This story is part of BREAKER’s Social Good Week, a series looking at ways blockchain technology can engineer progress and help humanity.



As with any lofty idea that touts “blockchain” or accepts crypto, people likely will (and should) take promises of “blockchain for social good” with a grain of salt. “Blockchain” connotes hype-riding publicity plays. Crypto-acceptance screams “scammer.” Yet many seemingly genuine organizations claim blockchain technology as an integral part of their missions to save the world—from environmental perils, from poverty, and from its biggest threat of all, humanity.

At BREAKERMAG, we waded through numerous nonprofits, for profits, startups, and established institutions to look for organizations that are using blockchain technology with deeply positive intentions. Among the many futuristic promo videos and do-gooder buzzwords, we found startups with smart, practical plans of action that happen to include distributed ledgers and state-independent currencies—not because those terms make bitcoin billionaire investors wiggle their ears, but because the technologies bolster the organizations’ goals. (Besides, crypto winter weeded out many of the purely ear-perking projects, anyway.)

The organizations we looked at are in varying stages of development. According to an April 2018 Stanford Graduate School of Business report that looked at 193 organizations using blockchain for social impact, 74 percent are still in “pilot” mode. The fact that so many of these projects are at such early stages of development made it very difficult to come up with uniform criteria to judge which ones would make our list, so we kept it simple. Each organization had to have exhibited credibility in at least one of three categories—concrete action (have they done anything?), money (have they gotten or given any?), and/or big names (do we know and trust the people involved?).

It’s a low bar, sure, but remember that the organizations on our list are very young, as is blockchain technology in general. The bitcoin whitepaper was only released in 2008, and the technology described in it only really caught on with the 2017 crypto boom. That said, 55 percent of the organizations included in the Stanford study were expected to reach beneficiaries “early this year.” Several of them have.

We split the following organizations into eight categories: funding and donations, environment, food and agriculture, gender and sexuality, government, healthcare and medicine, identity and banking, and information and education. It’s possible that we missed some organizations doing great work in any of the above. Really, not all of blockchain is Lambos, $100,000 watches, and creepy cruises—there are a lot of people out there harnessing the power of distributed ledgers for good, and more are learning about the technology every day.

Funding and donations

The problem: Many people question whether donations are making it to their intended beneficiaries.

The blockchain solution: Transparency

The organizations: They range from homemade tip bots to one of the U.S.’s biggest banking establishments; some allow donors to send payments directly to the nonprofits of their choice, others focus on providing transparent funding mechanisms for larger organizations.

Atix Labs

Founded: 2011

Mission: Helping small social good enterprises gain access to (transparent) funding

Cred: UNICEF’s Innovation Fund invested time and money in this Singapore/Argentina-based company. (Read our story about the Atix Labs and five startups participating in the UNICEF Innovation Fund’s blockchain workshop in New York last week.)

Binance Charity Foundation

Launched: 2018

Mission: Bringing accountability to charitable donations

Cred: Its platform features only a small handful of charity projects, but one funded 20 beneficiaries affected by a landslide in Uganda’s Bududa District.

BitGive Foundation

Founded: 2013

Mission: Letting donors follow their bitcoin donations step-by-step

Cred: Its early partners included nonprofits like Save the Children and the Water Project, and the organization has worked with others across the globe since. (Read our interview with BitGive’s founder here.)

Blockchain4Humanity

Founded: 2017

Mission: Acting as an accelerator for blockchain projects that aim to affect social change

Cred: The organization has given out two rounds of awards in which they’ve helped facilitate funding for 41 blockchain social good platforms, including BitGive.

Disberse

Founded: 2016

Mission: Making it more efficient to send and receive funds between donors and aid organizations around the world

Cred: Disberse has enacted pilot programs in Albania, Rwanda, and Ukraine and counts partners such as Oxfam, The Netherlands Red Cross, and Start Network.

Dogecoin Tip Bot

Created: Very signature, much design

Mission: Such tips

Cred: This may sound like a joke, but using this tipbot, the Dogecoin community was able to hand out 156 pairs of socks to homeless people in Los Angeles this past November.

