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To end extreme poverty, Glo would need to replace 10% of all the money in the world.

Eventually, we expect $20,000 of Glo Dollar to lift one person out of extreme poverty. These, and other (very rough) estimates, explained in this article.

by
Jasper
Driessens
September 10, 2022
Poverty reduction
About Glo

Let's talk numbers. How many people can Glo Dollar lift out of poverty?

There is virtually no limit to how many people Glo Dollar can help. It depends only on adoption. If we come together with enough people and businesses, we should be able to generate enough money to eradicate extreme poverty around the world.

But Glo Dollar changes lives at smaller levels of adoption, too—planetary scale is not required. To get a sense of what's achievable, here are some scenarios at various levels of success.

Every $20,000 of Glo generates $480 per year, lifting one person out of extreme poverty.

This is not true today, but it's what we expect once Glo Dollar adoption reaches sufficient scale.

Here's what that would mean in practice:

The average US citizen has $41,600 in savings (source). Converted to Glo, this would lift 2 people out of poverty.

The entire stablecoin market is about $130 billion. Converted to Glo, this would lift 6.5 million people out of poverty.

Apple holds $55.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents (source). If they'd convert it all to Glo, this would lift 2.8 million people out of poverty.

5% of all US savings deposits amounts to $531.5 billion (source). Converted to Glo, this would lift 26.6 million people out of poverty.

What would it take to completely eradicate extreme poverty?

This is a rough estimate, but:

  • 700 million people live in extreme poverty
  • Multiplied by $20,000, we'd need Glo Dollar to be a $14 trillion stablecoin to give them all a basic income
  • The total amount of money in the world is $138 trillion [source 1, source 2], so that's 10.14% of all money

We'll round that number and say that...

To end extreme poverty, Glo would need to replace 10% of all the money in the world.

This is, of course, highly theoretical. For starters, not all 700 million people live in places where one could reliably distribute basic incomes, or where there is sufficient political and economic stability for cash transfers to be sufficient in living people out of extreme poverty.

Still, with sufficient adoption, Glo Dollar could very realistically lift tens of millions of people out of extreme poverty.

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.

References (this is a heading2)

  • This is a list for references
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Articles
Ending extreme poverty: the numbers

To end extreme poverty, Glo would need to replace 10% of all the money in the world.

Eventually, we expect $20,000 of Glo Dollar to lift one person out of extreme poverty. These, and other (very rough) estimates, explained in this article.

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

Let's talk numbers. How many people can Glo Dollar lift out of poverty?

There is virtually no limit to how many people Glo Dollar can help. It depends only on adoption. If we come together with enough people and businesses, we should be able to generate enough money to eradicate extreme poverty around the world.

But Glo Dollar changes lives at smaller levels of adoption, too—planetary scale is not required. To get a sense of what's achievable, here are some scenarios at various levels of success.

Every $20,000 of Glo generates $480 per year, lifting one person out of extreme poverty.

This is not true today, but it's what we expect once Glo Dollar adoption reaches sufficient scale.

Here's what that would mean in practice:

The average US citizen has $41,600 in savings (source). Converted to Glo, this would lift 2 people out of poverty.

The entire stablecoin market is about $130 billion. Converted to Glo, this would lift 6.5 million people out of poverty.

Apple holds $55.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents (source). If they'd convert it all to Glo, this would lift 2.8 million people out of poverty.

5% of all US savings deposits amounts to $531.5 billion (source). Converted to Glo, this would lift 26.6 million people out of poverty.

What would it take to completely eradicate extreme poverty?

This is a rough estimate, but:

  • 700 million people live in extreme poverty
  • Multiplied by $20,000, we'd need Glo Dollar to be a $14 trillion stablecoin to give them all a basic income
  • The total amount of money in the world is $138 trillion [source 1, source 2], so that's 10.14% of all money

We'll round that number and say that...

To end extreme poverty, Glo would need to replace 10% of all the money in the world.

This is, of course, highly theoretical. For starters, not all 700 million people live in places where one could reliably distribute basic incomes, or where there is sufficient political and economic stability for cash transfers to be sufficient in living people out of extreme poverty.

Still, with sufficient adoption, Glo Dollar could very realistically lift tens of millions of people out of extreme poverty.

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

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Worldwide   •   Full remote

Worldwide   •   Full remote