Today you'll discover how WIDE is turning everyday financial activity into thousands of meals for those in need, the mechanics of the EAT token, where a portion of every trade flows directly to hunger relief with no extra donation required, how an exclusive national partnership with Feed the Children is helping turn cryptocurrency transactions into real charitable impact, and how WIDE is reimagining crypto philanthropy, moving beyond one-off donations, to a sustainable model where every transaction funds hunger relief automatically. Welcome to Crypto Altruists, where we explore the intersections of Web3 and Social Good to the stories of impact-driven builders and offer actionable insights to empower your journey into the world of blockchain for good. I'm your host, Drew Simon. Now, before we dive in, please remember that this is not financial or legal advice, and always do your own research on any of the projects or investment opportunities that we discuss. Welcome, welcome back to the CryptoAltruist Podcast. So excited to have you here today. Thanks so much for joining. Before we dive in, I hope you'll give me a bit of your time as I want to share something exciting. We're thrilled to be participating in Octin Epoch 12. It is our third time participating in Octin. Couldn't be happier. And for those who aren't familiar, Octin is one of the most innovative public goods funding platforms in Web3. They've put up a lot of money to support projects building in the Ethereum ecosystem, whether it's public goods, you know, tech, education, and we're so excited to be one of uh the projects taking part in this round. And there are many ways you can support Crypto Altruist in this round. If you hold GLM, you can lock it on Octin and allocate your rewards to us during the allocation window. You can also contribute directly with ETH. Every bit of support helps us keep producing this podcast and showing the world the good of crypto. There is also 200 ETH and matching funds available this round to amplify the power of your donation. So that's no small amount there, and you know a little donation can go a long way. So we've put all the links and details in the show notes. So if you're able to, we'd be grateful for your support. And the round runs until June 30th. So thank you so much for your time, and let's get back to why we're all here, to hear the exciting story of Wide. So I'd like to start this conversation off with a question. What if the simple act of trading, buying, selling, or just spending could feed a hungry person? Not through a separate donation, not through a roundup at checkout prompt at your grocery store, but built right into the mechanics of the money itself. That's the idea at the heart of today's episode. I'm joined by Martin Sims and Aaron Rafferty, the co-founders of WIDE, that's WYDE, a social impact exchange built on base, the Ethereum Layer 2, where transaction-based fees are directed into verified charitable grants for hunger relief. They call themselves an impact exchange, and the model is built on a concept called contributory consumption, where everyday financial activity, like crypto trades or even debit card purchases, generates charitable impact by design, rather than relying on one-off acts of generosity. At the core of it is the EAT token. When someone buys, sells, or transfers it, a portion of every transaction flows towards funding meals, and it's all recorded on the blockchain for public verification. So you can actually see the impact happening in real time. It's really cool. Wide recently announced an exclusive national partnership with Feed the Children, an organization that reached nearly 15 million people last year, and our guests today have big hopes of growing that number. They've already helped fund tens of thousands of meals, and they've run their first trade to Feedathon, a trading competition that generates funding for meals for those in need. And recently they announced the Eat Debit card, extending the model from crypto into everyday spending. But what really gets me excited is the bigger vision. Martin and Aaron talk about a future of smart currency where you might hold a hunger token or a cancer research token that quietly does good in the background as you go about your life. It's an ambitious idea at the intersection of blockchain and social impact. And today we're gonna dig into all of it, so let's dive in. Martin and Aaron, we got two folks here from Wide, which is actually a project I just was recently exposed to, but I don't know how because it's doing some really incredible work that aligns so much with what we're building, and I can't wait to dive into it. So, Martin and Aaron, thank you so much for being here today and for sharing your experience and your story.
SPEAKER_00Thanks, Drew. Yeah, glad to be here. Yeah, thanks for having us, Drew. Very excited.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, for sure. So um I'd love to start with you and how you got into this space. It's always so interesting. Can you share about your journey to the world of Web3 and what led you to Create Wide?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks for having us, Drew. Um so, you know, Aaron Rafferty. Uh, you know, my background actually was in behavioral science first. Um, and that all came down to how do you actually use technology to uh help people help themselves, specifically with you know, health outcomes and and things like this. And so my my actual entry was it was uh in in that world, it was into AI, you know, back in 2018 and 19, um, where you know you have AI technology that was very nascent uh at that stage, but it was still being leveraged in apps to help people um effectively um train tools that would help them um with their own health outcomes. Um one of the apps I worked on was was one of the you know primary uh randomized control trials in that in that field. But all the while, um, my big push has always been democratizing access to everything. And so that's a natural fit for Web3. Um that's a natural fit for you know an investment thesis in Web3. And so being uh kind of early in that that mind space of always had a uh interest in in blockchain technology, interest in, you know, uh, you know, Bitcoin from from the earliest days uh to um you know from investor to obviously um building in the technology starting in 2020, 2021. Um and so that's that's really kind of like where my start, my foothold was, and and um I'll let Martin go into kind of more of the story there.