Fidelity Charitable

Started accepting cryptocurrency: 2015

Mission: Letting people make charitable donations using bitcoin

Cred: Fidelity is one of the world’s largest asset managers, managing more than $2,459 billion worth of assets as of March 2018.

GiftCoin

ICO started: March 2018

Mission: Letting charitable donors track how and when their money is spent

Cred: GiftCoin is running two pilot programs, one with established charity payment processor Network For Good, another with an forthcoming platform called Charity Checkout. It’s been tested out by small charities like Ourmala, which offers yoga classes to refugees.

Giveth

Founded: 2016

Mission: Removing intermediaries from charitable giving

Cred: The Giveth decentralized app is currently live in beta and is running six campaigns, which have cumulatively received more than 644 ETH (more than $67,100 at time of writing).

Pineapple Fund

Founded: 2017 (though it’s now defunct)

Mission: Using bitcoin to fund multiple charitable organizations

Cred: When live, the Pineapple Fund raised $55,750,000 across 60 charities listed on the project’s website. Charities spanned all sectors, including environmental conservation, The Internet Archive, the ACLU, and drug information website Erowid.

Ripple for Good

Founded: 2018

Mission: Supporting organizations that increase global financial inclusion

Cred: It’s backed by Ripple, which has ample financial resources and a robust team, and is partnered with DonorsChoose.org, an initiative that helps public schools. (Read our story about how Ripple’s charitable giving is also a savvy marketing play here.)

RootProject

Founded: 2017

Mission: Creating a decentralized community around crowdfunding

Cred: RootProject has raised modest funds for a few campaigns. One aims to aid Iraqi orphans, and another seeks to help homeless teens in the U.S.

Sustainability International/Sela

Pilot launched: 2017

Mission: Fostering communication among stakeholders to keep track of project finances

Cred: Sela launched a pilot program in Nigeria in November 2017 in which a group monitored an oil cleanup. Members used Sela to fact check information from contractors working on the cleanup in exchange for financial compensation.

The Giving Block

Founded: 2018

Mission: Helping nonprofits receive cryptocurrency donations/working with blockchain-related nonprofits

Cred: The Giving Block has worked directly with a number of nonprofits to help them set up cryptocurrency donations, including the Lupus Foundation. (We asked The Giving Block how to make sure you’re donating your crypto to a trustworthy cause here.)

XRP Tip Bot

Launched: 2017

Mission: Rewarding content creators and commenters on social platforms Twitter, Reddit, and Discord

Cred: Using the XRP Tip Bot, people have donated more than $11,800 to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital—a happily unintended consequence of a bot created so people could, in essence, financially upvote comments they liked. (Read our story about the tip bot’s surprising success here.)

Environment

The problem: Maintaining sustainability in the face of the hulking pre-apocalyptic human-fueled very current danger we almost euphemistically call “climate change” feels genuinely impossible.

The blockchain solution: Incentivizing and tracking

The organizations: They’re actively rewarding people using solar power in Brooklyn and helping corporations reduce their carbon footprints…but tracking fish seems to be the first universal test case.

Bitlumens

Founded: 2017

Mission: Distributing solar power in areas without access to power grids

Cred: It’s working on getting its pilots off the ground in Myanmar and Indonesia.

Blockchain Climate Institute

Founded: 2016

Mission: Raising awareness of and developing blockchain solutions problems stemming from climate change

Cred: Its network includes 80 blockchain experts from around the world. They’ve got a lot to talk about.

Brooklyn Microgrid (developed by LO3Energy)

Microgrid Launched: 2016

Mission: Developing a locally powered clean energy microgrid in Brooklyn

Cred: LO3Energy’s Brooklyn Microgrid pilot has been running for almost two years and, as of July, had about 60 participants. (Read our story about the Brooklyn Microgrid here.)

Ecochain

Founded: 2011

Mission: Helping companies track their environmental footprints

Cred: Ecochain reports a user base of over 1,100 people spanning 14 industries.

Electron

Founded: 2015

Mission: Using decentralized technologies to increase energy efficiency

Cred: It received a grant from the UK-based Energy Entrepreneurs Fund in September 2017 and has carried out a simulated pilot test for its product.

Fishcoin

Founded: 2018

Mission: Tracking the supply chain of caught fish; collecting data on ocean acidification

Cred: Fishcoin has partnered with the Ocean Foundation, an organization aimed at protecting underwater environments, but those efforts are nascent. The company is much further along on the on the supply chain front, working with fisheries and even bringing “data-backed” seafood to the dinner table. (Read our Q&A with Fishcoin’s ocean acidification lead here.)

Grid Singularity

Founded: 2016

Mission: Democratizing energy through an open source tech platform, incentivization system, and blockchain energy summit

Cred: Grid Singularity has partnered with the Rocky Mountain Institute to create the Energy Web Foundation, which will work to move other blockchain energy startups forward.

Ixo Foundation

Founded: ~2016

Mission: Tangibly and transparently measuring the impact of charitable donations

Cred: Ixo is working with the New York-based Seneca Park Zoo to plant trees in Eastern Madagascar. It counts UNICEF as a founding partner.

M-PAYG

Founded: 2013

Mission: Democratizing access to solar energy

Cred: M-PAYG is working with the DCA to bring electricity to a refugee camp in Uganda.

Nori

Founded: 2017

Mission: Reversing climate change by incentivizing carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere

Cred: Nori’s exceeded its (modest) funding expectations on crowdfunding platform Republic while simultaneously receiving SAFT funding.

Power Ledger

Founded: 2016

Mission: Providing low-cost, renewable energy worldwide

Cred: Power Ledger has partnerships with energy retailers in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand.

SOLShare

Founded: 2013

Mission: Delivering solar power to low income rural communities, beginning in Bangladesh

Cred: SOLShare was among the World Economic Forum’s Global Technical Pioneers 2018 cohort. Past members have included Airbnb, Dropbox, Kickstarter, Twitter, and Google. The company also received a UN Energy grant at the United Nations New York headquarters in 2017.

SolarCoin

Founded: 2014

Mission: Incentivizing people to produce/use solar energy

Cred: SolarCoin supports numerous major monitoring platforms that together monitor more than 4 million solar installations. Anyone monitored by those systems is eligible for SolarCoin rewards, though so far just between 3,500 and 4,500 use the product. (Read our full story on SolarCoin’s mission and origins here.)

Food and agriculture

The problem: Small farmers get left out of the market, food waste abounds, and sometimes we get poisoned by lettuce.

The blockchain solution: Supply chain tracking

The organizations: According to the Stanford Graduate School of Business report, they’re mostly headquartered in Europe, Australia, and U.S. but are aiming to aid people in places like sub-Saharan Africa; they’re small-scale but scrappy—maybe because most are working for profit.

AgriDigital

Founded: 2015

Mission: Facilitating supply chain management for farmers and storage operators

Cred: AgriDigital’s executives have established networks in North America from previous businesses, and the company just released its platform to U.S. and Canadian markets this month.

Bext360

Founded: 2016

Mission: Bringing accountability to supply chains for coffee, seafood, timber, and cotton

Cred: The company’s already partnered with several coffee makers, three of which—Moyee Coffee, Great Lakes Coffee, and Coda Coffee—have already used its services. Bext360 is also a finalist in this year’s SXSW Pitch blockchain category.

Coin22/Agri-Wallet

Founded: ~2016

Mission: Helping smalltime farmers save, spend, and get paid responsibly and securely

Cred: The Nairobi-based Agri-Wallet employs 45 people and has multiple local users. It was started by Coin22, a Netherlands-based company that works in blockchain finance.

Foodshed.io

Founded: 2017

Mission: Connecting the growers of sustainable, local food to wider markets; monitoring food safety

Cred: It has multiple local clients in New York, including Gramercy Tavern and Maison Premiere.

Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative

Founded: 2014

Mission: Promoting small-scale, sustainable farmers and bringing transparency to the food supply chain

Cred: Grass Roots Farmers’ Cooperative is supported (organizationally and financially) by Heifer U.S.A., an established nonprofit that works with small-scale farmers. It’s been working actively with farmers in rural Arkansas since 2016.

Goodr

Launched: January 2018

Mission: Getting surplus food from grocery stores and restaurants to people who need it

Cred: As of November 2018, Goodr had diverted one million pounds of surplus food to the homes of families who didn’t know where they’d be getting their next meals.

