I again saw crypto being used to solve real people's problems.
✍️Short (and true) story
A guy I know from Venezuela works in a Brazilian game design studio and traveled to the country last week to attend the Gamescom LATAM 2025. He is the studio's only foreign employee.
He is not a crypto guy and the studio is not a Web3 company neither. Yet, he is paid in $USDT, which is already fascinating, but the story doesn't end here.
The guy came to Brazil completely debanked.
With only a crypto wallet and some USDT.
Unfortunately, he only told me all that yesterday, and it was too late to teach him how to use @bitrefill/@TrocadorApp gift cards, @spritzfinance pre-paid cards, or @nanobankoficial /pix feature.
Still, he discovered that two other employees, who are not the usual crypto-native people, also had a @binance account.
What they did, then, was a beautiful p2p counter-economy interaction, for every spending the Venezuelan guy needed. 🏴
💵Sent USDT to one of the two colleagues;
💱They swapped USDT<>BRL on Binance;
💳Sent BRL to their bank accounts;
💸Paid for everything the guy needed, while in Brazil.
Again, I repeat, these are not crypto-native people.
Just normal people who happen to know one or two things about crypto (and I'm teaching them a bit more, now), and used crypto to travel abroad and survive in a foreign country.
Without needing to use traditional forex channels (that charge a huge premium on the spread, plus super abusive taxes). Just some peaceful individuals using the sovereign monetary tools available to help each other.
Beautiful! 👌
These are the things that give me motivation to keep building.
This is also why I have learned to appreciate stablecoins (once being against them), and to understand that we are still too early to use non-pegged crypto, which are too volatile (this guy, in particular, would never do that if not with a stablecoin, as he doesn't like the risky exposure).
We are already changing people's life for the better.
Let's make it even more significant, now!
Keep building.
Keep educating.
Let's f-ing go!