SPEAKER_00I hear that story a lot of times, you know, and I love it every time because we're probably why why we're partners, right? Because it's it's definitely a yin and yang. Um so I was uh I'm actually the son of a minister, right? So, you know, taking it way back. Um and I I've just always had heart for people, right? Because maybe it's because of that. I don't know why. Um and um early on, right, like when I was about six years old, actually, I I took a summer with my grandpa and he gave me a Wall Street Journal and we paper traded stock. And I, you know, night over night I made money on on paper and I was hooked. I was like, man, this is that was really cool. Um and so I took that into a finance career, right? I I worked um as a CFO of two publicly traded companies. Um and while I was there, I really um, you know, not only did I get a knack for you know strategy structure and people and how you can actually pull levers to actually provide value to others in a way that provides value back to the company. Um it's also, you know, one of these these things where it's when you're creating these narratives that are meant to enable investors to buy into the journey of an organization. Um, I think that that really does come back to back to the reason why people invest is because the outcome of that company and what they're doing is actually playing a role in um bettering the well-being of people, right? You think about Tesla, it's like electric cars and vehicles, right? Like Apple, everyone loves that device, right? Um, and so fundamentally, right, we have this belief that you can actually kind of take a nonprofit public um because in the event that uh the activities in that organization are fundamentally impacting others, there's a lot of correlation to the public markets, right? And so um that's kind of my background, right? I have this like this vision of you know, if revenue goes up and beats forecasts, uh boom, right? The stock goes through the roof. Well, what if it was MILS, right? What if it was we're forecasting to feed 30,000 people this quarter and we feed 50,000 and everyone in the community just loves it, right? They're like, oh my gosh, amazing. Let's do more, right? Let's buy into this vision and let's bring together people, right, into a community that has common goals towards that objective.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. Really cool. Great job uh kind of explaining that side of things. And I think that leads nicely into um my next question around like what the heck is wide, right? And you've described yourself as like an impact exchange, uh, which I find really interesting. And um what does that mean and what is the problem you're trying to solve? And maybe just like a high level of what exactly wide is.
SPEAKER_00I think um, you know, honestly, we're trying to figure out what we are, right? And I think impact exchange is one of the first things that um it starts to make sense because um we do have a uh quasi-asset, right, that's tradable. And every time that asset trades, um, there's a fee that comes off of it. And that fee actually fundamentally um will go towards a cause, which that cause that we've actually uh gone down right now is is hunger, and we've partnered with Feed the Children um to accommodate that. Um I think as you'll see in this conversation, we'll get into it. There's a lot more than it just being an exchange. Um and I think you know that's where we kind of see this big unlock of unlocking the innovation of what this is to bring infrastructure into society where every transaction could actually um enable hunger, right? Relief or or cancer relief, right? Or anything um that actually matters to people.