Halotrade

Founded: 2017

Mission: Bringing transparency to supply chains

Cred: Halotrade’s founder Shona Tatchell was head of innovation, trade, and working capital at Barclays Bank for more than six years. The company’s in middle of a pilot tracking tea from farmers in Malawi.

Viant

Founded: 2017

Mission: Verifying assets in the following sectors: oil and gas, healthcare, transportation, real estate, and education

Cred: Viant has successfully tracked a fish from Fiji to Brooklyn (where it wound up in a sushi roll). It’s a start.

Gender and sexuality

The problem: Reporting harassment and assault is extremely difficult to begin with, and once reports are made, they can be easily lost or contested. Plus, gender inclusivity in the blockchain space is lacking.

The blockchain solution: Immutability and connectivity

The organizations: About half of the following organizations focus on reporting and recording gender-based violence incidents immutably, one focuses on LGBTQ+ inclusivity, and a few are aimed at providing more support for women in the blockchain industry.

Callisto

Launched: 2015

Mission: Providing a way for survivors to create time-stamped records of their assaults and connecting them with legal services

Cred: Callisto has been used on 13 different college campuses and by more than 149,000 students.

CryptoChicks

Founded: 2017

Mission: Helping women get into more leadership roles in blockchain and AI

Cred: The group has chapters in eight countries and organizes numerous hacakthons and workshops.

LGBT Token

Founded: 2018

Mission: Creating an economic global community for people who identify as LGBTQ+

Cred: LGBT Token has partnered with Hornet, a gay social network with millions of users, and Revry, a “queer owned and operated” streaming service.

RTI

Founded: 1958, blockchain project launched pilot in 2018

Mission: Fostering more timely, reliable, and secure reporting of domestic violence crimes

Cred: RTI launched a pilot program with Collaborative Health Solutions last year. To prepare, CHS carried out a non-blockchain electronic version of its reporting system, during which domestic violence reports “quadrupled.”

She(256)

Founded: 2018

Mission: Making the blockchain space more gender-inclusive

Cred: She(256) has organized conferences, offered mentorship, and appeared at a number of larger blockchain events to talk diversity.

Vault

Launched: 2017

Mission: Making it easier for employees to report workplace misconduct and companies to track it

Cred: In China, people have already taken to blockchain to permanently record instances of sexual assault, providing a proof of concept for Vault’s product, currently in beta. (Read our full story on Vault and other similar projects here.)

Women in Blockchain

Founded: 2016

Mission: Providing a supportive space for women working in/learning about blockchain

Cred: Women in Blockchain organizes regular events all over the world and makes appearances at numerous (male dominated) conferences.

Government

The problem: Governments can be corrupt, and voting fair isn’t easy.

The blockchain solution: Tracking, transparency, and accountability

The organizations: Though blockchain has frequently been floated as a way to stop voter fraud, few of these companies offer a viable fix; instead, the focus of these organizations tends to be on government spending and community collaboration.

Democracy Earth

Founded: 2012

Mission: Decentralizing democracy

Cred: It had an engaged, if not huge, following and has a partnership with Blockstack, through which token holders are sending resources to developers. We wrote about the group’s founder Santiago Siri (skeptically) here.

OSCity (aka, OneSmart)

Founded: 2016

Mission: Addressing misappropriation of government funds

Cred: UNICEF’s Innovation Fund invested in this Mexico-based company. It’s already run small tests and is in conversation with some governments (according to representative from UNICEF’s Innovation Fund).

UtoPixar/Coinsence

Founded: 2013

Mission: Creating platforms where community members can collaborate and make group decisions

Cred: UNICEF’s Innovation Fund invested time and money (through the aforementioned blockchain workshop) in this Tunisia-based company.

Votem

Founded: 2016

Mission: Making voting transparent, accessible, secure, and verifiable

Cred: The company posts some statistics on its site, including how many votes have been cast through the platform (8.2 million) and how many elections have been completed (11). It also acquired online Emmy voting platform Everyone Counts in October. (Read our story about Votem and blockchain voting here.)

