Since its founding two years in the past, NoOnes, a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform, has achieved so much in a brief area of time. As a visionary entrepreneur, Ray Youssef, NoOnes CEO, helps lead the approach in the evolving world of crypto. Using Bitcoin as a instrument, Youssef and his staff imagine it’ll convey empowerment to the Global South.
In this unique interview, Rebecca Campbell, crypto content material editor at CoinJournal, spoke with Ray Youssef, co-founder and CEO at NoOnes, to debate NoOnes imaginative and prescient and the way it and Bitcoin are empowering the Global South. Youssef dives into the challenges they face, a monetary apartheid in Africa, political pressures from the West, the limitless alternatives for the Global South, and how the relationship between crypto and folks is evolving.
Rebecca Campbell (RC): Can you inform me about NoOnes and the place the identify got here from?
Ray Youssef (RY): NoOnes is an excellent app for the Global South. We began as a peer-to-peer crypto market, however we all the time deliberate on being far more than that. In lower than two years we’ve added a spot change and a digital VISA card, and we’re about to launch our NoOnes reward card. We’re additionally a messenger app and you possibly can even top-up your cell phone. NoOnes is constructed for the folks of the Global South, so we don’t have the issues of a US-based enterprise making an attempt to serve folks in the Global South.
The approach NoOnes obtained its identify is a comic story. When NoOnes was only a dream, a collection of brainstorming periods with the guys who helped get it began, I’d been having these random ideas about our household canine who had died about 15 years earlier than. Her identify was Heidie, however my mom gave her a nickname – Noons.
I beloved that canine and for some purpose, she was continually in my ideas round that point, so sooner or later as a joke I mentioned, “We should call the company Noons.” I wrote it down on a bit of paper and noticed that it learn like NoOnes, and I assumed it was good. It captures the fact about what we needed to do with a decentralized market. Your cash is NoOnes enterprise. Your information is NoOnes enterprise. Your enterprise is NoOnes enterprise.
RC: What are your imaginative and prescient and objectives with NoOnes?
RY: Ever since I noticed the energy of crypto and peer-to-peer, my imaginative and prescient and objectives haven’t modified. There are lots of people in crypto who wish to get wealthy, however that’s by no means actually motivated me. I noticed crypto as a leveler, an equalizer. And I noticed the way it might make a distinction to folks continually left behind by the monetary system as a result of their cash is the unsuitable shade or their passport is the unsuitable sort.
As quickly as I noticed the potential of crypto and peer-to-peer working collectively to create this eco-system that permits any type of cash to change into one other type of cash, I knew it was a mechanism that would finish monetary apartheid. I name it monetary apartheid as a result of that’s what the worldwide monetary system is – it discriminates towards folks due to who they’re and the place they arrive from. I’ve recognized that for a very long time. With NoOnes, we will change that as a result of we’re primarily based in the Global South and tailor our merchandise to go well with the individuals who want them most.
My imaginative and prescient is to see a whole lot of cities like Dubai throughout the Global South, with folks buying and selling freely, constructing wealth and making their lives and their household’s lives higher.
RC: Can you discuss the position NoOnes and Bitcoin will play in empowering the Global South?
RY: First of all, we’re primarily based right here. That means we now have boots on the floor and can speak to the individuals who use our market to purchase crypto, commerce reward playing cards, make funds, remittances, no matter. Our merchandise aren’t primarily based on a Western mannequin and then compelled on folks as a result of they haven’t any different possibility.
Take KYC, for instance. When I used to be in the US, we frequently needed to file a suspicious exercise report and lock a Global South buyer’s funds when, for no matter purpose, they have been flagged on the system. Then we needed to wait till the American regulators obtained again to us to say, “Ok, you can let these guys go.” Sometimes, we needed to wait years till we might launch a buyer’s funds.
Meanwhile, these folks, who did nothing unsuitable, needed to wait till the regulator mentioned they may entry their very own cash. In the meantime, they needed to discover cash from some place else to cowl what the regulators locked away. Even the banks can’t do this, however Uncle Sam can. It was loopy. Why ought to we put our prospects by means of that sort of ache?
The US nonetheless controls Africa to such an extent that it’s tough for international locations to commerce with one another. That’s a part of the monetary apartheid I discuss. Look what occurred lately with Binance. A brand new CEO comes in and the very first thing they do is disable Pan-African commerce on Binance peer-to-peer. Kenyans can solely commerce with Kenyans and Ghanaians can solely commerce with Ghanaians.
That’s the actual coverage the US has been utilizing to maintain Africa and the remainder of the Global South poor. We are altering that. I spend a variety of my time advocating for Pan-African commerce. It’s a vital a part of making the Global South rich. Imagine if some man operating a enterprise in New York couldn’t commerce with a enterprise in New Jersey. Would any American put up with that? Why ought to Africans?
