The International Blockchain Monetary Reserve (IBMR) and the blockchain company Algorand have signed a partnership aimed at reducing poverty and promoting financial inclusion in Southeast Asia; the news was spread by a press release shared by Cointelegraph yesterday, the idea is to introduce a new token that will be called Asia Reserve Currency Coin (ARCC) through which to carry out a whole series of initiatives. ARCC has been designed to allow the provision of interest-free credit to poor workers in the economically depressed areas of south-east Asia, offering the possibility of accessing banking services to a pool of over 300 million people who are excluded today, allowing them to apply for interest-free loans to start new businesses (such as some sort of micro-credit) and earn ARCC for certain services. Therefore, it is not a question of distributing money haphazardly but of reducing poverty through financial inclusion and encouraging the emergence of new business projects; one of the most interesting aspects of the project concerns the fight against corruption, in fact it will be possible to earn ARCC by anonymously reporting cases of corruption, which on the one hand arouses some perplexity, since it introduces a form of delation, but on the other hand allows people in conditions of poverty to gain something through active citizenship and encourage the construction of a civic conscience that, clearly, in regions where corruption is highest, is practically absent.
Interesting also aspects related to governance, as can be read in the original press release, in fact, there will be a maximum fixed supply of tokens decided on the basis of an annual issuance program with a horizon, in terms of monetary policy, of 50 years; ARCC will be managed by the 88-member Monetary Policy Council. Another aspect that makes us proud is the presence of Algorand in the project which, as we explained a few days ago, is a platform created by an Italian, Silvio Micali, who is commonly considered one of the leading global cryptography experts; we must therefore be proud that behind such a project, which aims to reduce poverty through financial inclusion, there is an Italian brain. This, however, also represents a cause for regret since the blockchain industry is literally full of Italians or people who have clear Italian origins, yet our country is dramatically lagging behind with regards to opening towards blockchain technology and does not seem willing to invest seriously in this sector despite the wide margins of growth, also in terms of employment, demonstrated by this industry and the crisis of ideas before economic, which is gripping our country.
