MADRID, Dec.31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - It may sound like a marketing stunt, but the founders of the first LGBT + cryptocurrency said they want to harness the economic power of the community with the goal of "changing the world."
El maricoin, a play on words drawn from a homophobic insult in Spanish, was launched on Friday in a week-long pilot test involving 10 businesses in Chueca, known as the LGBT + neighborhood of Spain's capital Madrid.
Maricoin sponsors aim for the virtual currency to begin trading early next year, paving the way for it to be used as a means of payment at LGBT businesses and events around the world.
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"As we move this economy, why shouldn't our community benefit from it, instead of banks, insurance companies, or large corporations that often don't help LGBT + people?" co-founder Juan Belmonte, 48, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Belmonte, a hairdresser and entrepreneur, said the idea for the LGBT + cryptocurrency came to him while partying with friends at Madrid's Pride event in July this year.
But it traces the origins of the project to 2017, when the ultra-conservative group HazteOir launched a campaign against the rights of trans people by sending a bus through Spain with the words: "Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Don't be fooled." .
The conservative Christian group's campaign was quickly banned by Spanish authorities, but Belmonte said it made him realize that he "had to do something" to help harness the economic influence of the LGBT + community in the fight against homophobia.
HUGE MARKET
The global LGBT + market is huge, with Swiss bank Credit Suisse research suggesting that it would rank as the world's fourth-largest economy, behind Japan but ahead of Germany in terms of purchasing power.
A 2018 study by Kantar Consulting and the LGBT + social network Hornet estimated the purchasing power of the community in the United States alone at $ 1 trillion in 2016, almost equal to that of African American or Hispanic consumers.
Maricoin is backed by Miami-based venture capital firm Borderless Capital, and the initiative's chief executive, Francisco รlvarez, said 8,000 people were already on a waiting list looking to buy maricoins before the coin. start trading.
According to their plans, the LGBT + cryptocurrency will be accepted as payment by companies - from restaurants and cafes to shops and hotels - that have signed an "equality manifesto."
Among other things, the manifesto defends the rights of LGBT + people and "all people in a situation of exclusion", in addition to advocating a "social, ethical, transversal and transparent economy".
"The establishments that accept our currency will appear on our map, which will function as an LGBTI guide for anyone visiting any city in the world," said รlvarez, 48.
"If they violate any of the points of our anti-discrimination manifesto, for example if they fire a pregnant woman for her pregnancy, they will be expelled from maricoin," he added.
The coin will also have its own LGBT-related language: transfers between maricoin users are called "trans."
รlvarez and Belmonte also hope that the company can generate a source of financing for LGBT + businesses and community initiatives around the world.
"We will be able to give microcredits for people to set up a small LGBTI cafe in Colombia, or to support projects that help queer refugees flee from countries where they would be stoned to death," he said.
"We hope to change the world."
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Report by Enrique Anarte @enriqueanarte; Edited by Helen Popper and Hugo Greenhalgh. Please give credit to the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, which covers the lives of people around the world struggling to live free or just. Visited http://news.trust.org
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