ReFi Generation
Ep. 5 ReFi Medellin & Topl with Tereza Bízková
In this episode we discuss the potential of blockchain for social good with Teresa Bízková, ecosystem communications manager at Topl and the founder of ReFi Medellín.
Tereza and I disucss how blockchain is not just about cryptocurrencies, but a tool for real-world impact, fostering financial inclusion, and supporting environmental causes. Teresa recounts her transformation from blockchain skeptic to advocate, while we dissect Topl's role in emerging markets and furthering financial inclusion.
I especially loved learning about Alternun's unique approach of incentivizing gold miners to NOT MINE GOLD, and instead keep it in the ground.
We wrap up with a glimpse into the grassroots movement and how local communities are harnessing innovative economic models to encourage environmental stewardship. From rewarding clean-up hikes with digital currency to exploring bartering systems, we discuss how blockchain tech is encouraging local stewardship and participation.
Follow Tereza's work below:
https://twitter.com/TerezaBizkova
In this episode we discuss the potential of blockchain for social good with Teresa Bízková, ecosystem communications manager at Topl and the founder of ReFi Medellín.
Tereza and I disucss how blockchain is not just about cryptocurrencies, but a tool for real-world impact, fostering financial inclusion, and supporting environmental causes. Teresa recounts her transformation from blockchain skeptic to advocate, while we dissect Topl's role in emerging markets and furthering financial inclusion.
I especially loved learning about Alternun's unique approach of incentivizing gold miners to NOT MINE GOLD, and instead keep it in the ground.
We wrap up with a glimpse into the grassroots movement and how local communities are harnessing innovative economic models to encourage environmental stewardship. From rewarding clean-up hikes with digital currency to exploring bartering systems, we discuss how blockchain tech is encouraging local stewardship and participation.
Follow Tereza's work below:
https://twitter.com/TerezaBizkova
Welcome to Refi Generation, the podcast that talks to experts and leaders in the new frontier of regenerative finance to examine how blockchain technology is creating the next generation of environmental and humanitarian initiatives. I'm your host, Koush Upton. In today's episode, we talk with Topol's ecosystem communications manager, Teresa Biscova, who is also the founder of Refi Medellin. I especially enjoy discussing how Topol is working in emerging markets to implement impact tokenization regarding carbon and other eco credits and the financial inclusion that Topol is helping bring people into. We discussed the refi space in Medellin and the importance of getting involved with local existing nonprofits and helping to bridge them to the tools that blockchain unlocks, as well as the importance of getting involved in your local refi community.
Speaker 1:My favorite takeaway was learning about AlterNun, which is incentivizing gold mining operations to not mine gold and keep it in the ground. It was quite heady and I'm still wrapping my head around it. I hope you enjoy, Hi Teresa. How are you doing today? Hi Kesh Ding, well, how about you? Excellent, Excited to have you on and talk about the refi space and the refi space.
Speaker 2:I'm also a co-founder of Refi Medellin, which is a local node of the Refi Dow. I started something called defense, development and diplomacy, which is basically international development. I've been really always excited about socioeconomic development. After my degree, I moved to Colombia where I started working in a PR agency. We worked with a lot of little tech startups. Since 2020, we started having more crypto clients and I started learning more about blockchain.
Speaker 2:Like most people at the time, I was really skeptical and didn't really see any benefits beyond trading and all that.
Speaker 2:So that was that. But as a time, I met up with a friend and he was telling me excitingly how a local NGO here in Medellin was basically using NFTs to fundraise and I thought it was cool because what I really resonated with, I guess from my experience, is like if you donate to an NGO or something, you get an email and it basically ends there. You don't really feel better, you don't really feel connected to the cause. So I thought, well, this could be interesting. It could bring much more transparency to giving. It could help different projects build better connections with their audiences. So I kind of started digging into that and I reached out to people in the space. I had some conversations with Bruce Simon from Crypto Alterism, from Manu Alcero from Doing Good at the Time. So I got just like really excited about starting writing about that and then I made the full leap into every manager in the whole summer, probably now like 12, no, 16 months ago, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome. Yeah, I love that journey and specifically kind of what you got drawn to, of what kind of transparency and connection tools there are and how a lot of the traditional web to or existing NGO spaces don't always have that transparency or connection. So I definitely want to talk about ReFi and Medellin. But while we're on the top all subject, let's start there Like, what is your work look like in top all and how can you describe it to our listeners? Because in my, from what I've learned, it's a lot of like connecting and using blockchain like tools for Bitcoin, but also like leveraging the economic tools. So I'd love to kind of know what that's looking like for you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. Well, top is a layer to build on Bitcoin and our focus is to drive the creation of what we call this new, more inclusive and sustainable economy. So we're specifically focused on emerging market use cases and basically what we have done is different work in with partners in government credits, supply chain traceability, financial inclusion and more, and the focus really is to bring the benefits of you know, get free to anyone to builders all around the world. So that's kind of what we have been doing. I think the supply chain piece there was like the biggest one for me because it really showed me the benefits, or the ReFi principles and how they come to life.