SPEAKER_01There's the idea of the impact exchange, and that makes sense because especially um let's just take you know, six months ago when crypto was doing really well. Um that that was a very good uh you know drawing point um on this. And obviously crypto's not doing great. So um being an exchange in crypto, it's not it's not the most interesting thing that you could be. Um, which, you know, we never saw ourselves as a crypto project. We never saw ourselves as this thing that needed um to be you know branded as that. Um what what we've always seen ourselves as is, you know, an access point that was looking to solve problems that nonprofits had, looking to solve problems that donors have. You know, some of those problems for nonprofits, especially today, um, you actually have a big funding problem. Uh, you know, funding's drying up, at least in the states, on the federal side, funding's drying up. And and and even the belief in nonprofit, even the best ones, right? Nonprofits, there's a lot of them that do really good work. Um, a lot of a lot of uh people in the space are getting a bad rap, but the the organizations as a whole, like they they do really good work, they are very efficient with the the dollar, and they actually have really great outcomes. And what we are aiming to do is actually elevate those, uh, those outcomes especially. And and so the the donor side, um, we see the the donors are starting to not believe in in nonprofits, right? In the the act of philanthropy, uh in especially a donation. It's getting harder to draw this out. And this is what we're actually finding with all of our conversations with nonprofits. And so, how do you actually solve that where you can have effectively unlocked funding for nonprofits without ever having to elicit that donation anymore? That especially a one-time donation that you then have to go back and get the next year and you have to get it the next year. Um, how do you also at the same time give those quasi-donors or what we'd like to say is members, the ability to have more of a voice in the organization? Right. Today you you have the officers and the and the directors and everyone that runs the organization, um, and then you have the people that work for the organization and volunteer, and then you have the donors that give money. And everything seems siloed where the only people making this the decisions are at the top. And that's a really weird place to be when the mission is for the people. So we're actually looking at it, you know, from bottom up. How do you actually reframe this? So if you actually go bottom up from the people, you actually are able to bring more financing to the outcomes as well, because more people believe in it. So that's that's really where we're looking to go. And whether it comes out as an exchange, um, which obviously that function will always be there. Um, but but from a selling point, we're definitely finding there's much more opportunity in other places.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. And you raise a really interesting point around the current kind of context of funding for nonprofits. In my background, it's in the nonprofit sector, um, and I still work with a lot of nonprofits every day. And, you know, everyone hates grants, right? And and nonprofits forever relied on like just chasing those one-off grants or those individual kind of large, larger donations. Um, it's unsustainable. And I think that this has, you know, proven it, right? And it's proven that there's a need to look at um other models. And and what I really like about WIDE is this kind of idea of what's called contributory consumption, uh, where it's more focused on like everyday financial activity generating charitable impact versus individuals having to kind of make one-off donations on their own. Um, really cool idea. Uh kind of shifting, donating from like a more kind of having to go out and actually, you know, actively do something to more of like a passive activity that's part of everyday life. Can you break that down? Uh, why you see this as such a powerful unlock?
SPEAKER_00You know, at the end of the day, um, I think first off, we are talking to all these nonprofits right now. And it's very interesting because 90% of their job, a lot of them, is fundraising. And and we look at that and we say, you know, is that um can that change, right? Can it actually be completely reverse where 90% of the activities is actually fundamentally trying to make sure you're allocating in the right way, doing the right projects, right? All the things that actually matter on what that funding is actually for. Um and so we have this crazy idea, right? Where um we think that if you look at transactions as a whole, um, and I mean just pick, you know, a sector, you you have trillions of flow, like trillions of volume there. Um and so we think, right, that there is a model at which you could do everything you're doing today, uh, and every, you know, let's say you have a debit card, for example, you spin on that debit card, and a portion actually goes to our model. Um and that's actually what we've done, right? So we are launching a debit card this week, actually, um, where every time you spend on that debit card, because we are the issuer, we have the ability to control where the 2% um transaction fee actually flows. Um and so, right, because of our model, we are uh allocating that directly to um to this model, right? However, I think it's it's a lot bigger than that, right? That's the first use case, and that's that's kind of like our test of can this make sense? Um, you know, we think that if you look at the Gen Z uh generation, right, they want more, they they want more impact. Um they're trying to identify what bank to actually use right now, right? They're graduating from college and it's like, all right, like, do I use Chase or do I use this other card that actually I'm now in a community of other people that care about the same things that I care about, right, which is hunger. Um but I think it goes deeper than that, right? Because it's it really goes to I'm at the grocery store and today I click, you know, one dollar donation. Um, where does that go, right? And what does that actually do for me? Um, I think in our model, right, there's actually a model there where it's not a donation at all, right? It's actually more of a membership fee. Like you're you're buying into the membership of the agenda of trying to eradicate these problems that we have in the world, hunger being one of them. And as that actual um as that actual thing uh gets solved, and as more people join that community, the network grows, and so does potentially the value of the network.
