I like to eat. What I mean by that is I like to make money. I’ve had my share of being hungry and eating two-minute noodles because I couldn’t afford anything else. That’s no fun, but it’s the reality for a lot of people in the Global South. It’s a reality that NoOnes plans to change.
I want to make a lot of money, and I’m not ashamed to say so. Being really rich would be great, but it wouldn’t feel good if everyone around me was poor. It wouldn’t even feel good if they were moderately successful. The only way it would feel good is if everyone around me is rich, too. That’s the reason one of our values at NoOnes is “everyone eats,” and it’s so important I’ve made it part of our business model.
There is hunger at NoOnes, but it’s a hunger to make sure we are doing everything we can to make sure everyone eats. It started with our pledge to give back 50% of the company’s profits. You can’t take that promise to the bank – because who’d trust them? – but you can look at my record and ask yourself if I’m serious about it.
Ever since I joined the dots about the financial system and realized how it suppresses people who have no power, especially those in the Global South, I’ve made it my mission to help create a new system. There have been many roadblocks put in my way, but I’m positive we can create a new financial ecosystem, and that’s why I get up every morning. I’m making a choice, and I’m lucky enough to be able to make it because I have a skill-set that empowers me to get the job done.
My vision of a Global South where everyone eats would already have happened if we hadn’t been held back by the disastrous policies of the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after decolonization. I say decolonization, but the truth is that military regimes have merely been replaced with economic ones. Now, we have the tools necessary for us to go to work and defeat that system to give us something better.
We’re already doing a lot of things at NoOnes, such as our Partner Program and cash back to reward the customers who help us to grow. For example, our users are our greatest ambassadors, so we give them jobs to help with our education programs online and on the ground. All of these initiatives are part of our “everyone eats” mantra but there is so much more to come.
Everyone eats is much more than giving back financially. The vision we’re driving towards is really a new financial architecture, an ecosystem where everything is about incentivizing people to work. We are already doing that by creating jobs – having our citizens generate content to onboard people into crypto, such as showing others how to make money, making educational videos about how to buy or trade Bitcoin, or talking to groups in person and online. The best part of all of this is that it’s organic and circular, a constant loop that keeps feeding into the system.
Crypto users across Africa are learning how to use what we’ve built and they’re building layers on top of it. They are hacking it in ways we’ve never imagined, and then putting back what they learned into the ecosystem by teaching others. This is how everyone gets a place at the table and a plate in front of them with some food on it.
We want everyone to grow, so our goal is to expand this ecosystem, to make it a truly people-powered, trustless, completely transparent tool that will transform the Global South into a powerhouse. This “everyone eats” philosophy flips the whole western corporate model on its head. Instead of blocking the potential of millions across the Global South, our model is designed to be generative, to build – and it works.
Years ago, when I first began talking to potential users in Africas about Bitcoin online, I tried to onboard many people by giving away BTC because I knew my investment would be returned to me. I went further when I founded the Built with Bitcoin Foundation and built 13 schools in the Global South to help educate local people. We were on the ground showing people how a peer-to-peer marketplace using Bitcoin as a universal container for money could not only lift them up, but transform the livelihoods of future generations to come.
“Everyone eats” means we all have food, we have a great place to live, and we all have work – but it also means we have free time, and we are going to show the world that this model works. As a P2P platform, we must make profits because we can’t advocate for an equitable society without resources. However, it’s absolutely essential we’re not obsessive about profits, except to the extent that we can feed it back into the ecosystem to generate more growth.
We want ordinary people to understand they have so many opportunities to grow, despite the obstacles in front of them, a lack of education, resources, or the “right” nationality. I was just some nerd from an immigrant family who failed a lot of times until I learned how to succeed. Now I’m trying to give my brothers and sisters in the Global South a short-cut to prosperity. If that means I have to give away 50% of our revenue to make sure everyone eats, I will do it. We need profits, but we are people-driven, and that’s what makes NoOnes so special. The task now is to spread the word.
This is a guest post by Ray Youssef. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.