RSK’s ‘Everyday DeFi’ Solution for Africa.

INTRODUCTION

With the crypto world still reeling from the collapse of FTX, the 2nd Largest CEX behind Binance with a valuation of $32 billion, there has been increased calls for an introspective, better regulation and for TRUE decentralization in the Crypto space. With this in mind it’s necessary to point out that the solution to prevent a repeat of this is ABSOLUTE DECENTRALIZATION. RSK’s ‘Everyday DeFi’ Initiative is built on Absolute decentralization and this initiative must be embraced and adopted massively by the crypto community because of its ease of use, scalablility and security. No other blockchain platform offers a better alternative to this. With this in mind let’s take a deeper look into the Everyday DeFi solution

What is RSK and DeFi?

Rootstock Platform (RSK) is a second-layer virtual machine that addresses specific limitations of the Bitcoin blockchain. it is not a cryptocurrency or coin; it is a platform that runs alongside the Bitcoin blockchain as a sidechain and allows the deployment of smart contracts on bitcoin. Hence it enjoys the security and strength of the Bitcoin blockchain while offering more use cases.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an emerging financial technology based on secure distributed ledgers similar to those used by cryptocurrencies. The Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) define the rules for centralized financial institutions like banks and brokerages, which consumers rely on to access capital and financial services directly. DeFi challenges this centralized financial system by empowering individuals with peer-to-peer digital exchanges.

DeFi eliminates the fees that banks and other financial companies charge for using their services. Individuals hold money in a secure digital wallet, can transfer funds in minutes, and anyone with an internet connection can use DeFi.

THE CONCEPT OF EVERYDAY DEFI

IOV LABS The creators of the RSK smart contract platform, Launched a new initiative called “Everyday DeFi”. As the name suggests, the Everyday DeFi initiative is aiming to bring decentralized Finance to a larger number of users by eliminating the complexities that discourage everyday users from engaging with the sector. The initiative will be focused on the DeFi ecosystem on RSK, a smart contract platform that’s secured by the Bitcoin network. The IOVLabs team believes, decentralized finance can provide significant benefits for people who are underserved by the traditional finance sector.

According to figures released by the World bank, 1.8 billion people are unbanked & underbanked. A significant portion of this population reside in Africa and Latin America. This highlights the need for increased Everyday DeFi Adoption in Africa as its solution to traditional banking problems are infinite.

Here’s what Diego Zaldivar, CEO of IOVLabs and co-founder of RSK, had to say about the Everyday DeFi initiative: “Current DeFi solutions are too complex for regular users. That’s why it has only been used by an elite of advanced users. At IOVlabs, we created and continue to contribute to decentralized technologies like the Rootstock Blockchain and the RIF platform that enable Decentralized Finance to be easy to use and affordable. We are building a DeFi ecosystem for everybody, we are enabling Everyday DeFi.”

Seamless payments without punitive charges for individuals and small businesses; savings that allow people to inflation-proof and protect what they already have; remittances that allow the ninety-nine percent to move capital as easily as the one; and loans that give access to finance for grassroots economic growth. All denominated in stablecoins and available through the seamless smartphone interfaces of Web2 today, this is Everyday DeFi!

The security, scalability, and decentralization of the Rootstock network make it the natural home for Everyday DeFi to thrive. And RSK have developed the Rootstock Infrastructure Framework (RIF) as a service layer on top of the Rootstock blockchain that makes Everyday DeFi a reality. Most blockchain platforms offer advanced DeFi protocols that are too complex to use and understand by the average business woman, petty trader, and generally any non- tech savvy person. Advanced DeFi is not for everyone. Everyday DeFi seeks to make DeFi accessible and easy to use for everyone.

For a better understanding of what EVERYDAY DEFI represents for the everyday person, let’s compare Everyday DeFi to Advanced DeFi practices found on other Blockchain protocols and why the RSKs option is the best.

The above table clearly shows the basic need of an Everyday DeFi user is a DeFi protocol that solves everyday user finance issues. RSK offers Everyday DeFi protocols like Tropykus, Defiant, kripton, Sovryn, MoC etc. These protocols offers solution to different Everyday financial needs of people in Latin America and Africa. These services are currently more available to Latin American users, but as more adoption and awareness is created more users would be accommodated especially African users. The need for African users especially Nigerians to have access to basic financial services like loans, payments, Savings etc is very important. Overall, financial access benefits Africans by making it easier to save money, receive loans (often for entrepreneurial purposes), and prepare themselves for abrupt changes in the economy. The traditional banking sector in Sub-Saharan Africa has struggled for over a decade, due to “limited physical banking infrastructure and substantial levels of poverty and financial exclusion.”

However, persuading Africans especially Nigerians to use digital financial services is not always easy. The Partnership for Financial Inclusion (PFI) found that many have grown accustomed to using informal financial services and are often mistrustful of formal banking systems. Additionally, they may also be skeptical of new technology like EVERYDAY DEFI or lack the knowledge necessary to use it. Fostering trust in ‘Everyday DeFi’ services is crucial and primarily driven by creating awareness at the grassroot levels by word of mouth, organizing meetups and introducing DeFi protocols to Nigerian users. This will increase adoptability and usage and solve the problem of access to financial services faced by Nigerians.

Note: RSK also encourages developers and partners willing to build ‘Everyday DeFi’ protocols on RSK to reach out to the RSK team on https://developers.rsk.co