SPEAKER_02Such a cool model. And I think you're right, it will appeal to a lot of people that want to do good, um, recognizing that you know it can be hard to do good, and there's the financial barrier for a lot of folks right now as you know, with rising costs and inflation, and a lot of people are struggling to get by, and we're seeing a decrease in individual donations. So shifting it to a way where it's not them having to go out of their way and put up a uh you know a larger amount of capital if they wanted to make a one-off donation, just making it part of their everyday life is such a cool concept. And I'd love to talk about the Eat token uh that you've built. Um, oh, and before I do that, you mentioned also the debit card uh being out this week. So this episode will probably come out a week or two after uh the conversation. So it should be live. So check the show notes. I'll make sure to link that there. Um, but anyways, back to Eat. Let's talk about Eat. Um, really cool concept. When someone buys, sells, or transfers it, a portion of each transaction goes towards funding, funding meals, which is really great. Um, can you walk us through the mechanics, how it works, and kind of um the impacts that you've seen so far?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so EAT's effectively the first, you know, proof of concept of the the exchange part of of this. And and it's not just about the transactions. Um Eat's actually built in a way that uh it gives effectively governing rights over that impact. Um that's that's really important because that's one of the things that Web3 is really cool about, uh, or what's really cool about Web3, because you know, if you look at a stock today, it's stock gives you rights, it gives you rights to vote, it gives you rights to do all these things. But the ability to actually hold that stock and and and the people that are issuing that stock, all of those are individual gatekeepers effectively. And so it's not this like broad thing that you're able to actually um, you know represent that ownership across all areas of life. Um, one of them being um just just in the aspect of membership, right? If I'm a Tesla stockholder, I should also be uh the ability to now scan my Tesla stock holdings and uh effectively be a member to maybe maybe exclusive Tesla clubs. But that function's not not super possible today. It's actually becoming more possible with tokenization, but that's the really cool thing about Web3. And so with EAT itself, um we've we've created effectively a mechanism and you know, we're we're not necessarily the the creators of all this technology. We're the we're the individuals that say, you know, that's cool, that's really cool. I love what you know Vitalik did over there. Let's bring all these things in and take it towards something that we think would be really impactful for the world. And so with Eat, you know, every time that token or that asset trades, um, it actually we launched it on a decentralized exchange, which, you know, if if you know anything about Web3, then that is actually a permissionless rail that anyone can launch anything on. Um versus, you know, the gate kept uh rails that that are you know in the public stock exchange or even like Coinbase would be um considered more of a gate kept uh rail. And so um launching that, we we are able to actually program how the fees are are uh effectively transferred. And so every time that there is a trade, uh whether a buy or a sell, um there's a 1 to 5% dynamic fee that comes off of the token. And obviously, this is a bit technical, um, but for every let's just call it 1% of fees that come off of that trade, which that's pretty uh standard. You know, if you go and you go into your Coinbase app today and you go to try to buy something, you're paying up to 3% on that trade. And you know, who makes that money? Coinbase makes that money. Um and what do they make that money for? To create a good, generally good onboarding experience for you, to making it really easy for you to onboard funds um generally. Um, I think people have you know differing opinions of this. We're obviously on Coinbase, so um we we like it to a degree. Um and and they they also maintain you know your wallet and your holdings, and you don't have to hold your private keys and all these things. And so with this transaction fee that we that we've now now now have, we are taking a portion of that fee and sending it directly to um these charitable impacts. Um and all of that is completely transparent on the blockchain. Um that's that's really like the the big gap between blockchain and traditional finance rails. You don't see where anything's going when those fees come out of your, you know, let's say your debit card transaction, you go to a merchant and that merchant just paid 2% to Visa. You didn't know that. No one really knows about interchange fees. You you don't know about these these underlying fees that are occurring all around you. And so we're we're saying, you know, these fees happen, let's make sure they're going to the right place. And maybe that also brings in a reason for people to want to be part of that and trade it more and do more good because they're trading.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. That's really cool. And it's like I think this community aspect, the importance of it can't be understated because like the way philanthropy like traditionally is structured is kind of boring too, right? It's like you make a donation and maybe you get like a thank you letter or like an annual report or something like that, or you know, you get pestered every week for another donation. It's just you know, not really fun and feels very transactional. And so I think the community, you know, element is really interesting here. And you know, on that, uh you you mentioned that EAT is kind of like the first proof of concept, like piloting this. Do you envision a future where you could see other tokens for other causes and then the community having like a say in where their funds go as they make purchases?
