TL;DR: When we last spoke with George Donnelly, he was fresh from his break with Dash. He was also then still in the early throws of being excited by the promise of moving to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Donnelly is best known for growing Dash Latin America (Dash Latam), an adoption-focused project, and had some notable success. Recently, he formally launched BCH Latam, hoping to improve upon his early work through an ambitious and innovative crowdfunding use of SLP tokens, dividends, and gamification.

Dash Latam Becomes BCH Latam

Dash Latam as George Donnelly configured and headed it is no more. His efforts are now fully aligned with the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem, hoping to bring fast, reliable, inexpensive peer-to-peer electronic cash transactions through BCH Latam to a part of the world that spans from Mexico to Tierra del Fuego. More than 600 million people comprise the region’s 20 countries over 2 continents, a great many of whom are keen to avoid plagues such as chronic hyperinflation, the whims of politicians’ government money, capital controls, and excessive fees involved with the popular practice of remittances.

BCH Latam is part of Donnelly’s answer. Bitcoin Cash perhaps has a greater network effect, holding whatever benefits the first of its two-word name carries, and substantially more liquidity as a top 5 cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Those are easier potential starting points in often herculean task onboarding merchants and newer folks alike.

To make the transition, Donnelly has to rebuild while using what he’s learned. That means formulating a business plan and utilizing existing BCH tools. BCH Latam’s crowdfunding campaign plans to “provide superior value to the developing world through BCH and eventually make Bitcoin Cash the international currency of Latin America,” he proposed, through a “gamified adoption app concept [which] would enable indie BCH adoption workers to earn their way in by completing verifiable tasks that add concrete value to the Bitcoin Cash network, such as merchant adoption, meetups and more.” He calls it “a viral feedback-loop system to kickstart BCH adoption globally in parallel at a low cost.”

Interview with George Donnelly

He’s proposing an initial token offering (ITO) called PAN, after BCH Latam ecosystem building startup, Panmoni, which is to be focused on merchants and remittances to start. The ITO is tiered and has a lot of moving parts. Donnelly seemingly left no option unturned, and the scope is pretty impressive. It’s certainly the first of its kind plan for Bitcoin Cash using SLP tokens and dividends.

CoinSpice: Would you define your project as a for-profit ITO?

George Donnelly: Yes, it is an ITO to fund a for-profit business plan whose purpose is to build Bitcoin Cash adoption in Latin America and the Caribbean by using BCH for remittances. This is a win-win because BCH can save people time and money with remittances. We need about 1,750 BCH for the business plan. However, if we do not get it, we have a backup threshold of 350 BCH. This backup threshold is to fund a commons-building marketing plan. If that threshold is not reached, we will make whatever progress we can with what we raise.

Do you think for-profit proposals are the future?

I don’t see any future for anything other than for-profit business plans in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. And even that remains unclear.

Why use remittances as the hook for Bitcoin Cash adoption in the region?

Remittance inflows into Latam and the Caribbean are large, at $88 billion USD and growing.

Remittances are repeat business, customers remit again and again on regular schedules. This means they are more likely to keep their Bitcoin Cash wallet on their phone and not delete it. People in Latam are always crossing borders to work and send money home due to constant political and economic crises. People sending remittances are actively in the market for a new currency, and they left their home country most likely due to problems with its currency, so they are open to changing currencies.

The Venezuela crisis, for example, means as many as 7 million people have left the country, many of them in order to work abroad and remit money home to pay their parents’ and/or children’s living expenses.

Remittances are overpriced at 8% average fees globally (<40% in certain markets) and ripe for digital disruption. Crypto has a natural advantage anytime money crosses a border due to formal economic barriers. Remittances have the potential to solve the inflow problem that has made hobby merchant adoption unprofitable and unsustainable.

Tell us more about your goals.

The goal is 1,750 BCH to fund the for-profit business plan, which permits stakeholders to share in our profits proportional to their holdings via SLP dividends. If we don’t reach that goal, scenario B is to execute a commons-building marketing plan for anything up to 350 BCH.

Can you explain scenario B?

Scenario B is a middle step between doing nothing and the financing 15 to 18 months of runway for our profit-seeking business plan.

Under scenario B, we may or may not be able to make progress towards the business plan, but at a bare minimum, we will build community and commons for Bitcoin Cash in Latin America that will grow the ecosystem.

We guarantee these deliverables: 600 new Bitcoin-Cash-accepting merchants; 28 meetups across Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Spain focused on general bitcoin cash use and awareness, remittances, P2P liquidity options, freelancers and merchants; 50 new liquidity providers on P2P liquidity platforms; 1 remittance pilot with a final report on lessons learned; 50 combo remittances listed on a P2P liquidity platform or better; 500 total remittances sold, among cash, wallet-to-wallet, combos & others; 250 in-merchant transactions; establish website and social media presences; 24 reference Bitcoin Cash educational videos; 25 buzz-ready “Bitcoin Cash Life” vlogs (demonstrating on-the-ground use); 25 podcast or live stream episodes; 250 unique social media posts; 4 marketing funnels that support user journeys; attendance and Bitcoin Cash promotion at 2 conferences; 2 integrations (liquidity and wallet focus); 1 special project (BCH Aid);

5 monthly progress reports within the first 10 days of each following month; hot-take daily vlog showing off our work for your entertainment.

How does the PAN SLP token factor-in?

There will be a fixed supply of 400,000 total PAN tokens. At 100 PAN to 1 BCH, that means we value our current organization at 4,000 BCH or ~USD$1.3 million.

A maximum of 45% of the total supply of PAN will be sold at this time, with 25% reserved for the team (disbursed as incentives over time) and 30% for future funding rounds, user incentives, or possibly to be burned in an optimistic scenario.

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