How to reach beyond financial inclusion

The COVID-19 pandemic has erased more than four years of progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While philanthropy is seen as an important contributor to getting the international development agenda back on track, it suffers from a lack of transparency – a drawback that can be addressed with technology.

Introduced in 2015 by the United Nations, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals range from poverty alleviation to clean water and sanitation with a goal of transforming the planet for the better by 2030. Social contribution is a crucial factor in using the planet’s wealth to improve the quality of life in the least developed countries. However, the legacy systems used by charities call for more transparency, efficiency and accountability – with the latter also highlighted by the UN as a significant challenge facing the SDGs.

Blockchain for a better world

Blockchain technology stands as a solution to the need for a traceable and immutable infrastructure for philanthropy, but the traditional proof-of-work (PoW) consensus used by the Bitcoin blockchain often comes under fire for its energy consumption. The Fruits Eco-Blockchain, a project that aims to create an eco-friendly and sustainable economy open to all, instead uses a proof-of-capacity (PoC) algorithm to solve blockchain’s problem of high gas taxes and energy consumption.

Source: IntechOpen

The FRUITS PoC algorithm provides extremely low energy consumption, high security, high speed transactions, high versatility and no transaction costs. It uses a random draw method for mining, eliminating unnecessary time and power consumption. The multi-layered smart contracts found in the Fruits blockchain are designed for a variety of uses, helping with various philanthropic goals. Combined with blockchain’s inherent ability for financial traceability and transparency, it becomes the ideal infrastructure for global charity efforts.

Encouraging charity with blockchain

When a user spends Fruits coins (FRTS), the native token of the Fruits Eco-Blockchain, the transaction generates a Smile Coin as a token of appreciation. Smile Coins, also known as the “donation coin” of the platform, can be used on their charity website (Fruits SDGs Station) to help accelerate the listed SDGs, ranging from providing clean water and sanitation to children in Mali, West Africa, to provide quality education to children in Afghanistan.

How proof-of-capacity mining works. Source: Fruits Eco-Blockchain Project Whitepaper

The team established regional bases called Fruits SDGs Stations in underdeveloped countries in accordance with each region’s climate, culture and characteristics to provide direct assistance to people in need. To encourage charity, users are automatically awarded Thanks Fruits Seed Tokens (TFSTs) after their Smile Coin donation to a Fruits SDGs Station. Each TFST will have different meanings. As an example, a TFST can act as a lottery token, giving the contributor back more FRTS than before. Users will also earn Smile Coins when they make a transaction on the NFT Marketplace, and get a second chance to donate and receive Seed Tokens.

To encourage financial inclusion and support charities, the Fruits Eco-Blockchain Project plans to launch its digital money transfer network, the FRUITS Social Finance Platform, with a financial transaction-focused crypto exchange and charity crowdfunding platform. The team also aims to issue gold-backed stablecoins, bullion NFTs and build out their NFT marketplace.

Source: Fruits Eco-Blockchain

Blockchain has the potential to act as the gateway to a better society. Its immutability, transparency and scalability enable a wide range of use cases beyond financial inclusion. Tailoring the basic functions of blockchain for specific scenarios, such as using a PoC algorithm for an eco-friendly infrastructure, will help make it the ideal solution for solving major challenges that currently hinder the completion of the international sustainability agenda.