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00:00: Chapter 1: Introduction
[Music]: Welcome to Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives, the podcast brought to you by the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
[Voiceover, Ka Man]: Have you ever been curious about the use of blockchain and cryptocurrency in humanitarian work but been too afraid to ask — or like me, not sure where to get started?
While we’ve been deep diving into the use of artificial intelligence in the humanitarian sector over the past year, in today’s conversation we’re shifting our focus to adjacent technologies in the humanitarian tech space: blockchain and crypto — and how these pieces potentially fit into the broader question of what the future of humanitarian work – and meaningful support to crisis affected communities – could look like.
I’m Ka Man Parkinson and I was really pleased to recently sit down with Alex Bornstein and Natalie Eskinazi from the Zcash Foundation — two people who didn’t come to this world through finance, but through a motivation to help address some of the biggest challenges facing our sector.
And while this is a conversation framed around technology – and they demystify some of the key concepts for me – it’s actually more about the implications for the communities we serve. We cover a lot of ground, from how blockchain actually works, to stablecoins, treasury management through to localisation. And through this, Alex and Natalie build a compelling case that this technology is ultimately about dignity, privacy and protection.
[Music ends]
Ka Man: Hi Alex and Nat, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to have you here, thank you very much for taking the time to join us, and I’m really looking forward to hearing more about your work. So, to get started, let’s begin with some introductions. Alex, could you tell us about yourself, your background, and your professional journey to where you are now?
Alex: Thank you so much for having us here today. My name is Alex Bornstein. I’m the Executive Director at the Zcash Foundation. And my path to blockchain and financial privacy runs through some pretty unlikely places. A decade at the International Rescue Committee, leading supply chain operations across 46 countries. Before that, logistics for a large urban and rural fire district, and then after the IRC, running operations for a statewide food bank, and then an international youth development nonprofit. And so I came to crypto and blockchain through the back door.
And I think that’s kind of the point. What drove every single one of these jobs was the same question: how do you actually get resources to people who need them when the systems around you are broken, or even actively working against you?
That question followed me everywhere. So when I landed at the Zcash Foundation in 2021, it hit me that I’d found a different angle on the same problem. Because how money moves, and who controls it, and who can see it, and who gets left out of it entirely — that’s an infrastructure problem. And it’s one the humanitarian sector has been working around for decades without fully solving.
The privacy piece is where it gets really personal for me. In the contexts I worked in, both in the United States and internationally, visibility wasn’t neutral. Knowing who was receiving assistance from whom, and where — that information has value to people who want to use it as a weapon. Others are building the accountability systems that make donors comfortable. My question is what that transparency costs the people at the other end — the beneficiaries, the people receiving support. And that’s the gap I’m here to help close through my work with the Zcash Foundation and our Shielded Aid initiative.
Ka Man: Thank you, Alex. What an interesting journey. I think a lot of people outside of this space might perceive your world within the humanitarian world and where you are now as very different — a different language almost. So it was interesting that you said you’re actually looking at the same infrastructure challenges. And I’m really keen to hear more from you throughout this conversation on that. So let’s turn to you, Nat. What’s your background and your path to where you are now?
Natalie: Sure. I’m Natalie Eskinazi. I’m an engineer at the Zcash Foundation and I’ve been here for about three years now. I actually worked in a completely different field before this — I worked in the arts for about five years as a theatre producer, and I loved it. But there was a point where I was very unemployed for about a year, so I did a coding bootcamp for three months. I didn’t intend on changing careers at first, but it turns out that coding is really fun.
So I studied maths at university and I really enjoyed getting back to using that logical side of my brain. With tech, I thought I could work almost anywhere and in almost any industry. The thing was, though, even though I was thinking, wow, there’s this whole world of stuff I could do, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I think that’s how I found my way to where I am now. I wanted something ‘mathsier’ [laughs] leaning into cryptography.
I was working at a company that had a really strong social justice ethos and were particularly passionate about digital privacy. So I started paying attention — and was, as one expects, pretty scared by all the things I learned. I would say I’m sometimes a bit envious of people who don’t think much about privacy and can bury their heads in the sand. I feel like we’d all sleep a lot better if we didn’t know the things we know. However, once you do know how bad things are, it can become incredibly motivating to focus on what you can actually do about it.