Healthcare and medicine

The problem: There are a lot of regulations in healthcare and staying compliant can be tricky. So can getting vaccines and medications to developing countries.

The blockchain solution: Supply chain tracking, secure information sharing

The organizations: From Mongolia to Mexico, these organizations facilitate research, prescription pickups, and organ donation matches.

Geneyx

Founded: ~2018

Mission: Providing a genetic data platform to aid in research and drug development

Cred: The Israel-based company is currently in a funding round with contributions from Horizon 2020, a massive EU research and innovation program.

Kidner

Launched: 2015

Mission: More effectively linking organ donors to patient matches

Cred: CEO Sajida Zouarhi is currently a blockchain architect and the R&D lead at ConsenSys as well as the cofounder of a blockchain health think tank. Kidner has gotten media attention in France, where the company is based, but it isn’t operational yet.

MediLedger

Founded: 2017

Mission: Using blockchain tech to comply with the Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) and bring secure interoperability to medicine tracking

Cred: It completed a successful pilot program in 2017, and pharma giant Pfizer is one of its group members.

Prescrypto

Founded: 2016

Mission: Providing a secure prescription platform for developing countries that consolidates users’ medical histories

Cred: Its website reports that more than 145,000 prescriptions have been issued via the platform. Prescrypto is also one of six blockchain startups funded by UNICEF’s Innovation Fund this year, where cohort manager Cecilia Chapiro called it the most “advanced” startup in the group.

Rymedi

Founded: 2017

Mission: Compliantly distributing vaccinations

Cred: Rymedi has helped administer Hepatitis C vaccines in Mongolia, and JP Morgan blockchain spinoff Kadena is going to manage Rymedi’s data in the U.S.

Simply Vital Health

Founded: 2016

Mission: Brings together disparate patient information in a single, secure platform

Cred: One of the company’s products, ConnectingCare, helps healthcare providers manage patient data. It’s been profitable since a few months after its launch in 2017, when client Hartford Healthcare Bone & Joint Institute started using it.

Statwig

Founded: 2016

Mission: Using supply-chain tracking to monitor food and vaccines

Cred: Statwig has yet to roll out its vaccine-tracking product, but so far has tested its technology by “tracking fish [you guessed it] from coastal India to different countries,” says founder and CEO Sid Chakravarthy.

Identity and banking

The problem: There are many problems—refugees and people in developing nations don’t have access to official identities, bank accounts, and property deeds. Sending international payments is slow and expensive. Overall, financial inclusion simply isn’t there yet.

The blockchain solution: Cheap, bank-free digital payments and immutable records

The organizations: This is the largest category for blockchain social good applications because it’s where blockchain’s main functions (keeping records and moving around money) are most readily applicable.

AID:Tech

Founded: 2016

Mission: Bringing transparency to payments—including donations, remittances, welfare, and aid funding

Cred: Aid:Tech has worked on two projects aimed at helping Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Refugees redeemed 500 food vouchers as a result of the projects, and $10,000 was distributed across 100 refugee families.

BanQu

Founded: 2015

Mission: Providing the unbanked (often refugees and the extremely impoverished) with an economic identity (like a credit history)

Cred: BanQu has partnered with an eclectic mix of multi-million-dollar businesses all over the world—including Shell, the Dell Medical School, and Japan Tobacco International.

BitLand

Founded: 2016

Mission: Offering a blockchain-based land registry to those who don’t have official deeds to their land

Cred: People in Ghana, where the company is based and reportedly 80 percent of landowners don’t have titles, have been using BitLand to register their property.

BitPesa

Founded: 2013

Mission: Making business transactions cheaper, faster, and simpler between countries in Africa and markets in the rest of the world

Cred: BitPesa charges between one and three percent on business transactions in developing markets, compared to much higher rates billed by other money-sending solutions. So far, the company is operational in Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

ChromaWay/Postchain

Founded: 2012

Mission: Providing smart contracts for land registration

Cred: Advisors include Charlie Lee, founder of Litecoin, and Vinny Lingham, CEO and founder of Civic (see below). Based in Sweden, Chromaway received $15 million in funding in October.