Speaker 2:Because I always say like no one really makes up, saying, you know, I want to exploit workers today by wearing a T-shirt that was made in like a fast fashion factory, or I don't want to pay my or the coffee farmers that you know like provided this morning cup of coffee for me, and this started the planet by driving to work. But we still often do that because there are not many clearly accessible alternatives but, at the same time, there is more appetite for these alternatives, and I think McKinsey did like a study a few years ago and they found that, you know, maybe 10 years ago, when you were buying a watch, what you would look at first is the price, the features and the design, then maybe the brand. But now it's like completely different. There's been like a vertical shift in consumer behavior where we now look at the brand first. We want to see who we associate ourselves with, you know.
Speaker 2:So there was this idea that I saw the other day as well, which was like a dolphin plushie and it's something like you could say that I'm a party animal, my mom was a straw and my dad was a plastic party cop. So it's really interesting that even these big brands are now using this kind of language because they realize that this is what matters to people, you know. So I think in this sense, that traceability and transparency and supply chains and different processes can help us build that trust and give us the information that gets served as like the basis of new economic models that are maybe more regenerative or defined value in more holistic ways. Because maybe if you were to buy a toy and you would know that it contributed to a full thing of waiver or water source, it just like wouldn't feel good Even maybe they give it to you for free. So I think blockchain can help us make better decisions that are, like, more aligned with what we want, and that's kind of what we're also working on a top yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:You would almost refuse the free product if you knew it caused harm. I was. I was looking and really liking what the bean to blockchain to brood cup that Topple's doing with the Dutch nonprofit Fairfood. So how, how is that working? Using blockchain to kind of verify impact and coffee production?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we've worked with different partners across industries and coffee is one of them, and just like realizing that we can now trace the whole process, as you said, of coffee with blockchain and that can lead to the companies being able to implement things like price premiums or maybe just like engage with their audience around that cause of like transparency and they can, for example, pay their their farmers, more fairly and prove that with blockchain. And the idea of that hopefully one day is that you can go to a coffee store and you can scan a QR code on the coffee back and you can see the whole journey of the coffee, maybe including the environmental factors and even tape the farmer. So there was kind of the idea with that.
Speaker 1:That's super cool. I to educate myself a little bit more how is the L2 space on on Bitcoin looking? Cause I think the narrative for a long time has always been that Bitcoin is more of like a store value digital gold and then, like Ethereum, maybe has more of that functionality. So how is the Bitcoin journey looking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so well, we started as a layer one, just for some context, and this year in August, we decided to build that bridge to Bitcoin.
Speaker 2:Because it was interesting.
Speaker 2:Because I guess when you're, you know, building in web free, you always have ideas of like, what would you want to do for the market, but eventually is the market that tells you what, what you should be building instead.
Speaker 2:And talking with our like builders and the projects that are building with top all that are like around 60, I think the biggest feedback that we've been receiving is that they don't want to be necessarily in an isolated ecosystem, even though they really like what we are doing. So, with that feedback, you know, there is Ethereum, there is Bitcoin and, given the fact that the place really focused on like emerging markets, we really wanted, you know, to see like which kind of assets were most understood there, what people were using in those markets. So obviously, bitcoin, in those terms, is the one that like has been more, most traction. And there is an interesting gap because, even though there are different layers to some Bitcoin, we really want to bring functionality. So, basically, in the simplest terms, whatever you're doing on Ethereum, you should be able to do on Bitcoin, you know. So, whether that's different token standards, lending, physicals exchanges, we want to enable all that.
