Today, around 700 million people live in extreme poverty (on less than $2.15 per day).

We're on a mission to end extreme poverty, and it's a big deal. We explain how Glo Dollar works in detail, but in short, it works like this.

Take the Glo pill, and ponder 9 reasons to be excited about Glo Dollar.👇

^#1 Eventually, every $20,000 in Glo Dollar automatically lifts one person out of extreme poverty

Right now, Glo Dollar is in Bootstrap Phase, meaning that not every $20,000 in Glo Dollar will lift one person out of extreme poverty–more about our Bootstrap Phase and High Impact Phase here. At sufficient scale, every $20,000 in Glo Dollar will lift one person out of extreme poverty.

There are three important figures here:

• $480. GiveDirectly (the future beneficiary of Glo Dollar’s proceeds) is able to lift one person out of extreme poverty for $480 per year.
• 2.4%. In our Impact phase, we expect that the investments backing Glo Dollar will earn a yield of 4%. We expect that 80% of the reserves backing Glo will be invested, and that our revenue share is 75%. This implies that ~2.4% of Glo Dollar's market cap would be donated to GiveDirectly.
• $20,000. Assuming similar returns for Glo Dollar, ^{we expect to lift one person out of extreme poverty for every $20,000 ($480 / 2.4%) in Glo Dollar}.

The real beauty, though, is that Glo Dollar holders participate in philanthropy, without making any donations.

^#2 Donationless philanthropy: our model doesn’t rely on donations

Glo Dollar presents an unprecedented philanthropic model.

By exchanging US dollars for Glo Dollars right now, you're helping us reach the Impact phase where someone in extreme poverty receives money. Eventually, when you buy the Glo Dollar, someone in extreme poverty receives money too.

In 2022, GiveDirectly (the recipient nonprofit of Glo Dollar proceeds) delivered $115M in cash transfers. That’s impressive — but they have funds for only 5% of their operational capacity. ^{If GiveDirectly received 20X that amount, an additional 4.5 million people could be lifted above the poverty line}.

^#3 If Glo Dollar reaches USDC’s market cap, 1.4 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty

Stablecoins are a digital currency pegged to a “stable” asset like the US dollar or gold–examples are USDT (from Tether) and USDC (from Circle). Compared to other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, stablecoins are considered a safe haven asset, as the value is designed to remain stable. Glo Dollar is also a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar.

The impact that could be made from the stablecoin market alone warrants our efforts: if Glo Dollar were to capture all of the stablecoin market ($130 billion in June, 2023), 6.5 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.

• Even if Glo Dollar were to grow just as big as TrueUSD (2% market share, $2 billion market cap in June 2023), 100,000 people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.
• ^{At the size of Circle's USDC ($28 billion in June 2023), around 1.4 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty}.

^#4 DAOs with stablecoin holdings can lift people out of poverty, at no additional cost

DAOs are decentralised autonomous organisations, or collectively-owned, blockchain-governed organisations that share a common mission. There are at least over 12,000 DAOs, with a total treasury of close to $20 billion. Needless to say, we're eyeing DAOs as a target audience to adopt Glo Dollar in its early stage.

• If KlimaDAO swaps their current stablecoin holdings (~$8.6M in June 2023) for Glo Dollar, 430 people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.
• If PleasrDAO swaps their current stablecoin holdings (~$17.2M in June 2023) for Glo Dollar, 860 people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.
• If ENS DAO swaps their current stablecoin holdings (~$15M in June 2023) for Glo Dollar, 750 people could be lifted out of extreme poverty.

^#5 If Glo Dollar replaces 10% of total US savings, 53 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty

The case for Glo Dollar extends far beyond stablecoins, DAOs and crypto in general. Eventually, any individual or company could swap its US dollars for Glo Dollar.

Glo Dollar is a universal currency built for widespread use; anyone with savings would be able to easily convert those savings to Glo Dollar.

Right now, there is about $10.6 trillion in US savings accounts. ^{If Glo Dollar can replace 10% of that, about 53 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty}.

^#6 If 1% of digital payments were in Glo Dollar, 3.8 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty

Global digital payments represent $7.7 trillion, or $7,700,000,000,000. With such astronomical numbers, it usually helps to illustrate a picture of how much it really is. A few examples:

• ✈️ 25,000 Airbus A350s (at a listing price of ~$300 million)
• 🇫🇷 2x France’s GDP ($3T as of 2021)
• 👻 550x SnapChat’s market cap (Snap, Inc. $18.71B as of 6/29/2023)

^{If 1% of these payments are made using Glo Dollar, around 3.8 million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty}.

If instead 10% of the digital payments were made in Glo Dollar, over 38 million people could be lifted out of poverty—touching around 5% of the total people living in extreme poverty today.

^#7 Embedding philanthropy into our currency

Most companies distribute profits to shareholders. But there’s another model: giving everything away to charity. We call this embedded philanthropy—we wrote about it in detail.

In general, donations are a small percentage of household finances: in the US only 2.3% of finances go toward donations (and only 0.2% goes overseas).

Using straightforward means, Glo Dollar can achieve the pretty radical goal of embedding philanthropy into all the money saved or used.

^#8 Glo Dollar makes philanthropy more accessible to a much wider audience

Because Glo Dollar allows you to participate in philanthropy without donating (save-to-give), our model unlocks a new population of philanthropists, beyond traditional high-net-worth donors.

To illustrate the impact Glo Dollar could make, we tend to talk about the number of people lifted out of poverty (where every ~$20,000 in Glo Dollar could lift one person out of poverty). Ultimately, any amount can be held in Glo Dollar, and each dollar makes an impact:

• $250 in Glo Dollar could create basic income of $0-$6 per year, $6 is enough for a beneficiary to buy 4 school textbooks or 1 school uniform.
• $1000 in Glo Dollar could create basic income of $0-$24 per year, $24 is enough for a beneficiary to buy a chicken or 6 school uniforms.
• $5000 in Glo Dollar could create basic income of $0-$120 per year, $120 is enough for a beneficiary to buy 9 chickens or a fishing net.

Calculate your projected impact with your future Glo Dollar holdings using our Impact calculator.

^#9 As Glo Dollar’s market cap goes up, extreme poverty goes down

The party line is straightforward: ^{as our market cap increases, extreme poverty decreases}.

Our hope is that the figures and framings convince you of the merits of Glo Dollar. But if there’s only one visual to take away from this article, it’s probably this one: