I just 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 an important position in fulfilling the promise of bitcoin as a medium of alternate.
Youssef and the worldwide crew at NoOnes are on a mission to finish monetary apartheid and to unite the financially disenfranchised world wide. Within the course of, they’re taking up the outdated monetary guard, pushed by the assumption that when folks can commerce freely with each other utilizing bitcoin, the oppressive powers that be will lose their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, calmly 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 need 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 must be deeply engaged for this to be victorious. Which means a billion every day engaged folks. It is an incredible 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 occasions that.
Corva: How many individuals are at present utilizing it?
Youssef: We’ve about 400,000 energetic customers, which is fairly wonderful. My outdated firm had like 1 / 4 million energetic [users]. The aim right here is not only to get empty signups. The aim right here is to make folks energetic.
Corva: You’ve talked about how apps like NoOnes and Bitcoin may help finish “monetary apartheid.” Might you outline this time period?
Youssef: Monetary apartheid is essentially the most evil type of apartheid. It is invisible chains which have principally saved the overwhelming majority of the world poor for over 100 years, and folks aren’t even conscious [of it]. It manifests in so many various 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 nations, 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 possibly can’t entry liquidity in different nations, 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 firms 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 present 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 joyful to have their suggestions imported over. It is crucial. Repute is big on this enterprise, particularly should you’re an OTC dealer. [So,] we made a particular touchdown web page for all of the peer-to-peer refugees.
They’re very joyful to come back over and be capable to discuss to the CEO straight 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 laborious? 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.
Keep 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 at all times has been. They’ve had Ross in jail for over 11 years. He simply put up an internet site like Amazon or eBay the place anybody may 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. This can be a candy, harmless child. They usually put him in jail for 2 life sentences.
Corva: And Sam Bankman-Fried solely bought 25 years.
Youssef: The one purpose Sam Bankman-Fried bought any time in any respect was as a result of some wealthy folks misplaced some cash. That is the one purpose that Madoff bought 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 may. They wished to ship a message: “Hey, should you attempt to make international free marketplaces — actual commerce — occur, we’ll destroy you. You don’t contact that.”
And guess what? They’ve finished that to bitcoin, [too]. They mentioned, “Hey, we’ll let bitcoin exist as a retailer of worth. If you happen to get in good with us, we’re going to offer 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 surrender this entire medium of alternate [thing].”
We gave up actually the very best factor on the planet, a free system of actual commerce for a retailer of worth for simply one other get wealthy fast pump and dump. It’s really starting to daybreak on all of us: Oh, my goodness. Roger Ver was proper.
Corva: I used to be really simply watching an interview with him on The Bitcoin Takeover. He made some attention-grabbing factors which can be in keeping 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 true. We’ve misplaced the ethos. We’ve misplaced the foundational base for what we’re doing. And may they really handle to maintain bitcoin out of the image as this medium of alternate and simply preserve 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 largely to USDT on Tron. The one nation nonetheless [using] bitcoin primarily for a medium alternate is Nigeria. However the reality is, USDT on Tron is method cheaper. It would not have volatility. It makes much more sense. So, how are we going to compete with that?
Corva: That’s an excellent query. Going again to Nigeria for a second. NoOnes has crew 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 take care of the truth that they may simply be focused?
Youssef: Primary, I’d attempt to get them in another country. And if we will not try this, then I’d ask them to maintain as low of a profile as doable. We additionally preserve one thing within the financial institution to signify 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 cannot 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 speak about this on Bloomberg or CNN Africa, I say, “The governments aren’t the issue. There may be exterior stress being utilized to them that we’re not conscious of.” And that is at all times the case in each considered one of these conditions, whether or not it is Zimbabwe or Venezuela.
I invite the federal government to speak anytime. Peer-to-peer will not be an issue however the resolution to really correcting Nigeria’s capital management imbalance. If you happen to 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 don’t seem to be going to lose cash doing it. They need 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 just a little bit much less revenue, they’re going to take that. Consider me, these individuals are not silly. They know what’s good for the nation is nice for them, and that ought to be leveraged.
Corva: Talking of individuals not being silly, the crew at NoOnes focuses closely on training. How difficult is educating folks on the bottom?
Youssef: I posted a video on my Twitter of considered one of our workshops. There have been over a thousand folks there. That is how a lot starvation there may be for this.
Critically, Schooling 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 training. What I imply by bullish training will not be the one, two, threes, and even how the blockchain works. Nobody actually cares. It is the way to become profitable. Individuals need to change their lives.
You possibly can transfer cash world wide to leverage arbitrage. You can begin actual easy and put up a suggestion to purchase bitcoin low-cost on NoOnes after which take it and promote it on one other alternate, a neighborhood 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 per week doing these trades.
There’s one other dude in South Africa, and he recognized an issue. Nigerian staff need to ship a reimbursement residence 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 joyful they did not must do it themselves. They simply 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. Once I take into consideration NoOnes, I take into consideration folks world wide having access to bitcoin, not essentially turning 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 bought all these cell units and all these startups that disrupted the whole lot besides finance. Then, we bought 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 really 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 should 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.