Speaker 1:Super cool and, yeah, definitely in the emerging markets. I think has a lot of impact potential. I'm based here in California and there is a lot less use cases or maybe necessity for some of the crypto use cases right now in everyday people's lives. But specifically in countries that have adopted Bitcoin, it sounds like they're allowing for more economic freedom or specifically like depagging from US dollar reliance or from hyperinflation and giving some of those economic tools. And what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure. I saw a video on YouTube the other day and it was about a great use case from South Africa where, basically, a local community started using Bitcoin for like micro payments, like when they're I don't know getting a haircut or buying groceries, and all that because it's people that are living in the areas of the city's post-apartate where they had to move, and usually they don't have permanent address so they cannot get access to like banking services and all that. So, for example, seeing a use case like that how they transfer Satoshi's through SMS messages, like that was something that really like blew my mind. Seeing that real world impact Because usually when we talk about crypto, you know it's like, yeah, like trading, investment, like halt, whatever but seeing that like people are already using in the real world, that's really great.
Speaker 2:And actually, if I may just quickly mention one thing that I'm really excited about and we're also working on the top it's the impact tokenization pilot that we've been doing. So basically we have partnered with six different NGO partners from around the world in countries like we have Kenya, honduras we have someone from the EU as well and we've worked to design an impact token, you know, with the idea of hopefully encouraging the creation of new impact marketplaces that go just beyond carbon, you know, but in a similar way. So, like, how do you quantify something like this less tangible, like peace or coral protection or job creation? So this is also something great that, like we think you can achieve if you have like more functionality with different protocols.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really cool. My next guest is going to be talking about the ecological benefits framework, so a lot of that like, yeah, not just carbon tunnel vision, but all those other markers of a healthy ecosystem that are necessary to preserve a lot of the important aspects that the earth provides for us.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, actually it's something that we have also implemented in ReFi Medellin, the ecological benefits framework, and we are excited to hopefully, you know, measure our activities like from the perspective of that framework.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, I wanted to hear about ReFi Medellin and it's super cool that you started the local chapter. I'm talking about a green pill network local chapter tomorrow, so that's kind of really exciting to just learn about the, the local aspect of it. So, yeah, what is happening in ReFi Medellin?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Reef I'm in still feels relatively new, even though we started in April I think. Actually, in March this year I got a grant from Reef I Spring to run a regenerative finance event here in the city. I think that for me was like a catalyst where I also, like, spoke with different people and you know, some of them then joined the team that we started. So that was great. We have done three good congrats rounds. We have been doing many different things. I think what I have really enjoyed is just like connecting with local projects here, doing educational workshops, things like that, and maybe empowering some of the community members as well.
Speaker 2:Something that I'm really proud of that we've done recently is our partnership with Glove Dollar, which is basically a stablecoin that powers something I think it's called like passive philanthropy, in the sense that just by holding the stablecoin, you're contributing to eradication of extreme poverty, and it's something really simple because we have our treasury anyways. So just the fact that we can convert some of it into Glove Dollar and help with that, that's really amazing. We have also recently organized a free Columbia hackathon or co-sponsored basically with other entities here, and it was awesome, too, just to see kind of the local builders getting excited about Reef I and the ideas that they have, because Columbia is so specific as well, with different conditions, like it's the most biodiverse country or second sorry, after Brazil is the most biodiverse country in the world. There's a huge agricultural sector but also extreme inequality. To kind of see how different people want to approach these problems with that it was really inspiring. But yeah, I think we are just in the beginning of our journey and I'm really excited to see what we do next year.
Speaker 1:Super cool. Yeah, that's awesome. The support of Glove Dollar too yeah, like it's the stablecoin and the revenue it's earning is going back to eradicating extreme poverty. So, yeah, super cool on that. Regarding, like the educational side of what you guys are doing on Reef I Medellin, have you been able to talk to existing non-profit NGOs that maybe aren't in the crypto Reef I space and what their feedback is, maybe, or how that's progressing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great that you mentioned that, because I think that's really the key piece there, because if you start a new project, and especially if you're in web-free and you want to do something in the real world, it can sometimes be a little difficult because you don't really know how to get started, maybe interacting, for example, with with authorities and different stakeholders that are already present in the space. So I think a partnership with local NGOs and projects have been really important for us. We have partnered with an organization called Salvatera and we have done pre-planting projects. We have also worked on a community garden here. This is actually sponsored by the mayor's office of Medellin. So I think that interaction has helped us really get a seat at the table and be able to make much more impact.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, it helps with the legitimacy when you're working with existing projects that are actively doing work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in exchange we can also provide value back. What we have done for them is that we have helped them on board on the Gitcoin grants round, so I think there's value for them also to tap into the web-free community and maybe experiment with things that may be simple at first, like wallets and all that, but maybe more in the future.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, yeah, great to onboard and yeah, it helps that existing NGO nonprofits up with a Gitcoin grant. Essentially is what you're saying Bring them into Gitcoin grants. Awesome, we love that, really cool. What are some REFI projects that you would suggest our listeners support or go check out?
