I lately spoke with Ray Youssef, CEO of NoOnes, a peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin buying and selling platform with quite a few different functionalities, about how NoOnes is empowering its customers, what it is doing in response to the Nigerian authorities’s crackdown on Binance P2P and why P2P marketplaces play a vital function in fulfilling the promise of bitcoin as a medium of alternate.
Youssef and the worldwide staff at NoOnes are on a mission to finish monetary apartheid and to unite the financially disenfranchised around the globe. Within the course of, they’re taking over the previous monetary guard, pushed by the idea that when folks can commerce freely with each other utilizing bitcoin, the oppressive powers that be will lose their leverage over these dwelling in creating economies.
A transcript of our dialog, evenly edited for size and readability, follows beneath.
Frank Corva: What’s the main mission of NoOnes?
Ray Youssef: It is the world’s first peer-to-peer distributed nation. I see myself as a chief advocate, not simply CEO — somebody that’s representing the folks. We wish to onboard a billion residents within the subsequent six years.
By residents, I imply engaged clients. They don’t seem to be simply utilizing it as soon as each two weeks. They need to be deeply engaged for this to be victorious. Meaning a billion day by day engaged folks. It is a tremendous quantity when you think about Binance has 120 million customers and about 2-3% of them are in all probability month-to-month energetic. We’re making an attempt to get 100 instances that.
Corva: How many individuals are at the moment utilizing it?
Youssef: We now have about 400,000 energetic customers, which is fairly superb. My previous firm had like 1 / 4 million energetic [users]. The aim right here isn’t just to get empty signups. The aim right here is to make folks energetic.
Corva: You’ve talked about how apps like NoOnes and Bitcoin will help finish “monetary apartheid.” May you outline this time period?
Youssef: Monetary apartheid is essentially the most evil type of apartheid. It is invisible chains which have principally stored the overwhelming majority of the world poor for over 100 years, and other people aren’t even conscious [of it]. It manifests in so many alternative methods.
Damaged overregulation [is one form of it]. Africa is essentially the most overregulated area of the world. M-Pesa is the highest cell pockets in Kenya. 98.8% of Kenyans have an M-Pesa pockets. M-Pesa is so massive it’s expanded past Kenya to Ghana, South African and different African international locations, however you continue to cannot ship cash from an M-Pesa pockets in Kenya to an M-Pesa pockets in Ghana or South Africa.
You might be trapped within the financial system the place your passport was issued. You’ll be able to’t entry liquidity in different international locations, and so they cannot entry liquidity in your nation.
The issue will get even worse when you think about commerce between corporations. Pan-European commerce is at 69%. In Asia, I feel it’s 59%. Latin America drops all the way down to 30%. And Africa, formally it is at 13%.
However guess what? The true quantity is lower than 1%. As a result of in that 13%, they rely all these American and Western companies that simply have native names. Intracontinental African commerce is at lower than 1%. If that does not scream monetary apartheid, what does?
Corva: Talking of Africa, let’s talk about what’s taking place in Nigeria. The federal government took two Binance executives hostage. In response, Binance has stopped supporting the Naira and has shut down its P2P buying and selling platform in Nigeria. NoOnes is at the moment enabling Binance P2P merchants to switch their P2P buying and selling profiles from Binance to NoOnes. How is that this going?
Youssef: Merchants are very completely satisfied to have their suggestions imported over. It is essential. Fame is big on this enterprise, particularly in the event you’re an OTC dealer. [So,] we made a particular touchdown web page for all of the peer-to-peer refugees.
They’re very completely satisfied to come back over and be capable to discuss to the CEO immediately in a Telegram and WhatsApp channel. That goes a great distance.
Binance is being torn aside by the US authorities proper now. Why did they go for this man (Changpeng Zhao (CZ), Binance’s former CEO) so onerous? Had been they offended he was front-running his personal customers? No. They did not care about that in any respect.
What they actually cared about is that CZ and Binance allowed all of us plebs — all of us peasants on the market — to have monetary entry by peer-to-peer buying and selling. The truth that there’s 120 million folks on the identical inside cash transmission community and that CZ has all these off ramps to native cash all around the world set them off.
Bear in mind the man they got here after earlier than CZ? Ross.
Corva: Ross Ulbricht?
Youssef: Sure, sir. Peer-to-peer is the enemy, and it all the time has been. They’ve had Ross in jail for over 11 years. He simply put up a web site like Amazon or eBay the place anybody might commerce anybody with something.
[Sure,] some folks offered some weed on there. For that, they made up this story about [his involvement in a murder conspiracy]. That is all rubbish. It is a candy, harmless child. And so they put him in jail for 2 life sentences.
Corva: And Sam Bankman-Fried solely received 25 years.
Youssef: The one cause Sam Bankman-Fried received any time in any respect was as a result of some wealthy folks misplaced some cash. That is the one cause that Madoff received any time in any respect. too. If he was robbing poor folks, nobody would give a rattling. However Ross Ulbricht, man, they hit him with the whole lot as a result of they might. They wished to ship a message: “Hey, in the event you attempt to make world free marketplaces — actual commerce — occur, we will destroy you. You don’t contact that.”
And guess what? They’ve completed that to bitcoin, [too]. They mentioned, “Hey, we’ll let bitcoin exist as a retailer of worth. For those who get in good with us, we’re going to present you an ETF ticker. We’re going to get our pension funds in there. We’re going to let the worth go up excessive. You’ll be just a bit bit higher off than everybody else. However you gotta quit this entire medium of alternate [thing].”
We gave up actually the most effective factor on this planet, a free system of actual commerce for a retailer of worth for simply one other get wealthy fast pump and dump. It’s truly starting to daybreak on all of us: Oh, my goodness. Roger Ver was proper.