RC: What are the challenges and alternatives you face in attaining this for Bitcoin to achieve its full potential in the Global South?
RY: There are numerous challenges going through us, however the greatest one is coping with the political strain from the West. Anyone who goes towards the West and their central bankers goes to be resisted. The governments and elites who run the international monetary system are robust as a result of they’ve a collection of sliders, a bunch of levers they’ll push and pull to regulate all the things.
They can pull a method and say, “Oh, Nigeria, you haven’t been listening to us, so we’re going to take your slider all the way down to zero.” They can transfer these levers at any time, in order that they have super energy, and they’ll management the economies of the world. They can punish or reward a market, even complete economies, and we have to offset this.
Crypto and peer-to-peer are the offsets, and that’s why the West has such an issue with crypto. It’s why they put individuals who don’t observe their mannequin in jail.
The alternatives in the Global South are limitless. Africa has the fastest-growing inhabitants of any continent. It has 1.5 billion folks, and the subsequent 25 years will add virtually one other billion. There is a youth unemployment drawback proper now, however I see that as a possibility. I’ve met so many younger Africans who’re savvy and dynamic and all of them wish to succeed. I’ve seen lots of them use our market to earn money, to begin companies, and to alter their lives.
India additionally has superb alternatives, as does Latin America. There are so many alternatives in all of those locations for folks to create companies by piggybacking on our platform – that’s one among the biggest successes of NoOnes, I believe. We can’t have success except we assist others have success, and the ethics of that’s principally lacking in the company world as we speak.
Which corporations are giving again 50% of their income to the individuals who use their merchandise? We are doing that at NoOnes. We have bonuses, incentives, and a Partner Program that rewards the individuals who assist us develop as a result of we would like folks to assist us unfold the phrase about the energy of crypto and peer-to-peer. We want the Global South to know that it doesn’t must settle for a Western mannequin that doesn’t go well with its wants.
If we add up all of these issues – dynamic, savvy younger people who find themselves hardworking and prepared to understand alternatives, a common container for cash that can be a retailer of wealth, and the NoOnes market that provides the Global South entry to finance and free commerce – we are going to attain the full potential of the Global South, and I believe it will probably occur shortly. Most folks in the West might be astonished by it.
RC: How is NoOnes totally different from what you probably did at Paxful?
RY: Paxful had a serious drawback – it was primarily based in the US. I’ve already talked about KYC and all the issues we encountered making an attempt to assist folks in the Global South as a US firm. You can’t do it – and it’s getting worse. Look at what occurred to Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, [the former CEO of Binance]. He went to jail. Look at what happened to Pavel Durov, the Telegram CEO – he went to jail the minute his aircraft landed in France.
I had the identical imaginative and prescient at Paxful that I’ve now, and perhaps it took me too lengthy to appreciate that I couldn’t obtain my mission of operating a US firm. But now the shackles are off. Nothing is holding us again now that we’re primarily based in the Global South.
I discovered years in the past that my precedence must be to serve my customers, my prospects. They can fireplace the CEO. I discovered that serving to my dad and mom run a newsstand on Columbus Circle in New York City after I was a child.
In the US, the first precedence for most corporations is to serve the authorities, then, in the event that they’re pleased, you possibly can assist your prospects. That’s not proper. And I gained’t do this. We noticed what occurred with Binance. They gave up their consumer information to the [Israeli Defense Forces] IDF and a whole lot of individuals misplaced thousands and thousands of {dollars} – and a few of them have been killed. Compare the NoOnes privateness coverage to the Binance privateness coverage. We gained’t hand over our consumer information. I couldn’t say that after I was CEO of Paxful.
RC: How do you see NoOnes evolving in the subsequent 5-10 years?
RY: NoOnes goes to get larger, that’s for certain. Sometimes I’ve to remind myself that we didn’t exist two years in the past as a result of we’ve come to date in such a short while, however that is solely the begin. People would possibly consider us as a crypto peer-to-peer market, however we’re all the time including new merchandise, making present ones higher, and we hearken to our customers so we may give them what they want.
I discuss our enterprise as an ecosystem as a result of that’s the finest technique to describe how we’re evolving. We created a market for crypto and reward playing cards, we added a spot change and different merchandise, and we feed income again into that ecosystem. People are constructing their companies on prime of our platform.
Expats working abroad ship cash residence and understand our platform is a greater, sooner, and cheaper approach of doing it than utilizing a conventional cash changer – so they begin doing it for their pals and create a aspect hustle. Someone must make a cost in one other nation, however they don’t have a checking account, in order that they use our platform – they see how easy it’s, so they begin a enterprise doing the identical for different folks. And all of it feeds again into the ecosystem.
Imagine all these companies taking the place of the conventional banks and cash changers – the wealth stays in the Global South as a substitute of lining the pockets of all the executives working for banks and monetary establishments in the West. That’s a part of the purpose they don’t like what we do.
