto.  The crypto industry has come a long way, but the widespread ability to pay for things in crypto just isn’t here yet.  That crypto offramp—converting tokens to cash—was the last step.  

Networks such as Openledger and Aetsoft have seen that a giant money transfer freeway is needed to get funds from anywhere in the world to exactly where they are needed.  In building up their services, they and others like them have worked with many NGOs to solve one of the most critical problems.  These types of networks are built on the foundations of being Immutable, Borderless, Open, Neutral, and Decentralized.  This makes it as untouchable as possible from bad actors, giving nations under attack one part of their infrastructure that is stable.  The networks can further increase their stability by pegging token values to the US dollar, which ensures there are no market fluctuation issues that would cause major surprises when sending funds to save lives.

As to the last gap—that critical offramp—platforms like FLUUS have implemented the solution for Tron, and have already worked with NGO’s in Ukraine to transfer nearly $1 million made up of USD and Ukraine’s UAH.  While this is a major first step, the scalability needed will be critical to ensure all aid can quickly be transferred where it needs to go, instantly and with minimal cost.  Anticipating this, FLUUS has a kit for API and Widget developers, allowing them to build and integrate with countless third parties.  The network also has their own robust service called FLUUSpay.

What Comes Next?

This technical achievement is nothing short of groundbreaking.  The implications for everyday life are impressive.  However, the ability to get funds safely, cheaply, and instantly to a war zone so that people can get the aid they desperately need; this has and will literally save lives.  This could very well be the best use case for crypto mass adoption we will likely see—and the sooner, the better.

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