The power of banking and investing in this world is unmistakeable - unmissable - there are super powers to numbers that when applied the right way, with the right analysis and the right leverage, can lead to a better future; you might call this "sustainable development".
Money is a tool and, like all others, the results depend on how you use the tool, how you put it to work.
Recently I used @ecobanker to team up with @thedistriator project to do something pretty creative, and clever, with money - specifically HBD. And today I would like to explain why I did, what I think it means for the future of HBD (and Hive), and what I am watching for in the process.
Read the official announcement here.
How sustainable development is related to money
When we first created the Ecobank, which is Ecobank Development Colombia SAS, a lot of people asked me about the word "bank" in there. Why "bank"? Would I give a loan?
I mostly hedged, saying it was a "banco de proyectos", which - it is. At least in my mind, this is how banks "should" work, to have a portfolio of productive projects that they invest in.
When I met @starkerz in Talent Land Guadalajara, we talked about all sorts of things related to HIVE, economics and development. One of the things he mentioned was this idea to pool capital and create the first HBD loan, specifically to @fokusnow who has a profitable and growing "Happy Customer Supermarket" that is built, in a very real sense, "on HIVE".
How could I say no to that?
As if a bank...
So @ecobanker took 200 HBD of "customer deposits", and capitalized THE FIRST, #spendHBD business loan. I am proud to be a part of that. And I hope to continue to be a part of things like this - that continue to get built on and around HIVE - and I hope to continue to see more "reputational lending" in this vein.
I believe this sort of "real world" connection is essential for HIVE, its at the core of ECOBANK at least - a real company, with hard asset exposure from the "legacy" system. Let's not kid ourselves, LAND and GROCERIES, for example, are not "legacy" - they are still an essential part of everyday life for everyone on the planet. Crypto won't take away from that - in fact these technologies need to be ADDING VALUE to exactly that real part of our lives - what we eat, where we live, how we relate to our communities.
Banks are (could be?), or at least are supposed to be, valuable members of the community, identifying productive investment needs and deploying capital to the benefit of all involved. I want to thank both @fokusnow for having such a business that deserves investment, and to @starkerz and his team at @distriator like @sagarkothari88 for all the great work they have done building a community, and a community of tools, for people to connect with.
I don't know what is next - keep an eye on @fokusnow to find out!
