Consensus Pitchfest 2023: Finance for the Unbanked

For all the noise surrounding cryptocurrency markets, crypto has always offered something fundamental to human progress: an open, democratic financial system. Despite all the meme coins and joke products, there are still many testing the power of crypto to provide the easy access to resources to the world’s 1.4 billion unbanked people.

Gane, a freemium mobile provider, is one such firm that reaffirms our faith in this technology. Co-founded by Henry Biaz, Gane aims to make mobile services accessible to everyone by providing free cellphone services using Web3 wallets. (It is a contender in CoinDesk’s Pitchfest, happening next week at the Consensus festival.)

Through its service, customers can interact, learn skills and earn tokens that can eventually be swapped for free voice, text and data. “Today, with just two minutes a day on Gane [app], you can get 2 gigs [of data] a month,” said Baiz in a CoinDesk interview.

As of now, Gane is the first free mobile carrier in Latin America, with goals to expand in the United States, where many still use prepaid mobile services. Its services can also be used for easy and quick remittances globally.

“One out of every five weeks a [prepaid] user has no outgoing service, they only have Wi-Fi and incoming calls. Isn’t that sad?” added Biaz, affirming the need for more accessible service options in the world.

Representatives from Gane are coming CoinDesk’s Pitchfest to talk more about its future. There the firm will get an opportunity to showcase how innovation in crypto can make the world a more financially inclusive space.

Speaking of financial inclusion innovation, Stable, a consumer app that offers global remittances and peer-to-peer payments, is also pitching at Pitchfest. Using Stable, customers can send money globally using the company’s stable token and withdraw it in a fiat currency. One does not have to worry about the volatility of crypto using it.

“The whole cost of a stable is risk dispersion and to a select basket of stablecoins so the people don’t buy and hold a specific stablecoin, but they have a stable token which is imposed in our ecosystem,” co-founder Alvaro Jose Mosquera, said in a CoinDesk interview.

Today, the firm is focused on establishing trust and transparency in the market while safeguarding the most important asset of its customers – their money.

“We’re bringing back trust in a way that is auditable,” said Mosquera, explaining that every dollar in Stable’s reserve is backed by a mixture of digital and fiat currencies, making it a reliable service for its customers.

As Stable continues to grow, its presence in CoinDesk’s Pitchfest will allow many to witness the firm’s game-changing plan to make global remittances easy, safe and not daunting for the average customer.

Financial inclusion isn’t the only challenge that contestants in the Pitchfest are taking on. Boto, a no-code platform for creating and sharing bots that automate decentralized finance (DeFi) activities, is on a mission to increase technical transparency for its users.

Boto allows its users to build automation by simply picking and dragging blocks that consume machine-readable information. One can find several “recipes” on its platform that help you perform Web3-related tasks, including tracking NFT sales and mints, without requiring you to code.

Alongside Boto, Magic Square, a discovery and Web3 platform will also present at the Consensus Pitchfest. This firm brings accessibility to Web3, making it effortless for its users to find new applications and games on it. Think of it as the Apple Store of Web3.

Magic Square’s user-friendly interface allows users to explore without compromising on their privacy and security. Additionally, the firm has over 300 listed apps and offers dynamic incentives to its users.

At Pitchfest 2023, these firms are bringing their game-changing innovations to showcase to the world that crypto is more than a technological revolution, it is a tool of empowerment that creates a safe, inclusive and accessible society.