Last Mile DeFi 05: Crypto-powered opportunities with James Downer

Hola Last Mile DeFi familia, in this conversation, James laid down the background to the work he is doing with Venezuelan migrants in Colombia as a consequence of the political instability and historical inflation that has affected the country. James has had circular career entering the ecosystem, when back in 2014 he came across Bitcoin being used in Argentina to overcome the cash controls in the country at the time. Since then, James has explored the various ways in which crypto could be leveraged to provide more opportunities for Latin Americans.

Today, James works on Roda - a project that aims to provide people who are unable to access traditional financial services in Colombia with alternative routes to access financing. Roda works with delivery drivers to offer them micro-loans that eventually give them the opportunity to access higher ticket size loans that give these drivers the opportunity to access loans to purchase motorized bicycles. With the powered bicycles, delivery drivers are immediately able to double their monthly income, drastically improving their livelihoods. Today, Roda has issued over 8,000 individual loans to over 5,000 individual clients throughout Colombia.

Through this conversation, we discuss a future where we can rely on crypto infrastructure to provide better financial services that allow people to verify the extent to which they are reputable actors within an economy, particularly if they are interacting with the informal economy. Roda relies heavily on the social collateral within their ecosystem, which crypto could provide a formal way for the borrowers in their network to formally verify their reputation with any actor, without having to rely on traditional instruments which often do not recognize people’s social capital. James’ work is a testament of the outcomes of grassroots entrepreneurship paired with technological innovation and I look forward to seeing Roda continue to leverage crypto to best provide access to undercollateralized loans in Colombia and beyond!

Learn more: marcus.mirror.xyz/qRLt_F9H_3RBz4dABAJejDJIFgRimWunamNo2C4ajHM