Airdrop in developing nations

Question

It strikes me as ironic that the majority of cryptocurrency activity is focused in developed nations, wherein financial structures (as corrupt as they may be according to some) are fairly developed and properly regulated. From the outset, cryptocurrency has been best suited to developing nations, wherein access to cash is limited, and the poor are swamped with bad money (e.g. Zimbabwean dollars) during periods of economic difficulty.

So, for the last few weeks, I've been trying to understand how a decentralised airdrop would work in such an environment. For example:

1) if we wanted to airdrop 1,000,000 alt-coins across Africa or South America, in a decentralised manner, how would we go about doing it?

2) and from then onwards, given the fact that blockchain is dependent on a continuous internet connection, how would we maintain the blockchain in such in an environment with a delay tolerant network

Too much thought goes into building out services for people like you and I who don't really need it, because of the promise of profit, as opposed to helping those who are less fortunate... these are much harder problems to solve I guess, but would make the world a better place.

Answer 1

I have two answers:

quick answer on how to airdrop 1,000,000 alt-coins: put it onto accounts in exchanges or cold wallets or whatsoever, and wait for the costly infrastructure to establish, so coins can be used. If it shall be decentralized, wait even a bit longer, cause it seems highly unlikely, that these countries themselves are willing to provide the required infrastructure.

longer answer might be: to airdrop 1mio alt-coins to Africa or South-America, one would have to distribute the coins to people who register themselves to be a citizen of the corresponding country. Or how can one control correct distribution? As Bitcoin and many alt-coins have a problem with registration, this is the first hurdle, and seems to make the question redundant. Secondly the benefits of this 1mio alt coins only come into play, if people can use it. To use it, you need the infrastructure, which is mostly inexistant today. Whereas many people have telephones in these countries, the infrastructure seems to be too expensive to support the massive potential user base. And as many people in these countries don’t want to pay taxes or even transaction fees for the required infrastructure, it might most certainly not happen. Disclaimer: I am in West-Africa, and have derived my conclusion from local observations … So it is also highly questionable, if this is a general statement for all mentioned countries :-)

I come to see, that Bitcoin and crypto is a technology, which in a first step can provide financial freedom (yes, if you are wealthy enough). It was not designed to save countries, which are deeply broken/corrupt in their minds. Crypto technology can not help to reduce limitations or incompetences of men or women - in any country. Only people within the country have the power to save a nation, not technologies (on the other hand, men with technologies like guns and bombs can easily destroy a country). Crypto is not a technology to give money to the poor, or even to save the poor world from its poverty. At least I don't find such a statement in the original docs. However I find links to the 2007/2008 problems of the first world's financial system, why it came to birth.

In general this question has a bigger potential to run into a discussion, which cannot be discussed here in stack exchange. It might be better raised on bitcointalk.org - just my two comments ...

Oh, and the last sentence:

Too much thought goes into building out services for people like you and I who don't really need it...

this sounds like an accusation. The people which are referenced by you change or create "their" world, how they would like it to be. If they need it or not - they have mostly the liberty to decide themselves, and if they develop something, then they usually do it for a profit. And I haven't seen, that someone in poorer countries is willing/able to pay for their labour/work... But from time to time they spend their money to poor countries in a form of investment aid, or even free code, so that people in poor countries can develop something on their own, that would help the poor countries. So as such I would like to turn this around and say: use this invitation of free code, develop something which fits the needs of poorer countries, cause people in the first world don't see, what is required in Africa and South-America. It is up to the people in the mentioned countries, to drive the necessary change! I would like to close with a famous sentence from Immanuel Kant on (im-)maturity:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.