SPEAKER_00100%. Um yeah, so so wide, right, which stands for Wyoming Decentralized Exchange. And we'll uh we can discuss why we chose that, but um, that really is kind of the parent to all future cause coins. Um, you know, I think I think for us, we um we know how nothing's easy, right? And so at the end of the day, we are highly focused on making sure that Eat is the one that you know sets the stage to show the world, right, how to do all the other ones. Um but yeah, I mean we we're already getting contacted by many nonprofits that actually want to do this. I think that, you know, at the end of the day, um, it really does. Come down to aligning communities. And so the ones that we're kind of prioritizing are the ones that actually have large community sets that can buy into exactly what we're doing. I'll give you like a funny one though. We look at Dogecoin and we're like, we're like, hmm, you know, we could have a dog coin that actually helps dogs, right? Um, which is kind of interesting, right? It's kind of fun. Um and we've actually been approached by some nonprofits that want to do that. And so I think you know that that could be on the roadmap as well. Um, but but yeah, no, it's it's it's really good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, really cool. I love that. And you know, on the note of partnerships, you'd mentioned earlier, uh Feed the Children uh being a big one, huge organization. Most listeners have probably heard of them in some degree. Uh they reached 50 million people, I think, last year, which is really amazing. Um, so talk to me about that partnership and kind of what that looks like and um, you know, moving forward for the for the Eat Token.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, you know, I think we know what we do really well. And um I think, you know, when you're doing anything like this, uh, you have to be be really pragmatic around the things that you should do and the things that you really should, you know, quasi-outsource or partner with the people that just like fundamentally have it, right? And I think um feed the children, not only do they have the distribution and the heart and you know, all of the right um transparency, right? And everything that aligns to like our beliefs, um, they they also just are on the cutting edge of thinking around these sorts of things, right? The the fact that you know they have the the openness to even um go towards uh this mission with us in the way that we're doing it, it's been you know a breath of fresh air for us. Um and so I think, yeah, you know they have a huge network all over the US. Um, you know, really for them, because they're partnered with grocery stores and all these organizations, you know, one dollar goes a long way. Um and so that's really where we can optimize every dollar coming in, where we can actually have the make the mechanics to have the the impact um in a very strong way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and when when we look at Feed the Children, um, you know, first of all, we feel extremely blessed to have had that go through, right? We have an 18-month exclusive partnership with them where effectively we have this great back and forth versus you know just sending funds um that come off of the exchange and come off of the distribution to any uh you know charity or cause and having no transparency into how that actually works. You know, the what we look to do with them is actually be those pioneers to be you know painfully transparent, right? You have a 990 at the end of that every year that you have to report on and all these things, but it's not good enough, right? Like that's that's really not good enough in terms of the stories that people want. Um, the the real like painful transparency that people want, obviously while maintaining dignity when we're talking about um people, um, I think that's where like a dog token becomes very interesting because you can be like painfully transparent and everyone just loves to be super all over these dogs, and no one, there's no uh you know, issue around uh you know, necessarily too much exposure to to that. That that's a that's an aside. But I think with Feed the Children, um there's there's an opportunity here that we're looking to unlock. And we've been down this path, especially to get that first charity. We it took us like six months. No one wanted to do it. Um, no one wanted to come on to uh partner with a crypto company. Uh that's how they saw us. Um, especially even when you know crypto was not going down, uh, people were not uh mad at it. FTX didn't just happen, but they still have this kind of like bad taste in their mouth. Maybe that's from you know some of these other meme coins that are out there, um, and and and a lot of scams and everything in the space. And so to actually be that first one, it took a long time. And I think it kind of like shows the uh the the gap in one, you know, at at a certain point, wide was a startup. Wide was still zero to one. You know, it sounds like something that's been around for a long time today. I think that's that's a good thing with with the name choice and all of that. But you know, it at the end of the day, we started Wide um back in October of 2025, like properly formed it and everything. And I think from there to where we are today, it's a it's a very um, it's it's a still a very long and you know, tumultuous journey that we pretty much started like five years ago. Um and so for them to be the first ones to come in, it shows a lot of where we're going because we actually, I agree, like Feed the Children's huge. Um and they're doing a lot of good in the world. And there's a lot of amazing nonprofits that will come after Feed the Children, um, whether they're solving hunger or you know, cancer or um or anything else, homelessness, et cetera. And those are the things that we're most excited about as we keep keep down this trail.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. That's amazing. Um, and you know, I found from my experience working in the charitable sector that nobody ever wants to be the first to try something new, but a lot of people want to be the second or third. So hopefully, you know, when you're able to demonstrate uh the value of this of this technology and this approach, hopefully there'll be a lot of other folks signed up and excited, you know, to get involved. And we'll be right back after this brief announcement. Are you part of a nonprofit or mission-driven organization, curious about Web3 but not sure where to start? We've got you covered. The CryptoUltruis Web3 Impact Toolkit is a free, comprehensive resource designed to help nonprofits and change makers navigate the world of crypto and web3. From accepting crypto donations to exploring blockchain tools for transparency and impact, the toolkit breaks it all down in a way that's practical, accessible, and jargon-free. It's everything you need to take that first step all in one place. And the early access is now live. So to check it out, head to cryptoaltras.com slash toolkit or simply click the link in the show notes. And now let's get back to the episode. Speaking of this, uh, you know, the partnership and your focus on food security, I understand that you recently ran uh the first trade to Feedathon, which is a cool idea uh as well. And it's a trading competition that rewards participate uh participation while generating funding for meals. Um tell me a little bit more about that and and how it all works.