So I started to think about what information is being compiled en masse and how it could be used without an individual’s consent. I think consent is the key word there. And it didn’t take long to start thinking about it from a wider context. A big part of my personal political philosophy is a belief in the redistribution of power.And I believe the less privacy someone has, the less agency they have, and the more power flows to the top. Ensuring we have ownership over our own data and being able to make choices free of surveillance is fundamental to our own agency and self-determination.
So I found my way to working on the digital privacy team at the company I was working at, partly because of my interest in cryptography as well. I’d been working in privacy-enhancing technologies — the general term. And then I heard about the job at the Zcash Foundation and was very excited about it. Some of the most, in my opinion, interesting cryptography research of the last 20 years, in my opinion, was first used by Zcash. It’s something called ZK-SNARKs, which I won’t go into in detail now, but I’ll explain a little later — because this is the reason why private transactions on Zcash is possible.
I think financial privacy is a particularly interesting part of the wider privacy conversation. You know the classic line we hear from people: I’ve got nothing to hide, which is why they don’t care about their privacy. That’s frustrating for a lot of reasons. But instead of debating with someone about whether they’d be okay having a camera in their bathroom [laughs]— which is quite a common retort — I’ve actually started saying to people: what if you did have something you wanted to hide? It doesn’t have to be something nefarious or immoral. It doesn’t take long to imagine a situation where someone has a completely legitimate reason to protect their private data.
People often assume as well that if you need to hide where your money is going to and coming from, that must also be for nefarious purposes — and especially so when discussing cryptocurrencies. I think aid is actually a really good counterexample to this. So I’m really excited to be talking about this and thinking about how we can use these innovative tools we’ve built to assist organisations and individuals to get the support they need.
Ka Man: Thank you, Nat. What a really interesting journey into this world. I liked hearing about your creative and artistic background, and learning to code as a bit of eureka momen for you. And it’s so interesting how you link privacy to power and the redistribution of power — and obviously connects to the broader work of the humanitarian sector, where we’re working to shift power to local communities. So that’s great to hear that, and that sets the scene really well for the conversation we’ll have.
09:38: Chapter 2: The Humanitarian Futures panel and the case for change
Ka Man: So Alex, I just want to bring you back in to contextualise a bit why we’re having this conversation today. In December, you were on our Humanitarian Futures panel — a session co-hosted by our Director Pawel Mania and Thomas Hill, Country Director of the Norwegian Refugee Council Nigeria. The session was Humanitarian Futures: Still Here, Still Human — What Next? It was a really thought-provoking discussion — very frank and candid. I just wanted to ask for your brief reflections on that before we dive into the detail of blockchain. What are your thoughts?
Alex: For everyone who hasn’t listened to that panel, I strongly suggest you do — it was absolutely incredible. What really struck me was that the conversation has completely shifted from when I was in the sector. People weren’t asking whether the system needs to change anymore. That question is settled — it needs to change. The whole sector seems to know it needs to rebuild. But the same conversations are still continuing about how to make that happen, and they’re happening without necessarily understanding and embracing the tools that could make a real difference.
Interestingly, I wasn’t there as a tech person. I was there as someone who spent a decade in humanitarian operations — watching banking infrastructure fail in various contexts, watching beneficiary data end up in the wrong hands, watching local partners excluded from financial systems that were supposedly serving them. These aren’t hypotheticals. I witnessed them firsthand across the world.
And as I mentioned earlier, what’s changed is that the tools to actually deliver now exist. And hearing the people on that panel — the questions, the interest — made me really hopeful that if we’re able to drill down to the core of these concepts and get people to understand, in the field and at HQ, what role they play in ensuring the right tools are applied to the right jobs, which then moves the entire sector forward with this rebuild, there’s some hope there for sure,
But seeing the frustration and the passion and the energy that went into even that one conversation really drove home how big a challenge this still is. With all the new tools, funds, and groups coming into aid — all excited, all with different solutions and ideas — it’s exciting and really needed. But it’s also a word of caution. That firehose of information of people and things coming in makes the job of everyone in this sector that much more challenging to sift through. How does this apply? Do I understand this? How do I learn what I need to learn?
But I hope, I genuinely hope the voices on that panel are being listened to and that they’re able to make progress in their individual ways, just as we’re attempting to make progress in our lane as well.
Ka Man: That’s really interesting. Thank you very much, Alex. And yourself and a few of the panellists also shared written reflections after the session, advancing their thoughts and positions — so thank you very much, really, really thought-provoking.