Circles

Launched: 2017

Mission: Creating and distributing a global Universal Basic Income

Cred: Right now, Circles is in the research and experimental phase, including a test it’s carried out at a small café in Berlin. (We covered several crypto-funded basic income projects here).

Civic

Founded: 2016

Mission: Verifying identities and preventing ID theft

Cred: Run by Vinny Lingham, a “bitcoin oracle” and cast member of “Dragon’s Den South Africa” (it’s like “Shark Tank”), Civic got people to sign up for its app by making it the barrier to buying beer from a vending machine at the Consensus Summit last year. Civic raised $33 million in a 2017 ICO.

Diwala

Founded: 2017

Mission: Verifying displaced people’s skills with blockchain-based certificates and records

Cred: It’s been doing user testing with its partner school, Clarke University, in Uganda.

Emerge/Homeward

Founded: 2017

Mission: Helping find homes for displaced people/refugees and providing them with legal identities

Cred: Emerge recently partnered with Distilled Identity, a predictive identity machine learning company that came out of MIT research, to improve its platform.

GiveCrypto

Founded: 2018

Mission: Facilitating cryptocurrency donation to nonprofits that work directly with impoverished communities; giving unbanked communities access to non-state-backed currencies

Cred: GiveCrypto’s donors so far are a who’s who of crypto elite. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong (also GiveCrypto’s founder), Ripple executive chair Chris Larsen, and CEO of the Zcash Company Zooko Wilcox have all donated upwards of $1 million, while Brock Pierce, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and Roger Ver have all donated at least $100,000. (Read our interview with GiveCrypto’s executive director, Joe Waltman, here.)

Mojaloop

Launched: 2017

Mission: Promoting financial inclusion by letting poor and unbanked people send and receive payments

Cred: Mojaloop was created via a partnership between Ripple and The Gates Foundation. A bootcamp in Tanzania this spring will build on the open source software.

NALA

Founded: 2017

Mission: Providing a secure way to make payments in Tanzania

Cred: NALA won Ecobank Africa’s fintech challenge, which granted them $10,000 in prize money and a six-month fellowship with the EcoBank Group.

SecureKey

Founded: 2008

Mission: Increasing privacy and accessibility to online services by letting users take control of their personal data

Cred: The company is already working with IBM to build a “digital identity network” in Canada.

WeTrust

Founded: 2016

Mission: Providing a mechanism for trusted lending circles, especially among the unbanked

Cred: According to its website, WeTrust currently has more than 2,000 users (which, compared to many of the others on this list, is something). Its advisors include Vitalik Buterin and Emin Gun Sirer, an associate professor at Cornell and blockchain expert.

Information and education

The problem: There’s a lot of information floating around out there, and not a lot of it is readily verifiable—including kids’ attendance records.

The blockchain solution: Immutable records

The organizations: While a few are struggling to fight the spread of false information, a couple want to ensure access to education.

Amply

First pilot: 2016

Mission: Making better education more accessible to children by tracking information like school attendance records

Cred: South Africa-based Amply reports that it has recorded the attendance of 3,327 children and is operational at 87 different education centers.

BitDegree

Launched: April 2018

Mission: Incentivizing students to learn, giving them tokens in exchange for completing online courses

Cred: Lithuania-based BitDegree is actively hiring and has a self-reported user base of more than 275,000.

Factom

Founded: 2014

Mission: Ensuring veracity of historical information by encoding data, documents, etc. into a blockchain

Cred: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave Factom a $192,380 grant to fund beta testing for applying its technology to border patrol cameras (whether this will be for better or for worse is TBD).

TruePic

Founded: 2014

Mission: Authenticating images for a range of purposes, from preventing insurance fraud to backing up journalism

Cred: While it can be used to fight fraud on Airbnb, the most compelling use case came from a trapped civilian in Syria’s Idlib Province. (For more on that, read our story on how TruePic and similar tech can combat “fake news.”)

Tor Project

Founded: 2006

Mission: Making internet communication and activity more secure

Cred: It has an extremely active user base that includes journalists, activist groups, and a branch of the U.S. Navy (and sure, it’s not a blockchain project in itself, but it’s adjacent and was an early acceptor of cryptocurrency donations).

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