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean, like taking it a little bit of a step back to, I think um we did a lot of research on the space before we obviously went in, like honestly, years, right? And I think um we we say this all the time, you know, if if a fax machine does a better job than AI, then use the fax machine. And and wholeheartedly we mean that, right? Because um outcomes are the only thing that actually is real. Um, you know, cool is cool, right? AI, for example, cool and useful. But um when we when we look at the space and we actually look to understand you know what we should do in our economic model, we're not donations, right? Like donations, to your point, you you said kind of said this earlier, it's kind of this boring thing where you you send it out there and you get a thank you letter, maybe. Um, and okay, right. Um for this, in this model, because of blockchain and because it's actually a ledger that can be automated, where the economic value can actually flow a million times, right, in one second, in a very transparent and accurate way. Um, what happens is we actually have a model where some of it can go to the cause, some of it can go back to the community, right? We're going, some of it goes back to liquidity. Um, and that is how we actually create a sustainable ecosystem around this, um, where it's not also just these other cause coins that have attempted to do what this is, um, and they kind of fall flat, right? Because it kind of it there's no energy that you can actually harness from that. Um and so in our model, um, in general, right, we have this model where every time it trades, yes, some goes to the the cause. Also, some really goes back to the community um in a multitude of ways. Um, trade to feed is is one of those programs that we're able to uh allocate funds to. Um but it you know, also in the future, right, we can actually uh pay our community to post on social media, um, to clip, right, to to do all these, to do a challenge, right? We're gonna be running challenges where um they can go to a food bank and post about it, right? Um so it gets really fun um in terms of you now have this funding in the organization that can actually support financially this the community that you have to actually support the agenda that we're actually trying to deliver, right? Um and so yeah, that's the big aha moment, right? For that, that was the big aha moment for us. Um and yeah, so far it's it's been very good, actually. I think we've we've funded now 60,000 mills to date around. Um not you know, nowhere near where we need to be and and where we want to be, right? We we're trying to hit a billion mills. Uh, you know, I I know like Tony Robbins, he has the whole hundred billion mil journey right now. Um, but you know, it's it's real. Like it definitely is something that we can we can do. And it just takes a lot of people to buy into what we're doing. Um, and you we're already seeing, right, traction begets traction and and value begets value.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, one of the things that we found in just building startups, right? White is not our first um company, it's not our first startup. Um we actually have uh a more uh like venture studio um called Standard. And we started that five years ago as well. Um and one of the things that we learned really quickly is you can have the best product in the world, you can have the best widget. If you don't have the attention of the people that should buy it and the reason for them to buy it, then you have nothing. Literally. You know, you might have an amazing patent, you might have spent a ton of money on a patent attorney to get that patent. At the end of the day, there's a million patents in that patent uh registry that do nothing. They've never been used, they've never been um actually operationalized into the real world. And and that gap is the thing that we have always sought to traverse. Um, specifically, how do you get attention for anything that you are actually building it with you know, snap of the finger and be able to be, you know, um effectively famous overnight for that thing. Um that's that's the biggest challenge because so many people blow their entire budget doing just that. And so the challenge is not only to be in everyone's you know, hearts and minds that you want, but also to do it sustainably. And and in fact, in in sort of a flywheel model, um, that's what we think we've built with wide. Um that that flywheel around things. And if I look to or if I was to point to anyone that you know is doing this phenomenally well, especially like take philanthropy and take um take all the aspects of getting attention around this and and actually funding these things, I would I would look at Mr. Beast. Like he does this really well, where he gets people's attention actually with money, technically. Um, he he funds all these campaigns um and actually pays people and does it with philanthropy too. You know, he just partnered with Rockefeller Foundation. Um, but he actually just took it one step further as well, where you know, he bought a bank. Why would you buy a bank? Because you actually have customers, right? Um, that's that's the kind of thing that when when I look at what he's doing, this model actually brings an aspect that that his model doesn't even have today because of the community governance of the token of the trading fees and all those things, right? You could do everything with the normal financial system, but when you bring this final element into the equation, it just unlocks so much value for everyone and actually ties everyone together. And it it stops being about Mr. Beast or Martin or myself. And everyone gets you to feel like they're owning this because they govern it, because they actually control the outcomes, and they also, because they're in this, they have the ability to sustain themselves, um, whether that be through funding or the things that they want to do in volunteering or anything else. And it's it's it's a really powerful thing.
