GM, 

At Mercy Corps Ventures, we’ve spent the past 8+ years investing and co-designing real world web3 use cases through our Crypto For Good initiative. To date, we’ve invested in and partnered with 30 protocols and startups to reach over 7,000,000 users. This newsletter focuses on our insights, reflections and optimism about the future of crypto for the underserved in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other emerging markets. 

Feel free to share this newsletter with anyone else who might enjoy some real-world crypto news. And as always, we’d love to hear from you — reach out and let us know what you’re up to. 

🔓 Unlocking Financial Resilience Where Banks Have Failed   

📲 Pilot Insights | Unlocking DeFi-powered Credit for Microentrepreneurs in Colombia  

♻️ Pilot Launch | Using stablecoins to build financial resilience for Kenyan informal waste collectors  

🌾Pilot Launch | Leveraging Grain Tokenization to Unlock Credit for Argentina’s Smallholder Farmers  

⭐ Stuff we enjoyed

Across emerging markets, millions of people live outside the reach of traditional finance. They are farmers without credit histories, informal workers without savings accounts, and small entrepreneurs without access to insurance or capital. Yet, across these same markets, a new financial architecture is emerging—one that runs on crypto rails. 

Emerging from our Crypto For Good Fund IV, we’ve been busy launching products alongside innovative entrepreneurs to test how decentralized technologies can unlock credit, savings, and insurance for those excluded by legacy systems. 

🇨🇴 In Colombia, our pilot with Quipu showed how DeFi-powered lending can bring affordable loans directly to microentrepreneurs—cutting out intermediaries, lowering costs, and shortening time-to-money for informal businesses. 

🇦🇷 In Argentina, our pilot with ANZI Finance is exploring how grain tokenization can help smallholder farmers access formal credit markets—transforming agricultural commodities into digital assets that serve as verifiable collateral. 

In Kenya, our pilot with Regini and Mr Green Africa is testing stablecoin savings for informal waste collectors, creating a secure and stable way to save in a volatile currency environment. And with BlockBIMA, we’re embedding insurance directly into MSME loans, offering climate-vulnerable entrepreneurs a safety net when extreme weather strikes. 

Each of these pilots underscores a simple truth: crypto isn’t just about speculation—it’s about resilience. By turning volatility into stability, opacity into transparency, and exclusion into access, crypto-enabled finance is helping people not just to survive—but to prepare, invest, and thrive. 

Mercy Corps Ventures partnered with Quipu and Anzi Finance to pilot a DeFi credit solution for Colombian microentrepreneurs. Quipu developed Nudo, a protocol that connects decentralized stablecoin capital to MSME borrowers, offering fixed yields backed by real-world lending. Risk was mitigated via an on-chain guarantee fund managed by Anzi Finance, automating issuance and claims through smart contracts. Capital allocation relied on Quipu’s AI-driven credit scoring, analyzing digital behavior, transactions, customer feedback, and demographics. Funds were disbursed in Colombian pesos via digital wallets like Nequi and Claro. 

DeFi-enabled capital expands access to affordable credit for MSMEs excluded from formal finance. 61% of approved borrowers had negative credit bureau histories, typically a barrier to traditional financing. Moreover, 58% of approved clients had multiple negative reports, 60% of which were tied to prior loans from formal financial institutions—underscoring the limitations of traditional models. By leveraging decentralized capital and alternative credit assessments, the pilot unlocked financing for a high-risk yet underserved segment. 

Affordable credit strengthens climate resilience among MSMEs. 86.4% of borrowers reported improved capacity to manage climate shocks. 79.6% saw significant income growth, and 65.2% reported an increase in customers, highlighting the link between financial access, business growth, and adaptive capacity. 

Uncollateralized DeFi lending to excluded borrowers carries a high risk profile and requires layered protections. While 72% repaid on time or within 7 days, 25% of the guarantee fund was triggered, showing that risk intensifies over the loan cycle. Structured safeguards, including guarantee funds and off-chain collateral, are essential to protect capital and ensure viability in informal markets. 