Speaker 2:There is a few and if I were to just say one, I would probably say give it. But it's the OG in the space and I want to go beyond that. I'm a big fan of projects like Bloom Network, shamba Network, urbl. There's CocoaNetwork. That's also doing great work, ethic Help, obviously, their work with farmers and much more. But I think maybe locally, I want to give a shout out to a project called Outernoon, and they're based here in Colombia and they're just also getting started, so we'll see how it goes for them.
Speaker 2:But I'm really excited about their idea and basically they call it digital exploitation of gold and their argument is that if over 80% of gold in circulation globally is stored anyways, why don't we just keep it in the ground and not mine it, basically to damage the environment?
Speaker 2:So it's really, really cool because they're entering the mining communities and they're presenting these options. They're saying, hey, we can still estimate the value of the gold on the ground and we can invest that value in your community in different projects like solar panels, ecotourism and all that. And, from what they say, the feedback has been great so far because, even though it may take some time at first for people to grasp the concept that you can use the money of gold even without actually having it in your hand or somewhere. People get excited because those communities have often been overlooked and they say that even though they are technically these like villages or communities are most rich in resources. They tend to be the poorest because there's often no reinvestment in the local community and gold is really the only industry that the people depend on in these communities. So developing some other sectors or other, let's say, capital there could be really valuable.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I'm still wrap my head around that. That's an incredible mind flip. Just keep it in the ground, don't mind it, especially if, like, yeah, 80% is stored in vaults. I mean, obviously maybe that other 20% is in circulation or some of it needs to be used for electronic products, but for the majority of it it's just sitting in a vault, so just don't mind it. Wow, that's really cool. Yeah, if you put a link into the chat, I'll definitely check them out. That would be really cool to dive into that. And yeah, especially with the local supports. I mean, gold mining can be really toxic if it's not done properly or just at all. I mean it's a very toxic industry for the refining and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm curious how they manage kind of the bureaucratic side. I mean, they already have their strategy in place, but I think bureaucracy is a big obstacle to innovating in Colombia, and actually I spoke recently to someone that's looking to tokenize real estate here in the country and they have been working in this space for like five years now and really have everything clear and they know that they want to do it properly, but they say that the legislation just doesn't allow for it. So even though they're based here, they're just going to run their pilot in the US, because in the US the legislation is a little more flexible with things like these. So that's something that really needs to happen in Colombia as well, I guess more education, both, like when it comes to businesses that can get involved, but also the government.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd love to learn what their name is and what they're doing. It makes me think had you heard of Basin Basin now? No, teemo was on a podcast. I did and I'll send you the link after this. But Thomas Morgan and his whole thing is about. You know, he was in commercial real estate development for a long time and wanting to foster regenerative land practices that can earn some passive income through like tokenization of eco credits and ecological benefits framework and making like investing in restoration of land not just like philanthropy but also an investment model that can restore the earth and also give people a stable yield.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. We should definitely connect with them because I think acquire land is something that we really want to look into next year with our local no tier in Medellin, because we think that there will be a lot of value in that and I mean we find out is also always talking about that, you know to acquire land, protect it and then create some sort of governance model that the community can use. It can engage in different activities there, can protect it, can be rewarded for that protection and all that. So it will be close to speak with them for sure.
Speaker 1:One of my guests was the traditional dream factory in Portugal and they're kind of doing that. I'm sure you've heard of them, yeah, and yeah, they're part of the OASA network, so that seems kind of like. Yeah, the open sourcing of regenerative land management and also being able to live on that land and support those initiatives, so really cool. Yeah, definitely want to keep in the loop on as you guys progress in that realm. You've been in the ReFi space for a while now. How do you see it evolving and do you have any feedback for the ReFi space as a whole in terms of like areas that still need improvement?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think, when it goes to how it's evolving, I think that what I have really liked seeing is the collaboration with like web 2 and web 3 projects, and I think that's what we really need to bring everyone on board of this idea of regeneration where everyone can benefit. When it comes to the things that I want to see more of, or maybe a little bit of my criticism, you know, obviously we need more real life or real world use cases. That's something that has always been like clear to everyone, I think. But what I want to mention more than anything else and you know I'm not original with this either, because Ken Owoki actually said that it needs to happen next year for ReFi is impact verification Because, for example, even just with the Gifcon grants, there's a lot of funds being distributed, like the matching pools.
Speaker 2:They are, you know, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars and all that. And sometimes you know somebody can get a project started in a day, you know, to GPT their proposal and all that and that's it. And you know, maybe I'm a little skeptical here, but with my background in international development and stuff, I know that when you implement a project, or even when you design a project, there's always I mean, obviously a lot of bureaucracy on one hand, but on the other hand, you need to know exactly what you kind of want to generate in the community and, you know, think about maybe some of the unintended consequences that your action can have as well. So I'm really excited, first, to become, like, more responsible with our actions, because we are getting funds and there's a lot of responsibility, but also making sure that we are following through with our promises.
Speaker 2:So, really, you know, developing, for example, metrics for our events and doesn't have to be something too complex. You know, just like set up some sexist metrics, hey, hey, this was delivered. This was not delivered. Why would we need to change? Maybe we need to, you know. Maybe, like this needs to have less funding. This needs more funding to be more strategic, because we are in web-free and web-free always says that there's transparency above all, and I know that we don't need to be 100 percent transparent of everything we do, but we have the important stuff. I think we should, and I'm really excited for this space to do that overall.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You hit it on the head. I think one of the biggest tools is the transparency, and if we're not leveraging that data and actually using that, then what's the use? The impact verification is really big on my mind too. I just interviewed Sophia Dew about hyper-serts. I love hyper-serts, yeah. What's your take on that as we talk about? Yeah?
Speaker 2:Actually, I wrote an article on Hackernoon about hyper-serts with my colleague, nick, and we just really got excited about hyper-serts at Apple because you're thinking that it's basically the impact verification layer that everyone can use. And if everyone actually did that, that would be awesome because it's a way to make impact investing more accessible to really reward the most impactful projects out there. I love the idea of retroactive funding as well. I think that they can become a really great mechanism for us to hold each other accountable to impact but also maybe be more democratized impact funding overall.
Speaker 1:Yes, cool, yeah, a big shout out for your medium. You've been doing a lot of really cool conversations and in-depth look at a lot of stuff. I'll put a link in that to the show notes because definitely encourage our readers to go check out what you've been writing. It's been really cool to read.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Maybe just to add to this quickly L is that, having worked in PR for four years prior to joining Topol, I really think and maybe someone's not going to agree with me, but I really think that if you're not talking about it, it doesn't exist. It's just a great honor to be spotlighting the projects in the reprise space and beyond. I think everybody should do that. Hopefully we'll get more conversations as well and show work more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think it is really important. It's what keeps me motivated. It's easy to have that gloom with the catastrophic environmental and social crises and suffering happening in the world and the blockchain for good space, and ReFi has really motivated me in a way that it's lost in a way before. Yeah, really glad that we're writing those projects.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love the ReFi community. It's always great to just engage and share knowledge. We don't know what's going to happen with the planet or all that, but at least we are collectively trying to come together and do something about it. That's a beautiful life purpose even. I'm super grateful for that.
Speaker 1:Amen, yeah, absolutely. Is there anything we haven't covered yet that would be remiss to not mention before we sign off?
Speaker 2:Maybe just one thing. I know that ReFi DAU is starting there at BettaCard in January. I would love to see more local notes around the world because I think we have a lot to learn from each other. It's always great to see what other regenerative communities around the world are doing. If anyone wants to sign up for that, now is the best time to do that, because you're going to have some guidance in the process and just incredible people to connect with. I would invite everyone to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great call to action. I appreciate that encouragement of getting involved locally because I do think with the broader environmental movement it's hard to think that that's going to impact that local. That's where it starts and it can spread a lot faster if we all take ownership over our local communities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we're. The best ideas sometimes are born. We have done things like hikes, where we have trash collecting competitions to see who manages to pick up the most amount of trash. Then they get a few dollars air drop to their wallet and all that. Or just thinking about how we can implement maybe things like barter on the local level and stuff. It's great yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, incentivizing those positive actions and maybe looking outside of the traditional capitalist model and innovative ways is exciting. That's cool that you guys are doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 1:Awesome Well, I think that's where I wanted to cover things today and really excited. I want to have you back on to talk more about some of those initiatives you guys are doing as they progress in Topple. I'm definitely excited that Topple is doing the layer two to incentivize impact and all that. We really want to keep up to date with what you guys are doing. Thanks again for what you're doing in the Space, Teresa.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We'd love to Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks to Matthew Patrick Donner for the Refi Generation production, including the music, mixing and editing. As a reminder, none of this is financial advice, and feedback is the breakfast of champions. Please subscribe to our show and send your thoughts, critiques and ideas for future content. Be well, take care of each other and do something good today.