13:54: Chapter 3: Demystifying the technology — Blockchain, Zcash, and stablecoins
Ka Man: So Nat, I’d like to bring you back into the discussion to get a bit more detail — and hopefully you can help illuminate for a complete beginner like me some of the key concepts. You’ve talked about cryptography when introducing yourself, and this is all new to me and I’m sure to many of our listeners too. Could you walk us through some of the key concepts in simple terms some key concepts, and how you think they link to existing humanitarian workflows?
Natalie: Sure. I’ll try not to get too technical and just explain the high-level concepts. If I do say anything jargony, I’ll try to explain what it means.
So let’s start with blockchain, which I think is a term most people have heard of. Simply, it’s a digital ledger — a list of structured information often used to record payments. We all know what a ledger is: imagine a book where you’ve written “from A to B, this is the amount.” When we talk about ledger it’s the same concept. One of the main properties of blockchain is that it’s easily distributed, meaning it exists on lots of different computers rather than in one place that owns the source of truth of the state of the ledger.
So it securely records transactions across a network of computers, which ensures that all participants have access to the same information. This creates what we call a shared source of truth, because every transaction is permanently recorded and cannot be altered without consensus from the network — which is essential for trust and transparency.
The way blockchain works is quite literally a chain of blocks. Each new block contains transaction data and is linked to the block before it using a unique digital fingerprint. If anyone tries to secretly change the data in an old block — even in the smallest way — the fingerprint changes and the link with the next block is broken. That’s how we get the property of it being tamper-proof.
So — consensus. This refers to how the network of computers agrees on the correct version of the blockchain. There are lots of different methods. The most well-known is proof of work, which is what Zcash and Bitcoin use. It’s pretty clever. You’ve probably heard of mining crypto — put simply, all these different computers compete to solve a mathematical problem that generates a new digital fingerprint for a block containing all the new transactions. When a computer solves the problem, it proposes the new block, the rest of the network verifies it, and if enough agree, the block is added to the chain. And that computer that solved the problem for us gets some crypto as a reward — and that’s what we call mining.
A feature of proof of work is that it deliberately makes mining slow — and that slowness is a feature, not a bug. It gives the entire network time to see the new block and agree it’s valid before starting work on the next one. If mining were instant, different parts of the network would be working on different versions.
All these mechanisms solve the same problem: how do you get a distributed network of independent entities to agree on what’s true without needing a central authority? And depending on what a blockchain’s goal is, they would choose different trade-offs between speed, security, and decentralisation.
Decentralisation is another word that will come up a lot. I want to be really clear that nothing is ever completely decentralised. The core idea is that control is spread out across a network rather than being concentrated in a single entity — like, for example, a bank’s headquarters. It’s a core value of cryptocurrencies because without it, they’d just be centralised databases. The whole point is to remove the need to trust a single authority. You’re choosing between: do you trust the bank, or do you trust this network of independent verifiers?
Zcash uses decentralisation not just for security like Bitcoin, but also crucially for privacy. Since no single entity controls the network, no one can force you to reveal transaction details, and they can’t freeze your funds. The network itself enforces the privacy rules. This is vital for aid work. In a centralised system, one government or company controls the money flow. With decentralised cryptocurrency, money can move across borders without intermediaries tracking or freezing it.
But the main trade-off is speed. Decentralised systems are slower and less efficient. A bank can process a transaction instantly because one entity is making that decision. With a blockchain, thousands of computers must verify and achieve consensus — that takes time. That slowness is the price we pay for not needing to trust a single authority.
Now — the difference between Zcash and Bitcoin. The thing that makes Zcash special is the option for what we call shielded, or private, transactions. Most people assume Bitcoin is private or anonymous because the address isn’t connected to a particular individual. But if you look at the public Bitcoin ledger — which anyone can do — you can see the sender’s address, their balance, the amount sent, and the recipient’s address. You can trace every transaction to and from that address. In theory, no one knows who these addresses belong to, but in practice you can infer a lot of information and even potentially de-anonymise individuals.
In Zcash, we also have the concept of a public, or transparent, transaction. But if you want privacy, you can use a shielded address. Shielded transactions — between two shielded addresses — reveal far less information. If you look at the public ledger, the sender and recipient addresses are hidden, as is the amount. Only the sender and receiver know how much was sent.