SPEAKER_02No, absolutely. And I think, you know, I've spoken to many Web3 founders on this podcast, and I'd say that the a common thread is that the community aspect, you know, is a lot harder than the technical aspect of, you know, building that community is the hardest part of launching your product in Web3. And I don't mean build the communities and like get X number of people in your Discord, but like a sustainable, you know, engaged community that is really excited to be a part of this. So uh it's good that you're kind of you know starting there and recognize the importance of that and they're kind of taking this, putting the fun in funding to be cheesy, uh, so to speak, um, to get people excited and engaged, uh, which is great. Um, I'd like to shift a bit though to talk more about kind of crypto philanthropy more broadly. Obviously, emerging field, there's been hundreds of millions being donated via crypto rails. Um, and I believe it was you, Martin, that said uh that most crypto philanthropy is a founder writing a check after a token rally and posting a screenshot. Um, so talk to me about that and how you know you're trying to kind of avoid that trap and build something that has that, you know, that sustainability rather than just being a kind of you know one-off when the token rallies.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I it's honestly it's it's so um like right blatantly there, right, in terms of what is so wrong about what's happening currently. I mean, at the end of the day, it's I never look at you know the donation as a bad thing, right? It's it's not. Um, you know, the fact that you know crypto has done what they've done to to date, it's a great thing, right? I think it's more of the evolution of where we need to go, right, as just a community. Um, because I I think today it just gets lost in translation of um the loss of energy after the event, right? Effectively, you know, it's this great campaign, it's it's kind of like a Kickstarter, right? And it's like, okay, drum up all this energy, people kind of get excited for a couple days and then dead. Um and so the idea is is like, how do you just like you have with Apple stock or you know, you know, anything that's on the market today where people buy into that, right? A part of that is because they literally see it in the real world. Um you can always keep that energy up, right? Which is why like I'll I'll just I'll I'll go future state on on where we go here. You know, I I envision where we'll have restaurants, like you will have an eat restaurant where you can walk into an eat restaurant and you know get free tacos, right? And it's funded by the apparatus that we have, and maybe there's criteria around it, right? Kids eat free, right? These things. Um, but but that's really what you need, right? You need more tangibility in the space, you need more actual impact. You don't, you know, it it right now it's all caught up in the numbers of what it is. And and you know, I love numbers. I'm a CFO, right, by trade. And when I look at a number, I actually do see the story. Um, I don't know, right, if if most people do, right? It's it's you see the number and it's just like, it's the number. You just said it. 300 million. Okay. There's nothing else. You have no other feeling around it. That's good, and you move forward. Um, so I think what we're trying to do is like actually put face to names, actually put energy behind this and do it just in a way that, you know, it's it's not being done before, not even only in crypto, but also, you know, bettering the nonprofit space, the traditional nonprofit space as well, um, to be able to give them more energetic um uh uh engagement from community members as well, right? You think about all these food banks, like what if now people are actually incentivized to go to those food banks and volunteer in a way they just fundamentally don't have today. Um that's that's where we're going and that's what we're super excited about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think if you look at the space two, you know, I think Gitcoin does a really good job. Retro af retroactive grants are really good. Yeah. Um, that that type of a concept is is unique in itself. And it's it's also a web three function, right? It's it's more of like a DeFi function where you can start to to you know figure out how that that financial model actually works. Um if you look at these big amounts of money that are being quote unquote given, um, you know, the reason it falls flat is because they got they got what they needed out of it. They got the press and they got the tax write-off, right? Um, if you look at even like Bill Gates, what did Bill Gates have that he needed to start his foundation? He had all this money that was taxable, and he needed a way that he could still, you know, in theory control that money, have also a really good press release moment because he really came off bad off after Microsoft, and he's able to, you know, still have his like stamp of control in the world, um, and not have this real burden of you know, the the authorities looking over his shoulder, tax authorities, obviously. Um, I think there's there's a lot of that in the world today. Um, he's the the reason that nonprofit was actually created was more of a shelter for the you know dynasty capital, um, these like this this sovereign money. And that's fine. Like do that, like do good for the world while you're also obviously like protecting your money, but we're kind of like traversing a point. Like there's there's not that many um people that are kings and queens in our in our world anymore. Um we don't really have uh the as much of sovereign um uh