AI automation cut operating costs by 10% even as disbursements grew. Deploying AI for collections and loan processing streamlined the team from five to two, supported by an AI collections agent and WhatsApp assistant. This boosted credit applications by 15% and doubled daily client throughput. 

In Kenya, where over 80% of the workforce is informal, financial exclusion is a significant barrier to climate resilience. Working alongside Regini and Mr. Green Africa, we are testing a first-of-its-kind savings solution that operates over WhatsApp and USSD — removing barriers for low-income communities without access to smartphones or stable banking. 

Regini will offer a stablecoin-powered USD savings product, enabling users to save as little as $2.70 via WhatsApp or USSD, offering a low-cost alternative to traditional banks and money market funds. This represents an innovative financial safety net for the country’s informal waste collectors, helping them build buffers against climate shocks, inflation, and income volatility.

We’ll be back with insights once the pilot wraps up. 

Despite Argentina’s massive agricultural economy, over 170,000 smallholder farmers remain locked out of traditional credit systems due to high administrative costs and a lack of collateral mechanisms. While many farmers store grain in silo bags as a form of inflation-protected wealth, lenders are reluctant to accept grain as collateral because of the cost and complexity of managing, validating, and liquidating it. 

In partnership with Anzi Finance, Origino, PrimaryX and Grassi, we are launching a pilot that unlocks access to agri-input credit for smallholder farmers by tokenizing grain and providing blockchain-based credit guarantees. Farmers can use their stored grain in silo bags as collateral to access credit, while lenders benefit from seamless, on-chain credit guarantees 

This solution will reduce borrowing costs and increase credit access for underserved farmers in Argentina.

We’ll be back with insights once the pilot wraps up.

A few pieces of content that we liked (or made us think) lately. Hope you enjoy!  

1. Privacy is for everyone | Ethereum Foundation   

2. Lisk Launches $15M EMpower Fund | Tech Africa 

3. Agentic Payments Protocol + x402: Agents Can Now Pay Each Other | Coinbase 

4. Permissioned chains will fail | X (@malekanoms)

5. Balaji: What happens when Bitcoin wins | YouTube (Bitcoin Magazine)   

Scott 

GM, 

At Mercy Corps Ventures, we’ve spent the past 8+ years investing and co-designing real world web3 use cases through our Crypto For Good initiative. To date, we’ve invested in and partnered with 30 protocols and startups to reach over 7,000,000 users. This newsletter focuses on our insights, reflections and optimism about the future of crypto for the underserved in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and other emerging markets. 

Feel free to share this newsletter with anyone else who might enjoy some real-world crypto news. And as always, we’d love to hear from you — reach out and let us know what you’re up to. 

🔓 Unlocking Financial Resilience Where Banks Have Failed   

📲 Pilot Insights | Unlocking DeFi-powered Credit for Microentrepreneurs in Colombia  

♻️ Pilot Launch | Using stablecoins to build financial resilience for Kenyan informal waste collectors  

🌾Pilot Launch | Leveraging Grain Tokenization to Unlock Credit for Argentina’s Smallholder Farmers  

⭐ Stuff we enjoyed

Across emerging markets, millions of people live outside the reach of traditional finance. They are farmers without credit histories, informal workers without savings accounts, and small entrepreneurs without access to insurance or capital. Yet, across these same markets, a new financial architecture is emerging—one that runs on crypto rails. 

Emerging from our Crypto For Good Fund IV, we’ve been busy launching products alongside innovative entrepreneurs to test how decentralized technologies can unlock credit, savings, and insurance for those excluded by legacy systems. 

🇨🇴 In Colombia, our pilot with Quipu showed how DeFi-powered lending can bring affordable loans directly to microentrepreneurs—cutting out intermediaries, lowering costs, and shortening time-to-money for informal businesses. 

🇦🇷 In Argentina, our pilot with ANZI Finance is exploring how grain tokenization can help smallholder farmers access formal credit markets—transforming agricultural commodities into digital assets that serve as verifiable collateral. 

In Kenya, our pilot with Regini and Mr Green Africa is testing stablecoin savings for informal waste collectors, creating a secure and stable way to save in a volatile currency environment. And with BlockBIMA, we’re embedding insurance directly into MSME loans, offering climate-vulnerable entrepreneurs a safety net when extreme weather strikes. 

Each of these pilots underscores a simple truth: crypto isn’t just about speculation—it’s about resilience. By turning volatility into stability, opacity into transparency, and exclusion into access, crypto-enabled finance is helping people not just to survive—but to prepare, invest, and thrive. 

Mercy Corps Ventures partnered with Quipu and Anzi Finance to pilot a DeFi credit solution for Colombian microentrepreneurs. Quipu developed Nudo, a protocol that connects decentralized stablecoin capital to MSME borrowers, offering fixed yields backed by real-world lending. Risk was mitigated via an on-chain guarantee fund managed by Anzi Finance, automating issuance and claims through smart contracts. Capital allocation relied on Quipu’s AI-driven credit scoring, analyzing digital behavior, transactions, customer feedback, and demographics. Funds were disbursed in Colombian pesos via digital wallets like Nequi and Claro. 

DeFi-enabled capital expands access to affordable credit for MSMEs excluded from formal finance. 61% of approved borrowers had negative credit bureau histories, typically a barrier to traditional financing. Moreover, 58% of approved clients had multiple negative reports, 60% of which were tied to prior loans from formal financial institutions—underscoring the limitations of traditional models. By leveraging decentralized capital and alternative credit assessments, the pilot unlocked financing for a high-risk yet underserved segment. 

Affordable credit strengthens climate resilience among MSMEs. 86.4% of borrowers reported improved capacity to manage climate shocks. 79.6% saw significant income growth, and 65.2% reported an increase in customers, highlighting the link between financial access, business growth, and adaptive capacity. 

Uncollateralized DeFi lending to excluded borrowers carries a high risk profile and requires layered protections. While 72% repaid on time or within 7 days, 25% of the guarantee fund was triggered, showing that risk intensifies over the loan cycle. Structured safeguards, including guarantee funds and off-chain collateral, are essential to protect capital and ensure viability in informal markets. 

AI automation cut operating costs by 10% even as disbursements grew. Deploying AI for collections and loan processing streamlined the team from five to two, supported by an AI collections agent and WhatsApp assistant. This boosted credit applications by 15% and doubled daily client throughput. 

In Kenya, where over 80% of the workforce is informal, financial exclusion is a significant barrier to climate resilience. Working alongside Regini and Mr. Green Africa, we are testing a first-of-its-kind savings solution that operates over WhatsApp and USSD — removing barriers for low-income communities without access to smartphones or stable banking. 

Regini will offer a stablecoin-powered USD savings product, enabling users to save as little as $2.70 via WhatsApp or USSD, offering a low-cost alternative to traditional banks and money market funds. This represents an innovative financial safety net for the country’s informal waste collectors, helping them build buffers against climate shocks, inflation, and income volatility.

We’ll be back with insights once the pilot wraps up. 

Despite Argentina’s massive agricultural economy, over 170,000 smallholder farmers remain locked out of traditional credit systems due to high administrative costs and a lack of collateral mechanisms. While many farmers store grain in silo bags as a form of inflation-protected wealth, lenders are reluctant to accept grain as collateral because of the cost and complexity of managing, validating, and liquidating it. 

In partnership with Anzi Finance, Origino, PrimaryX and Grassi, we are launching a pilot that unlocks access to agri-input credit for smallholder farmers by tokenizing grain and providing blockchain-based credit guarantees. Farmers can use their stored grain in silo bags as collateral to access credit, while lenders benefit from seamless, on-chain credit guarantees 

This solution will reduce borrowing costs and increase credit access for underserved farmers in Argentina.

We’ll be back with insights once the pilot wraps up.

A few pieces of content that we liked (or made us think) lately. Hope you enjoy!  

1. Privacy is for everyone | Ethereum Foundation   

2. Lisk Launches $15M EMpower Fund | Tech Africa 

3. Agentic Payments Protocol + x402: Agents Can Now Pay Each Other | Coinbase 

4. Permissioned chains will fail | X (@malekanoms)

5. Balaji: What happens when Bitcoin wins | YouTube (Bitcoin Magazine)   

Scott