Corva: I used to be truly simply watching an interview with him on The Bitcoin Takeover. He made some fascinating factors which can be in step with what you’re saying.
Youssef: I imply, yeah, I used to be pissing throughout Roger with all the opposite clowns earlier than, too, however the dude is correct. We now have misplaced the ethos. We now have misplaced the foundational base for what we’re doing. And will they really handle to maintain bitcoin out of the image as this medium of alternate and simply maintain it as a retailer of worth, ultimately we’ll lose the whole lot.
If it wasn’t for what’s taking place within the World South, it is empty. And fairly frankly, the World South has moved over principally to USDT on Tron. The one nation nonetheless [using] bitcoin primarily for a medium alternate is Nigeria. However the fact is, USDT on Tron is method cheaper. It does not have volatility. It makes much more sense. So, how are we going to compete with that?
Corva: That’s a great query. Going again to Nigeria for a second. NoOnes has staff members on the bottom who’re selling the platform within the wake of Binance P2P shutting down. Do you ever fear about their security? How do you cope with the truth that they might simply be focused?
Youssef: Primary, I’d attempt to get them overseas. And if we won’t try this, then I’d ask them to maintain as low of a profile as attainable. We additionally maintain one thing within the financial institution to symbolize them legally. I do not need anybody to go to jail for something I do. I am not going to play with different folks’s freedom or security.
However all through this entire course of, everybody’s been pooping all around the Nigerian authorities. They’re like, “These individuals are dumb,” and that is not useful. There are some very sensible folks within the Nigerian authorities that know precisely what is going on on, however they can not inform their very own folks precisely what is going on on as a result of their very own folks would not be capable to deal with it or assist them.
Each time I discuss this on Bloomberg or CNN Africa, I say, “The governments should not the issue. There may be exterior strain being utilized to them that we’re not conscious of.” And that is all the time the case in each one in every of these conditions, whether or not it is Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
I invite the federal government to speak anytime. Peer-to-peer is just not an issue however the answer to truly correcting Nigeria’s capital management imbalance. For those who go to peer-to-peer merchants and say, “We’d like you to assist us get extra American {dollars} into the federal government right here to stabilize the worth of the Naira, they’re like, ‘Okay, [let’s] do it for Nigeria.’”
[However,] they are not going to lose cash doing it. They wish to make some cash doing it. But when they’ve the selection between doing the best factor to assist everybody throughout a long-term timeline and making slightly bit much less revenue, they will take that. Consider me, these individuals are not silly. They know what’s good for the nation is nice for them, and that needs to be leveraged.
Corva: Talking of individuals not being silly, the staff at NoOnes focuses closely on schooling. How difficult is educating folks on the bottom?
Youssef: I posted a video on my Twitter of one in every of our workshops. There have been over a thousand folks there. That is how a lot starvation there’s for this.
Severely, Training is THE method and #noOnes is totally blowing up now !#Bitcoin to the primary billion, self custody and p2p. pic.twitter.com/lEGaNlXGSE
— Ray Youssef (@raycivkit) March 27, 2024
Everybody wants bullish schooling. What I imply by bullish schooling is just not the one, two, threes, and even how the blockchain works. Nobody actually cares. It is find out how to earn cash. Individuals wish to change their lives.
You’ll be able to transfer cash around the globe to leverage arbitrage. You can begin actual easy and put up a proposal to purchase bitcoin low-cost on NoOnes after which take it and promote it on one other alternate, an area alternate, whether or not you are in South Africa or Malawi or wherever at 10% plus. That is what some individuals are doing.
One man I simply talked to final week was making $2,000 a month — simply shopping for bitcoin cheaply and promoting it for 9-10% of what he purchased it for. He [told me], “That is how I’m paying my method by faculty.” He spends simply 5 hours every week doing these trades.
There’s one other dude in South Africa, and he recognized an issue. Nigerian employees wish to ship a reimbursement dwelling to mama. They cannot do it as a result of they do not have a South African checking account. So he tells them, “Deposit your money into my South African checking account.” He simply takes that money, buys bitcoin with it, sells that Bitcoin to somebody in Nigeria on the NoOnes market and says, “Ship a financial institution switch to this man’s mom’s checking account.”
He did two peer-to-peer transactions and turned [South African] Rand right into a Nigerian financial institution switch, and the folks on the bottom are tremendous completely satisfied they did not need to do it themselves. They only put cash within the financial institution, gave him his mother’s checking account quantity. He did all of the work. He is banking and making revenue. He began his personal remittance hall. He is principally Western Union for the very particular hall of South Africa to Nigeria.
Corva: These are unbelievable tales. After I take into consideration NoOnes, I take into consideration folks around the globe getting access to bitcoin, not essentially changing into entrepreneurs utilizing the platform. It’s nice to listen to that P2P bitcoin buying and selling permits this.
Youssef: Completely. We’re within the center proper now of the peer-to-peer revolution. It began with the web. We received all these cell gadgets and all these startups that disrupted the whole lot besides finance. Then, we received peer-to-peer digital money. Now, we’re combating for the soul of it as a [medium] of alternate.
Peer-to-peer marketplaces are the final step. That is what they put Ross Ulbricht in jail for. That is what they put CZ in cuffs for. They do not need somebody truly ending it, finishing the peer-to-peer revolution.
We will the mother and pops, the farmers markets, but when the cash is not peer-to-peer, none of it is going to stick. As soon as we’ve gone peer-to-peer, what energy have they got?
Humanity is formally one as soon as we tie that ribbon across the peer-to-peer revolution.
