MCV x Polygon: An initiative to serve low-income groups

A section of the population has been unbanked by several ventures, but that is about to change, courtesy of the partnership between Polygon Labs and Mercy Corps Ventures. Both have announced the leverage of innovative blockchain solutions to empower those who are categorized under low-income and underserved sections of the population.

The markets are emerging with a higher need to have better financial inclusion. Technology is indeed assisting ventures and governments in reaching out to as many people as possible. Having everyone in the financial ecosystem will have a larger impact on the economy, taking countries forward.

Polygon Labs’ partnership with Mercy Corps Ventures is based on three major pillars, namely funding blockchain pilots, blockchain hackathons, and blockchain bootcamp roadshow.

All of them more or less focus on spreading education and awareness about blockchain technology to billions of people. Blockchain Hackathons, for instance, will be held in a series to help solve local challenges through increased education and awareness. They will be dedicated to developers who want to serve emerging markets.

Similarly, the blockchain bootcamp roadshow will educate and share information with NGOs, organizations, and institutions about how they can improve their operations via blockchain solutions. Blockchain bootcamp roadshows will be held in the markets where Mercy has a presence.

Funding blockchain pilots bring a difference in the fact that it looks to enable access to the said section of the population to the financial system. What makes the partnership a strong contender here is the ability to customize blockchain solutions to serve a billion people together.

This is not the first time that Mercy has stepped up to do something with blockchain solutions. It earlier launched Crypto for Good Fund II with the objective of driving the inclusion to the global financial system with a series of pilots and building scalability. The initiative had received 200 applications from 50+ countries since 2022, the year when it was launched. The second phase is estimated to receive more applications till the closing window – March 31, 2023.

Overall, Mercy has so far supported 41 early-stage startups with more than $333.9 million in funds, with all of them directed to serve the benefit of underserved groups of society. Ventures in the portfolio of Mercy are building resilience solutions in fintech, agriculture-food systems, and climate-smart systems. Nearly 51% of the supported early-stage ventures by Mercy are led by women. Blockchain solutions by Mercy leverage Web3 to serve the communities.

Ventures have so far been unable to bank the underserved population, but the partnership between Mercy and Polygon Labs is all set to change that.

Polygon is already a house to thousands of decentralized applications, including Quickswap, Aave, and Uniswap. Companies like Robinhood and Adobe trust Polygon network to enter the Web3 sphere.

Polygon Labs and Mercy have just announced their partnership. The actual outcome remains to be seen, which would probably be for something good.