July 25, 2018 Reading Time: 2 minutes

Excitement about the potential of blockchain applications has led people to forecast all kinds of developments. I recently met with someone developing a new blockchain application, Leaf, with the potential to serve those most in need: African refugees.

African refugees usually carry the little wealth they own. Since banks in many African countries are not trustworthy, refugees cannot make deposits at their current location and then withdraw their deposits somewhere else, such as another country. This problem makes their journeys to refugee camps more risky than otherwise since they can be assaulted while traveling with their belongings.

However, even if African refugees do not have access to a good banking network, they do have access to mobile phones. In Africa, mobile banking is quite developed. The most economically developed countries in Africa have a more developed mobile-banking network than countries such as the United States. 

Better yet, when refugees enter a refugee camp, they enter a trustworthy environment. Refugees then have access to a blockchain network that allows them to deposit their wealth in a bank account and withdraw it at their next stop. Blockchain technology allows for secure transfers at low transaction costs, which makes this service affordable.

Certainly, it remains hard for refugees to get to refugee camps with the Leaf service. Still, on arrival the refugees benefit from the service’s potential to safeguard their wealth. It is also noteworthy that this is a private sector initiative. Despite their resources and power, governments have failed to provide this type of cross-border solution. In the realm of money and payment technologies, market initiatives light the way.

Nicolás Cachanosky

Dr. Cachanosky is Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Free Enterprise at The University of Texas at El Paso Woody L. Hunt College of Business. He is also Fellow of the UCEMA Friedman-Hayek Center for the Study of a Free Society. He served as President of the Association of Private Enterprise Education (APEE, 2021-2022) and in the Board of Directors at the Mont Pelerin Society (MPS, 2018-2022).

He earned a Licentiate in Economics from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, a M.A. in Economics and Political Sciences from the Escuela Superior de Economía y Administración de Empresas (ESEADE), and his Ph.D. in Economics from Suffolk University, Boston, MA.

Dr. Cachanosky is author of Reflexiones Sobre la Economía Argentina (Instituto Acton Argentina, 2017), Monetary Equilibrium and Nominal Income Targeting (Routledge, 2019), and co-author of Austrian Capital Theory: A Modern Survey of the Essentials (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Capital and Finance: Theory and History (Routledge, 2020), and Dolarización: Una Solución para la Argentina (Editorial Claridad, 2022).

Dr. Cachanosky’s research has been published in outlets such as Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Public Choice, Journal of Institutional Economics, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, and Journal of the History of Economic Thought among other outlets.

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