Imagine when all the folks in the Global South understand how simple it’s to make these modifications. How simple it’s to cease the drain on the sources of the Global South – it’s been taking place for centuries and it has to cease, and it would. In 5 years, perhaps much less, NoOnes might be main that drive and the Global South might be on the technique to turning into a superpower.
RC: How do you see the relationship between crypto and the wider inhabitants evolving?
RY: That’s an ideal query as a result of it’s the entrance line in the battle occurring at the second. Before I understood crypto I assumed it was simply “Internet funny money.” Most folks nonetheless suppose that approach now as a result of they don’t perceive it. I’m undecided governments perceive it that nicely, however they realize it’s a menace to the establishment. That’s why they tried to cease it, and that’s why they’re making an attempt to regulate it now.
The actual energy in the world is the one which controls the cash system. The folks in energy have levers they use to maintain us in our place, and the method in which we reverse engineer it have to be defined very clearly and logically for folks if we’re to succeed in getting them to assist us repair the present state of humanity.
In easy phrases, I’m speaking a couple of forex struggle, and after I say forex I imply something that could be a retailer of worth and may be traded. Eventually, the folks might be gained over to crypto as a result of its energy can’t be denied – even governments acknowledge this now. Some international locations banned it, then they realized its utility, and now they’re making an attempt to manage it. Crypto isn’t going away.
The actual query is whether or not the essence of it will get destroyed in the technique of being accepted by the wider inhabitants. Crypto was designed to be trustless and permissionless – meaning we don’t must belief some authorities or company to have religion in its worth.
RC: What is NoOnes specializing in at the second?
RY: Our focus is on our three core values – everybody eats, bullish training, and revolutionary transparency.
I’ve already talked about giving again 50% of our income and our accomplice program, and that’s a part of what we imply by “everyone eats.” I don’t wish to get wealthy at the expense of the individuals who use our merchandise. Some folks chortle at me after I say I’m on a mission, however I’ve been saying it for greater than a decade as a result of it’s true. We gained’t be pleased if we’re profitable and others round us aren’t, in order that’s why everybody eats is vital.
Another precept is revolutionary transparency. Lots of companies discuss being clear, however most of them don’t observe by means of. This is why we get issues like we noticed with FTX. NoOnes is totally different. Anyone who desires to see the enterprise information I see about NoOnes can see it by taking a look at the CEO Dashboard on our app.
Right now, our greatest focus is on training. I’ve talked about the alternatives in the Global South, however these alternatives gained’t imply something if folks don’t learn about them and change into educated about how crypto might help them resolve issues. We created the NoOnes Academy so folks can study not solely tips on how to commerce profitably, but in addition how they’ll do it safely.
Some folks would possibly wish to make a cost or ship cash residence, however they’re petrified of crypto as a result of they’ve heard nasty tales in the media. We wish to educate them in order that they perceive how simple it really works and how a lot utility it has. Some folks would possibly simply use it in a small approach – serving to them pay for one thing as a result of they don’t have a VISA card or a checking account. Others could be expert and savvy, however they’re unemployed and they’re trying to earn cash to pay the payments or to begin a enterprise – they could discover ways to commerce reward playing cards or crypto by means of the NoOnes Academy.
If sufficient folks change into educated about how our tremendous app works, the Global South will change dramatically.
RC: What are your plans for NoOnes in phrases of progress and improvement?
RY: I’ve already talked about Dubai, but it surely’s an ideal instance of the way forward for the Global South. Lots of people suppose Dubai has had large progress due to oil, however that’s simply not true. Sheikh Mohammed made commerce simple and the atmosphere business-friendly, and fairly quickly the cash flowed into Dubai like a river. The cash that got here in was then fed again into improvement and we will see the consequence as we speak.
My imaginative and prescient is to see cities like Dubai throughout the Global South, with NoOnes main the approach. We will present the infrastructure, the training and the alternatives, and meaning being on the floor, listening to folks so we may give them what they should assist them develop. We’ve completed it with our peer-to-peer market, our spot change, a digital VISA card, and reward playing cards – and new merchandise are coming.
We’re taking a look at a peer-review credit score rating so customers will get a ranking that can be utilized to supply financing for start-ups and enterprise house owners. We wish to fine-tune our messaging operate as a result of that’s a good way to draw folks we will educate on the advantages of crypto.
We want extra folks to assist us develop, so we’ll be hiring folks on the floor wherever we do enterprise. Already our customers are serving to us by making content material to assist educate their fellow residents. Our progress and improvement all the time revolve round work. Free commerce permits the cash to circulate and that places folks to work to allow them to create their wealth. I really imagine in common wealth, however that solely occurs when the roadblocks to progress are eliminated. To do this we should have the folks behind us, and that’s why training is so vital.
Our purpose was for NoOnes to have a billion customers inside seven years, and if we do that we are going to convey the Global South nearer to the wealth it’s been denied for so lengthy.
