Friends, I need some ideas.
I'm putting together a seminar to teach Haitian people about Bitcoin, which I hope to present in Haiti later this year.
Many people in Haiti receive remittances from friends and family in other countries. Western Union is the most common way to send money, but their fees are exorbitantly high. The local currency, the Haitian Gourde, is inflationary and has lost almost 50% of its value against the dollar in the past 12 months. Although many middle-class people are able to have a bank account, 2/3 of Haitian people are unbanked.
Bitcoin was made for places like Haiti, but it also presents some interesting challenges:
- Haiti is politically and economically unstable.
- Electrical service is notoriously unreliable.
- Internet is slow and unevenly distributed (though that might be changing thanks to Starlink).
- Common items like building material, electronics, and personal security are difficult to get or nonexistent.
It’s not going to work for everybody, but my goal is to help educate some people about Bitcoin so that they can begin using it to reduce the cost of remittances, provide financial services to the unbanked, and begin to promote a circular economy based on an alternative currency.