capital and and funding, especially, you know, in in America, uh especially, right? Um and with that, you have this, you have so many more ground-up movements. With AI, AI democratizes like, you know, now intelligence is is is pennies, right? It literally is less than a cent to get the most intelligent model to tell you anything. Um, and you've you've got the best lawyer, you have the best teacher, you have the best, um, you know, you name it, physicist at your fingertips. That's never been done before. And now, because of that, people can start to make decisions. You know, that's the big uh pushback against democracy. I don't want, you know, Billy Joel over there to be making the decisions for everyone else. Well, it it doesn't really matter when we have the smartest things in the world that at our fingertips to actually help form those decisions and have have feedback around that. So what when we look at the the future, the future is like truly um democratized around these funds. And I think this is how we get there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And that's a very exciting kind of future to look towards. And I'm sure a lot of folks that are listening right now are excited and wondering how they can get involved. So walk me through the process for how somebody would you know get Eat Token and join this movement and be a part of this community.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so the best way you can start joining the movement is actually going to be get the debit card. Um, obviously, sure. Should you go and get a Coinbase wallet or uh, you know, turn on a MetaMask or a cheeser or a ledger and go and um get the token. Yes. However, um, you know, governance goes live towards the end of this year, um, specifically for EAT. I think the best way that we're finding people to understand the power of Eat is when they take this debit card and they go to Starbucks and they buy a coffee and they've just routed some um some funds to to the actual cause. I think that's a really powerful thing for for people to understand. And everyone that has the card already becomes a member as well. That's a really important thing. And and membership is is meaningful, right? Um, one of the ways and one of the things that's by the time that this is live, it will be live, is our entire clipping campaign, which you'll have to be a card member to be part of that. Um, and and spending as well. That's that's a big thing. And and so what does that mean? You could take this this video, find the most interesting spot in the video, clip that, and we actually are incentivizing individuals to push those those things across the internet in in the right format and the right virality. Um, and that is becomes this perpetual flywheel. So that that's really the the big opportunity that that we're seeing um effectively clipping to feed, um spending to feed, trading to feed. Um, those are all the ways that you can be part of this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think the one other thing I would say is, you know, we we do not um think that we're the smartest guys in the room and and we really appreciate perspective. Um and at the same time, too, I don't uh view this as our project, right? Like all the other startups, you know, that we have, they are our projects, right? There are our companies and and we run them. Um this one is just it's just completely different, right? Like the the input that we need, the the perspective that we need, we were literally require it um to make what we're doing better because fundamentally it's never been done before. It's like, you know, um I I think you know it's it's always funny because as an entrepreneur, I always appreciate uh companies that are at their most infant stage because I know that that isn't the true like vision of what they want to be, right, at all. Right. And and yeah, right, they obviously a lot of a lot of people in general, they have a lot of things to say about oh, you know, that's not good because of X, Y, and Z, right? And like. Look at Elon Musk. Oh, that car is never going to work. And then bam, right? Here, here you go. And so I think like we're kind of in the same seat right now. We're we know where we want to go, right? But we also know that that's that's gonna be fluid, it's gonna change. Um, and we also really, really respect the opinion of nonprofits, the opinion of common just people in general, um, um, people that actually are facing food insecurity, right? And so that is another way I think you can get involved in this. Like, um, you know, you it's not about buying our token, right? It's it's more like how do we actually start to get people to think about this fundamentally in a way where, like, you know, today it's hunger, but you know, next it's cancer, next is this. And and, you know, you know, think about a world where you have trillions of dollars of volume happening a day, and a little you know, piece of that is just automatically flowing into these, you know, issues that we have that everyone is so vocal about, right? You have all this stuff around politics and everything about oh, that needs to change. Well, what if you actually have the ability to say, oh, I have a right to vote on those specific funds in a transparent way, right? It's it's just a game changer, right? And so um, yeah, we need more people involved. We need really smart people um at the table. And um, I would say like I welcome them to email us, uh, you know, just like come into our our telegram, right? Chat about it. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my name at wideorg, Martin's name at wideorg.org. Um, the ever all of our socials are at wide org. