Glo is in alpha.
We’re not yet making and donating money.

We aim to make Glo the #1 stablecoin—here's how.

If you're an individual or institutional stablecoin user, switching to Glo means business continues as normal except you're also lifting people out of poverty.

by
Jasper
Driessens
May 4, 2023

The stablecoin market is approximately $150 billion.

At current interest rates, if Glo would capture a 10% share of the stablecoin market, we'd be able to generate basic income for ~1 million people. If Glo would reach the size of Tether, the current most popular stablecoin, it would be ~5 million people.

Here's how we'll get there:

We'll make Glo functionally indistinguishable from our competitors...

Stablecoin users, like crypto traders, care about three properties:

  1. Stability—can I be sure the stablecoin is always worth $1?
  2. Transparency—do I trust the issuer to be responsible with the reserves backing my coins?
  3. Availability—is the stablecoin supported and highly liquid on exchanges, blockchains and defi platforms?

On each dimension, we'll design Glo to be at least as good as our competitors:

  1. Glo is fully backed by a mix of cash and cash equivalents. Specifically: US dollars in a custodial bank accounts, and 3-month US Treasury bills. This is similar to Circle's USDC, and guarantees 1 Glo is always redeemable for 1 USD.
  2. We will publish frequent attestations and audits, led by reputable 3rd party firms, to mirror the level of trust and transparency of Circle's USDC.
  3. We will work to make GLO available on increasingly more exchanges, blockchains and platforms.

...and then add our non-profit competitive advantages.

With stability, transparency and availability in order, Glo is as good a stablecoin as any other. Beyond that, we uniquely add two benefits:

  1. By switching to Glo, stablecoin users automatically lift people out of extreme poverty
  2. As a non-profit, Glo can be inherently more trusted than for-profit alternatives

The business model of for-profit stablecoin issuers brings a fundamental tension. For users, it's better if a stablecoin issuer doesn't do risky things with the reserves. But their commercial incentive pulls them into the other direction. That's because a riskier reserve allocation generates more yield, making the business more profitable.

Glo is a non-profit. We donate 100% of the reserve yield. Our salaries and operational costs are paid for by philanthropic donations. These streams of money are completely separate, meaning the management and employees of Glo have no commercial incentive to take more risk with the reserves.

If everything else is equal, why not go for the stablecoin that lets you do good in the world at no cost?

In the end, a stablecoin is just a digital dollar that lives on a blockchain. Beyond stability, transparency and availability, users have no reason to prefer one brand over the other. That's why we believe Glo has a competitive advantage.

Glo is not available yet—we'll launch within a couple of months.

But if you're excited about this and plan on buying Glo, you can already contribute. Simply tell the world about your intention to put some savings in GLO when we launch later this year, for instance on Twitter, LinkedIn, or a WhatsApp or Telegram group. This helps a ton, because you might inspire one or two people to do the same. The more people we can reach before launch, the faster we can it the ground running. If you support the mission of Glo, please consider spreading the word ❤️

See this page for all big and small ways you can contribute to Glo.

This could be the info box

In this program, GiveDirectly identifies impoverished African villages to give their citizens $30 per month, transferred via mobile money technology, for 3-5 years. For people living on less than $2/day this is a transformational amount.
Glo's economic model is to invest its reserve in short-term Treasury bills and give the proceeds away entirely to GiveDirectly.

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Articles
Glo for stablecoin users

We aim to make Glo the #1 stablecoin—here's how.

If you're an individual or institutional stablecoin user, switching to Glo means business continues as normal except you're also lifting people out of poverty.

Everyone on this page is going to buy Glo at launch 👇

The stablecoin market is approximately $150 billion.

At current interest rates, if Glo would capture a 10% share of the stablecoin market, we'd be able to generate basic income for ~1 million people. If Glo would reach the size of Tether, the current most popular stablecoin, it would be ~5 million people.

Here's how we'll get there:

We'll make Glo functionally indistinguishable from our competitors...

Stablecoin users, like crypto traders, care about three properties:

  1. Stability—can I be sure the stablecoin is always worth $1?
  2. Transparency—do I trust the issuer to be responsible with the reserves backing my coins?
  3. Availability—is the stablecoin supported and highly liquid on exchanges, blockchains and defi platforms?

On each dimension, we'll design Glo to be at least as good as our competitors:

  1. Glo is fully backed by a mix of cash and cash equivalents. Specifically: US dollars in a custodial bank accounts, and 3-month US Treasury bills. This is similar to Circle's USDC, and guarantees 1 Glo is always redeemable for 1 USD.
  2. We will publish frequent attestations and audits, led by reputable 3rd party firms, to mirror the level of trust and transparency of Circle's USDC.
  3. We will work to make GLO available on increasingly more exchanges, blockchains and platforms.

...and then add our non-profit competitive advantages.

With stability, transparency and availability in order, Glo is as good a stablecoin as any other. Beyond that, we uniquely add two benefits:

  1. By switching to Glo, stablecoin users automatically lift people out of extreme poverty
  2. As a non-profit, Glo can be inherently more trusted than for-profit alternatives

The business model of for-profit stablecoin issuers brings a fundamental tension. For users, it's better if a stablecoin issuer doesn't do risky things with the reserves. But their commercial incentive pulls them into the other direction. That's because a riskier reserve allocation generates more yield, making the business more profitable.

Glo is a non-profit. We donate 100% of the reserve yield. Our salaries and operational costs are paid for by philanthropic donations. These streams of money are completely separate, meaning the management and employees of Glo have no commercial incentive to take more risk with the reserves.

If everything else is equal, why not go for the stablecoin that lets you do good in the world at no cost?

In the end, a stablecoin is just a digital dollar that lives on a blockchain. Beyond stability, transparency and availability, users have no reason to prefer one brand over the other. That's why we believe Glo has a competitive advantage.

Glo is not available yet—we'll launch within a couple of months.

But if you're excited about this and plan on buying Glo, you can already contribute. Simply tell the world about your intention to put some savings in GLO when we launch later this year, for instance on Twitter, LinkedIn, or a WhatsApp or Telegram group. This helps a ton, because you might inspire one or two people to do the same. The more people we can reach before launch, the faster we can it the ground running. If you support the mission of Glo, please consider spreading the word ❤️

See this page for all big and small ways you can contribute to Glo.

Alexander Drummond
Director of Partnerships
Deborah Lightfoot
Head of Finance & Reserves
Lisa LoGerfo
General Counsel
Marcia Blacken
Head of Operations
Garm Lucassen
Co-founder & CTO
Jeffrey Milewski
Co-founder & CEO
Harikrishnan Shaji
Software Engineer
Sascha Wu
Software Engineer
Jasper Driessens
Co-founder & Head of marketing
Bram Voets
Growth
Seth Ariel Green
Researcher-Writer
Eric Tsang
Software Engineer
Rad Iglantowicz
Software Engineer
Sid Sijbrandij
Non-Executive Founder
Alexander Drummond
Director of Partnerships
Deborah Lightfoot
Head of Finance & Reserves
Lisa LoGerfo
General Counsel
Marcia Blacken
Head of Operations
Garm Lucassen
Co-founder & CTO
Jeffrey Milewski
Co-founder & CEO
Harikrishnan Shaji
Software Engineer
Sascha Wu
Software Engineer
Jasper Driessens
Co-founder & Head of marketing
Bram Voets
Growth
Seth Ariel Green
Researcher-Writer
Eric Tsang
Software Engineer
Rad Iglantowicz
Software Engineer
Sid Sijbrandij
Non-Executive Founder

Worldwide   •   Full remote

Worldwide   •   Full remote

Worldwide   •   Full remote