All of this is possible because of something called ZK-SNARKs. Let me give an example. If you’re applying for a loan and the bank wants to approve you, but needs to know whether your credit score meets a minimum threshold — the only information they actually need is: is your credit score above value X? They don’t need your actual score or your full credit history, just confirmation that it’s above a certain value. That’s what zero-knowledge proofs do. ZK-SNARKs are a type of zero-knowledge proof — they let you prove something without revealing any unnecessary extra details. Zero-knowledge proofs have actually been around a very long time, but ZK-SNARKs solved the efficiency problem that made them too slow to use in practice. So with Zcash shielded transactions, you prove you own the coins and authorise your transaction. The network verifies that proof, but you reveal nothing about your address, who you’re sending to, or the amount. You share exactly what’s necessary, and nothing more.
The last thing I want to mention is stablecoins, which will be important for the rest of this conversation. One of the main things that concerns people about using crypto is the unpredictability of its value. Stablecoins are a digital currency that’s pinned to something stable — such as an existing currency like the dollar or the pound. They use the same underlying technology as other crypto but behave more like traditional money. An organisation we’re working with, Kedit, have been working on something called ZSAs — Zcash Shielded Assets. This new techn will let us issue stablecoins with the privacy you get on the Zcash network. This doesn’t currently exist, so it’s a really exciting development — and it’s all made possible by zero-knowledge proofs.
Ka Man: Thank you, Nat — thank you for talking us through those concepts. There’s obviously a lot to process there, but it’s all really valuable. I wondered if you have any recommended places where people can read more into the details? Perhaps we can include links in the show notes.
Natalie: Absolutely. I’ll send some diagrams as well, because a lot of this is much easier to explain visually than over audio.
Ka Man: That’s fantastic. My ears pricked up, so to speak, when I heard you mention about stablecoin. When I follow people from the cash and voucher community on LinkedIn for example, I hear a lot of talk and excitement about stablecoins — over the last year or so. Before talking to you today, I was trying to understand the trade-off between that stability and the shielded element that you talk of. So the fact that you’re actively looking into combining the two will be of a lot of interest to people in this space.
Alex: Yeah if I can jump in on that. Stablecoins are incredible — they’re changing finance, both traditional and in the blockchain world. But there is still the privacy consideration there. Stablecoins are trackable and heavily regulated by governments around the world. So they really need our Zcash zero-knowledge proof approach to get the most out of them. That way you still get the stability of a stablecoin pegged to euros or US dollars or any currency, while also getting that privacy.
But the implications for — not just for cash transfer, but for treasury management overall, for individuals, corporations, and the aid world — are absolutely massive. I don’t think there’s a faster-growing sector of blockchain than the stablecoin sector. But again, the trade-off, as you mentioned, is the lack of privacy, just as there is with many blockchain solutions overall.
The biggest concept to understand from an aid perspective is that you don’t necessarily need to understand the plumbing. The plumbing is incredibly complex — I run an organisation that works in this field and I learn things fifty times a day, a lot of it from Natalie. But you need to understand the basics, and what you’re giving up for that speed, that convenience, the ability to have a mutable ledger where there is a source of truth. You are giving something up for that. We and others in the field are working on solutions that limit that compromise, reduce it, or eliminate it completely — which is something of a holy grail that we’re seeking here. Dignity, privacy, but utility as well. That’s the ultimate goal.
Ka Man: Thank you, Alex. That’s really interesting to hear. Can I just quickly ask — when you said treasury management, so there’s are applications here beyond cash transfers. What do you mean by that?
Alex: To me, this is the crux of the localisation conversation as it relates to blockchain. Treasury management using stablecoins or blockchain is fairly underexplored in the humanitarian world. But if you think about it — INGOs operating in countries with rapid currency depreciation, you know, Sudan or Lebanon, can see 20 to 30 per cent or more of programme funds can be lost just through currency erosion. Holding operational funds in stablecoins rather than converting them immediately to fiat can really protect against that. It doesn’t require last-mile problem-solving or beneficiary wallets — it’s a treasury decision a finance director can make today.
And it really shifts power to local actors. Without treasury management, you can’t truly be independent, you can’t truly make independent decisions. A lot of this technology — with stablecoins at the top of that — really allow for treasury management conversations at all levels of the aid chain, and they really should start at the local level. A local organisation building from scratch on a blockchain-based stablecoin treasury solution can put best practices in place right from the start, with the latest technology and compliance tools. It’s a really exciting time for local groups to embrace this and use it to push the localisation conversation forward. To me it’s extremely powerful in that conversation.
Ka Man: Thanks very much for that, Alex. I just wanted to ask a quick follow-up question — you mentioned “last mile.” I’m thinking you mean actually getting the cash to the community, that final stage of the process. But I just wanted to check my understanding and clarify this with you.
Alex: Yes — last mile can mean a few things in this context, but here I mean: when you have a stablecoin like USDC and it exists in a wallet, certainly you can use that USDC in its current form, but in most cases you’ll want to convert it to fiat, to whatever local currency you need. That conversion — the off-ramp into day-to-day currency — is still an area where a lot of innovation needs to happen there. So when we say last-mile challenges or problems, we mean converting that USDC or other stablecoin or crypto into something usable in that city, in that village, in that area.
Ka Man: That’s interesting — that’s something I’ve wondered about: how does it actually happen? How does that person actually get their hands on this? So thank you for explaining that.
31:02: Chapter 4: From pilots to practice: applications v ‘innovation theatre’
Ka Man: So, just to build on what we’ve been talking about — Alex, could you walk us through some top-level examples of how these technologies are currently being used and the challenges they’re aiming to solve?
Alex: In the interest of time I won’t go too deep, but maybe we can have further conversations on these in the future. The one that’s front and centre is cash and voucher assistance. Given the constraints on budgets and logistics, CVA has come to the forefront as the most efficient and dignified way of providing aid — so that’s a huge one. Treasury management, as I mentioned, is underexplored but deserves a podcast of its own. Localisation is definitely a concern — how money flows from donors all the way to implementation. Money is lost throughout that process to fees and intermediaries and all those things. How do we lessen how many jumps it has to make before it gets to where it needs to get to which in turn ensures those resources are as robust as humanly possible when they get there.
Those are the big ones, but there are so many other applications — like inventory tracking. One example I can’t stop thinking about: when I was doing this work, connectivity was a real issue and centralised databases were a massive issue because of that connectivity. There was no source of truth for inventory around the world. So we would have one person report from a field office these are the pharmaceuticals we have, but there was no real way to determine if that was correct or not unless you were there on the ground. With new technologies and improved connectivity, a picture that emerges where there is a source of truth. That’s a pretty direct example I’d say that’s still relevant today.
All these things though, what they have in common is, current intractable problems that have been around for a long time, challenges that we all know and have talked at length about. Then looking at all the different potential blockchain solutions and then how they specifically apply and do they apply? Because there’s another part to this that we don’t discuss very often — the first question should be: is there a blockchain solution for this? No or yes? If it’s it’s yes, great, there’s a whole path to go down. Frequently the answer will be that there’s possibly a better solution here. And I can tell you in so many of the conversations I’ve had with NGOs and I asked them you know, how did you get to the point of this doing this pilot or what made you make this decision, the answer is: hey it fell into our lap, or it was an opportunity came to us as opposed to: we had a problem, and we looked at the solutions, and we thought this was a viable solution.
So I think there does need to be a shift there a bit. This is exciting stuff, it feels like we solve all these different problems, and I think both Natalie and I and most of us in our sector believe that’s true, but it’s not universally true. So just making sure we’re applying these things in the right way will help with frustration, focus, it will help treasuries. There’s a lot to be gained from looking at these solutions with a critical eye and making the right decision right off the bat. There’s a lot of benefit here and there are so many challenges that should at least have a look at blockchain first, and then make a decision,
Natalie: Because I think as as well blockchain isn’t going to be the answer to everything. There was definitely a point where every new project had “blockchain” in it and you’d get funding. Sometimes you’d look at it and think: why do you need the blockchain exactly? And I think almost because of that, it became a fad — a buzzword — that actually nthe real value was almost lost. I’m hoping it’s been around long enough, people have calmed down a bit oh let’s use blockchain for everything and can think more objectively: does it make sense in this context?
Ka Man: Do you know, it’s so interesting to hear you both say that because when I’ve talked to people about blockchain, I’ve said oh I’m recording a podcast on blockchain, they say, “Oh, that was like a big thing a few years ago, that was like the big trend” [laughs]— and kind of roll their eyes, honestly. Roll their eyes a little bit. And it’s interesting that you say people because for their proposals, it might attract donors perhaps. And it makes me think about the conversations I’ve been having around AI, because there’s obviously a lot of hype around AI. People obviously want to show they’re innovating and maybe looking for use cases for AI, rather than looking at those organisational pain points and asking: can AI actually help us here? Actually I find it quite refreshing to hear you both say it’s not always the answer. Blockchain is not always the answer. You’re obviously evangelical about the potential benefits and power, but you’re not evangelical as in, let’s just push blockchain [laughs] as a solution to everything, right.
Alex: I’d just say that we are evangelical — but evangelical about privacy. Whatever form we’re able to implement that in, that’s really our goal. And if I may — you mentioned the article, which is directly related to what you must mentioned. We and others have looked at so many projects and pilots in the aid sector over the years, and almost none have resulted in actual system-wide implementation.
So I wrote a article about innovation theatre — exactly as Natalie said, where donors react positively to NGOs coming in and asking for money to run a pilot. They say yes, it looks great. And then not a whole lot comes out of that investment. So are we really talking about innovation, or is it innovation theatre? I hope people read the article and come up with their own thoughts and maybe ways we can move through this going forward.
The reason I wrote it in the first place was that there were multiple questions directly related to this during that panel from people in the field who were clearly seeing pilot after pilot after pilot. It was impacting their workflows, their day jobs — they were seeing it as another task rather than a potential tool in the toolbox for moving innovation forward. That bums me out, that makes me sad that there are these tools people are interacting with them in a way that’s frustrating, and they’re not seeing the overall value because it’s not being presented in a way that really puts that value first.
So hopefully through conversations like this, through these types of articles, we can get these conversations more engrained. My big thing and the thing I want to see more than anything elese — is that when these conversations happen in an NGO, that people ask critical questions. Ask about privacy. Ask about implementation and what comes post pilot. What would it take for this to be a full implementation? If we can get people asking those questions throughout the entirety of the structure of an NGO and NGO world in general, we’re going to see real progress and real innovation that centres dignity and privacy — and the things the sector holds dear today. Do no harm.That’s what we’re talking about here. Nobody wants to see resources wasted or people’s time wasted. We all want to see these challenges solved. But there needs to be a different way of going about it, because what we’re all currently doing isn’t resulting in real implementation.
Ka Man: So fascinating. In my mind, as you’re speaking, I keep linking this to AI because this is something I’m deeply involved with at the moment around the integration of AI. I almost see what’s happening with AI now as what you’re describing with blockchain where there was a lot of excitement around the introduction of generative AI and ChatGPT, and it became a big thing, and now people are racing to innovate, secure funding for pilots. But now you’re hearing about pilotitis— people aren’t progressing, they’re not scaling across organisations. In the research we conducted in May and June last year, with 2,500 respondents globally, around 8% said AI was highly integrated across their organisation. We just did a check-in in January and the figure had increased by 1%. Most are still in the experimentation and trialling phases — so we’re not reaching increased levels of maturity or organisation-wide adoption. There’s clearly a lot of eagerness to secure funding and show relevance.
So I almost feel like the blockchain community, INGOs, UN agencies — we should be talking to each other and looking at lessons learned.
Alex: And I think the scaling problem we see in the aid sector with pilots is almost mirrored in each individual’s ability to keep up with the knowledge — what do we expect each other to understand and know? How do we change our expectations around knowledge and productivity when we have all these new tools that are supposed to make life easier and more efficient, more knowledgeable but at the end of the day are adding a lot of work to your current workload? That’s a huge challenge. So you really need to come up with your own strategy for how to approach these – gaining this knowledge and then how do you use and share it with others in appropriate ways.
Ka Man: Yes, that’s so true. And I think it’s not an exaggeration to say this sector is in crisis — people are showing up and doing their best to get through the day, and to then have the bandwidth to think about how to approach these new technologies and tools and how does that impact on my work today or tomorrow.
42:23: Chapter 5: Who needs to understand this — and who’s in the room?
Ka Man: So I wanted to bring you back in, Nat. How important do you think it is for humanitarians — people who may not interface directly with these technologies — to get a handle on what blockchain and crypto actually are?
Natalie: I think what’s important is to understand what they give you — what the properties are, what they can provide — rather than knowing exactly how they work. And this is true with anything, but you end up having to trust the people who are telling you how it works and what it achieves. There’s always going to be an element of that unless you’re going to learn all of it yourself. I trust a doctor if they tell me something — I’m not going to study for a medical degree. There’s always going to be an element of trust, and it’s about who you’re trusting.
When it comes to things becoming buzzwords, people like being excited about stuff. If someone says to you, “we should use this because it’s exciting,” understanding their motivation — why they’re suggesting a particular tool — is important. So that when they say “I think this is useful because of X, Y and Z,” you can trust their intentions. That’s always going to be challenging. But that’s where actively working with people over a long period of time, and trusting the people they trust, becomes valuable.
We talk about blockchain being trustless or low-trust — but there’s always going to be an element of trust no matter what. So if I were someone wanting to get to grips with something I’d heard could be really useful for a problem I’m trying to solve, I’d try to seek out multiple people working in that field to get different opinions, understand their motivations, ask whether someone else has used it, why it was considered helpful, what the trade-offs were, what the problems were. Any new technology or idea should always be explored, but it’s always so important not to get swept up in fads — and to figure out who the people are that can give you the information you need to make the decisions you need to make.
Ka Man: Thanks, Nat. When these conversations are happening, people tend to talk to people similar to themselves — we move in certain circles. When I was talking about blockchain with a collaborator, we were reflecting on the gendered dimension — how technology at large seems to be skewed towards men, and how there seems to be an association with a certain type of culture. Nat, could you share any reflections on how important it is for this conversation to be democratised?
Natalie: Oh, I could talk about that for a long time. I definitely think there’s a sort of crypto bro gatekeeping that can happen. When I first heard about this position, I was a bit wary — I had those associations. I wondered what it would be like. The tech is really interesting, but what would the organisation be like? To be clear, I am not working for a Bitcoin organisation. I’ve chosen to work for a non-profit with people who genuinely care and have a real mission. And I have never felt treated differently because of my gender or for any other reason.
Since working in tech, that’s always been a problem — I struggle to think of many industries where it isn’t. Things have gotten better, but it’s all relative. I do think that in the Zcash ecosystem, because it is a privacy coin, it attracts people for slightly different reasons than other cryptocurrencies. When I tell people I work in crypto, I always feel I need to caveat it — “I work for a privacy coin, I do not work with crypto bros, I would not work with crypto bros.” It’s definitely an ongoing problem. But wherever you are, you find the people you like to work with, the environment you’re comfortable with. And I genuinely do not feel I’ve experienced anything differently from any of my colleagues based on gender or anything else. That’s not just me saying the Zcash Foundation is amazing — although it is.
Ka Man: Thanks very much, Nat. Alex, did you want to share any reflections on that?
Alex: I’ll just reinforce what Natalie said. I think we are in a unique corner of the crypto ecosystem. Like Natalie, I came to this world as a non-profit person first and a crypto person second. I saw that this could solve problems I’d witnessed for many years, and that’s what drew me to it. I’m really proud of our team and our little corner — I think it genuinely helps us understand the NGO world and have meaningful conversations there, because we’re coming at this from a different perspective. All we’re trying to do is solve challenges. If we’re able to do that through the technology we’ve developed, great. If something else is a better solution, we’ll say so and do what we can to help implement it. We want to see progress on these huge issues in the NGO world. And at the end of the day, we all deeply care about privacy — that’s one thing that’s the big uniter between all of us.
50:04: Chapter 6: Vision, closing thoughts, and a note on viewing keys
Ka Man: Thanks very much, Alex. Keeping that forward-looking lens, I wanted to ask — what’s your vision for how this technology can evolve within the humanitarian sector? What are your aspirations, Natalie?
Natalie: I think ultimately these are young technologies and we’re still figuring out how far they can go and what they’re useful for. I hope people can get away from thinking that crypto is just for crypto bros or for trading Bitcoin. In the wider Zcash community, we mostly just share an understanding of the importance of financial privacy, and we like solving problems. I think the vital next step is ensuring we’re solving the problems that actually need to be solved — and that happens when we have a genuine connection with the people who are going to be practically using these tools. That’s when we’ll see real value and make sure we’re building the right things. I think that’s where we’re headed, and I’m excited to see what comes next.
