Connecting Communities Onchain with Haraka and Bloom Network
At Capsule, our mission is to make crypto more accessible and approachable for everyone. We believe that crypto has the power to transform how people connect, transact, and engage with the world. By simplifying the crypto experience, our hope is to empower more people to confidently explore and embrace what’s possible with ownership and sovereignty.
This philosophy has come to life in partnerships with purpose-driven organizations like Haraka and Bloom Network. Together, we’ve unlocked new reach and opportunities for their user base.
Haraka: Unlocking Opportunity in Ghana with Reputation-Based Loans
Haraka is transforming access to capital in Ghana, enabling individuals without traditional credit histories to access low-cost loans denominated in stablecoins.
Haraka’s platform operates by connecting real-world investors in tokenized private credit markets with entrepreneurs worldwide who need capital to expand their businesses. This process requires stakeholders to add liquidity by staking their assets, which are then locked to mint local stablecoins. The stablecoins fund microloans underwritten by phone data and social reputation.
Bringing underserved micro-entrepreneurs onto the blockchain has presented several key challenges, particularly when it comes to transitioning web2 users into web3 users. Haraka’s target user base is primarily made up of micro-entrepreneurs from semi-urban areas who are generally unfamiliar with crypto and heavily rely on mobile money systems like MPesa. These users are often not technologically savvy, and while many have access to smartphones, they are typically low-cost models lacking the advanced processing power needed for crypto apps. This limits their ability to use crypto wallets, creating a significant barrier to adoption.
One of the most significant pain points Haraka encountered was the complexity of managing seed phrases. For users unfamiliar with crypto, writing down and safeguarding a seed phrase can be overwhelming. When lost, users cannot recover their wallets or funds, which can cause anxiety and ultimately discourage adoption.
In past pilots without Capsule, Haraka witnessed firsthand how users struggled with this. Many would write down their seed phrase and hand it over to someone else for safekeeping, or even store it in a community leader’s book along with others’ seed phrases. This created security risks, as users didn’t fully understand the importance of keeping this information private. When seed phrases were lost, Haraka had to manually recreate accounts – a time-consuming and counterproductive process, especially for a reputation system tied to wallet activity. This challenge was compounded by users' reliance on familiar, low-tech methods of managing finances, which is very different from how crypto works.
To address this, Haraka leveraged Capsule’s SDKs to onboard users with their phone number. Instead of needing to understand seed phrases or deal with complicated crypto terms, users only needed to enter their phone number. This approach allowed users to access Haraka’s services directly through their mobile web browsers without the need for additional app downloads, accommodating constraints like low smartphone storage and limited connectivity.
The Result
"After implementing Capsule, Haraka saw a huge boost in user participation and faster loan approval times. Phone number authentication combined with the use of local stablecoins made the solution feel like any other mobile payment or financial service, without the intimidating aspects of crypto. [Capsule] reduced onboarding time from 30 minutes to just 5 minutes" – Jessica (Co-Founder/COO, Haraka)
"The process was so simple, it was like A, B, C. I just put in my phone number, got my account set up, and was ready to go. It didn’t feel complicated at all. It was so quick." - Haraka user
Bloom Network: Nurturing Local Solutions for Global Challenges
Bloom Network is a global community dedicated to regenerative culture and environmental sustainability. By empowering collaboration through local chapters, Bloom connects individuals and organizations dedicated to ecological restoration and community building through their platform. Their mission spans the globe, yet their focus is deeply rooted in empowering local change makers to share resources and scale their solutions.
Bloom’s community is worldwide, with members from countries like Brazil, the Philippines, Turkey, and beyond. As they brought more community leaders into web3, the process of setting up wallets became a significant hurdle in the onboarding journey. When beginning to run their first Local Action Rewards grants program, they were using a separate app for the bounties smart contracts interface. It was difficult to verify if claim addresses were members of Bloom Network, and even more difficult for Local Bloom leaders to get wallet addresses at all for their members, limiting the amount of recognition and grant funding each Local Bloom hub and its participants could receive.
Bloom chose Capsule to simplify wallet creation, allowing users to use their email addresses, eliminating the need for complex seed phrases and lowering the barrier of entry to regenerative activities. This also allowed Bloom to integrate their bounties platform directly into their social app, enabling them to consolidate their app. This also reduced off-ramping friction and centralized labor time teaching people to use exchange accounts with Capsule’s Moonpay integration. By leveraging Capsule, Bloom was able to ensure a more user-friendly experience, empowering grassroots communities to engage more seamlessly with their ecosystem.
The Result
"[After integrating Capsule,] Bloom Network increased event visibility by 1000% attracting more participants and unlocking new funding opportunities. [Bloom has] grown their online membership base by 10x and 90% of members are actively engaged. [Capsule] has unlocked new funding opportunities with better onchain metrics and has allowed all Local Bloom Hubs to be eligible for more retroactive grants programs." – Magenta (Principal Systems Architect, Bloom Network)
"We have been having a really hard time onboarding our [local] community to Web3 wallets. [Capsule] on Bloom has made things so much easier for us." - Berk Sohto, Earthist Network, Turkey
"The impact reporting was magical, I want to say that it was sacred for me. There was so much I went through in making those reports, around feeling the generosity inherent in doing this work - knowing that it's going to be seen and met where it is for the value that it has, and that these [funds] that are flowing through our Local Bloom, are then met in this Global Bloom. That was just really celebratory for me." - Tricia Stapleton, Los Higuerones Cooperativa, Costa Rica
Where Crypto Meets Real-World Change
We’re so excited to see how use cases like Haraka’s and Bloom’s are becoming increasingly viable and widely adopted by communities around the world, thanks to the advancements of onchain infrastructure. We're honored to support projects that create new opportunities for resilience and financial opportunity where they're needed the most.