Merry Merkle

2017 went off without a hitch and, as you can see here, everything came together in just under 10 days with a great deal of excitement being generated over this novel concept. It is best summed up in Robbie’s awesome video:

2018 had a vicious sting in the tail for most people building decentralised networks and tools. However, it also had a great many lessons to teach, chief among them that hope never really dies. Much like the blind fish in Moya Cannon’s masterpiece, sometimes it slips beneath the hills and leaves wanderers asking why the hollow lands hum when the wind howls a certain way.

We sang in South Africa, and the Ethereum community heard us. In total, at the very bottom of a bear market, we still raised R113,135 (over 48 ETH). Considering that school fees at African Angels are just R4800 per year, this translates to covering the fees for nearly 24 of the 142 children starting school in 2019.

We got 9 people into Africa and helped build a new high school class with the children who will be studying in it this year. That is the reality these talented kids face: they literally have to build their own classroom each year if they want to continue studying at African Angels. Every single message that came through using Ethereum as a medium carries value in many more ways than the merely monetary for such committed learners.

We also tokenised some of the children’s artwork (a series of self-portraits made using different media) and managed to raise a further 2.5 ETH for that - a world first as far as we can tell.

#MerryMerkle is on a mission to make giving into a deep tradition within the cryptocurrency community. It is not enough to pay lip service to the notion that we are changing money - we need to live that narrative so that wealth can truly be about what we share, rather than what we own. #MerryMerkle is about power with others, rather than power over them.

Come and join us on our mission to try and distribute the future a little more equitably!