Alex: That was brilliant, Natalie — I couldn’t agree more. Two perspectives on the future. First: it’s so imperative that programme staff can critically evaluate a crypto-based CVA proposal. We need finance staff who can understand stablecoin treasury management. We need protection staff who can assess data exposure risk. That’s future value — that’s how these careers need to start evolving. Those who can’t engage will become increasingly dependent on technical advisors whose interests may not align with theirs — exactly what Natalie was saying earlier about trust. You need your own knowledge first so you can determine who to trust.
But beyond the career considerations, the protection stakes are real. We haven’t talked about this much today, but poorly designed systems can expose beneficiaries to harm — and they will continue to do so at an increasingly rapid rate as tools evolve to better match transactions with senders, monetary values, and other data points. That technology is evolving every day and it’s a huge concern. You cannot honour a commitment to do no harm in relation to technologies you don’t understand. That’s one huge call to action.
The overall vision is a humanitarian sector where financial infrastructure is no longer a barrier to local leadership — where whether a community organisation can receive funds, protect its beneficiaries, and operate with real autonomy isn’t determined by whether a correspondent bank in London decides they’re worth the compliance risk. The tools to deliver on twenty years of localisation promises now exist. We don’t have to wait for the international finance system to reform itself.
And lastly — the technology is the easy part. The deeper vision is for a sector that treats financial privacy as a protection issue with the same seriousness it brings to physical security or do-no-harm principles. Because until we do that, we’ll keep building systems that serve donor comfort at the expense of beneficiary safety. And that’s not humanitarianism — that’s just administration with good branding.
There’s a lot of work to do. But these conversations — the conversations you all facilitate — and getting people to understand the role they play and the kind of dark future we’re walking into if we don’t act — that requires action today. If we’re going to avoid creating far bigger challenges for ourselves in the future, we need to start now. That means treating beneficiary data, in all its forms, with dignity and respect, with an understanding that the future will only bring more surveillance — more tools to ensure that people in power, or people with nefarious purposes, have exactly what they need to execute worst-case scenarios. But we can avoid this. And that’s what this work is really about.
Ka Man: Thank you very much, Alex. That’s really thought-provoking. I think both of you have made a very clear and compelling argument that this is ultimately about privacy protection and the principle of do no harm. And that probably gets lost when people first encounter the world of blockchain — hearing these concepts and thinking they’re abstract or remote, whereas actually you’re linking them to the most fundamental reason and rationale for our work. So thank you very much for articulating that so clearly.
I’ve loved this conversation and would love to delve into so much more — maybe we could do a follow-up sometime. Just before we wrap up, is there a short closing message you’d like to share with our listeners?
Alex: Whatever your role, whatever your context — if you work in or around humanitarian response, this conversation is yours to be part of. Not because you need to become a blockchain expert, but because the decisions being made right now will affect the people we’re all here to serve. Get curious. Ask the protection questions early. Make sure programme and protection perspectives are in the room. This technology is going to keep moving forward with or without us. The question is whether the people it’s supposed to help have advocates who understand it well enough to make sure it actually does.
Ka Man: Thank you, Alex. How about you, Natalie?
Natalie: Don’t write off cryptocurrency based on things you’ve heard. This technology is still evolving, and don’t feel like you need to understand everything — it’s completely fine if you don’t. But find the people you trust who are informed, and ask the questions you want to ask. Privacy is not someone else’s problem — it’s something we all need to think about. If you want to learn more, we’ll add some links in the show notes. And at Zcash, we have a community forum — if you want to get involved and ask questions, please do sign up. We’d love to hear from you.
Ka Man: Brilliant. Thank you so much, both. From this conversation, I’ve already learned a lot more and I definitely feel like you’ve demystified a lot of the key concepts for me — as well as their relevance to humanitarian work as well as some of its future potential. So Alex Bornstein and Natalie Eskinazi, thanks very much for joining us for today’s episode of Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives from the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
[Music]
After we finished recording this conversation, one more question came up in my mind that I wanted to put to Alex and Natalie afterwards. I’d been wondering — with shielded transactions keeping everything private by default, how does that work if a donor or organisation needs some level of accountability? Is there any mechanism for that?
Alex explained that this is what viewing keys are for: essentially a read-only password which lets you actively choose to share your transaction history with someone, whether that’s for a tax audit, business partner, or a donor transparency report, without giving them the ability to touch your funds. As he put it, it transforms privacy from a locked room into a controlled door and you decide when, and who you share.
Thank you for listening to Fresh Humanitarian Perspectives from the Humanitarian Leadership Academy.
[Music ends]
