Polygon partners with Mercy Corps to empower marginalized communities

In order to introduce blockchain solutions to underserved and low-income communities in developing regions, the Polygon blockchain network has partnered with Mercy Corps Ventures, the investment arm of Mercy Corps.

Polygon partners with Mercy Corps

Collaboration to develop blockchain-based solutions for underserved populations. In a blog post dated March 2, Polygon revealed the formation of a new partnership with the intention of providing solutions based on blockchain technology and Web3 to “traditionally excluded and marginalized areas.”

According to the announcement, the partnership will concentrate on a number of objectives, one of which is providing funding for blockchain pilot projects in order to make the financial system accessible to populations that do not have bank accounts.

Additionally, through this collaboration, hackathons will be funded for tech developers who serve customers in emerging markets, and blockchain boot camp roadshows will be established in locations where Mercy Corps is active.

The announcement of the new collaboration comes just a few short weeks after Mercy Corps Ventures presented its Crypto for Good Fund II. The organization decided to establish the fund in order to develop blockchain-based projects with the goals of increasing climate protection and promoting global financial inclusion.

In 2022, when the fund was first established, there were approximately 200 people applied for it.

Crypto comes to the aid of disaster victims

After the recent earthquake that caused damage in parts of Turkey and Syria, members of the cryptocurrency community held a number of fundraising events to help those in need. Mercy Corps was involved in some of these events.

The organization announced that it had been given a fifty-fifty share of the total donation of approximately sixty thousand dollars that had been made by Binance at the moment.

According to estimates provided by the World Bank, more than 1.6 billion individuals across the globe do not have access to even the most fundamental types of bank accounts, such as checking, savings, or mobile money accounts. In addition to this, they require assistance in order to gain access to various financial services such as insurance, financing, or mortgages.

Exclusion from the financial system comes at a high expense. It lowers the standard of living of people, prevents them from putting money away for the future, provides them with few safeguards in the event that they become sick or lose their source of income, and exposes them to predatory lenders who charge exorbitant interest rates.

Seven of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations (UN) highlight the importance of socioeconomic inclusivity as a key factor in improving the quality of life for disadvantaged people.

Leveraging Web3 for financial inclusivity

Using Web3 to make it easier for more people to get financial services
Polygon and Mercy Corps say that blockchain and Web3 solutions have gotten a lot of attention, but people who don’t have bank accounts haven’t yet seen how these solutions help them.

Even though some actual use cases already exist, the majority of them lack the quantifiable results necessary to build a business case for the technologies. Because of this, Mercy Corps has announced that it is conducting trial programs for web3 solutions in order to test and develop the evidence base for potentially game-changing blockchain innovations that can help underprivileged people and communities build financial resilience.

blockchain technologgy cryptocurrency community Mercy Corps polygon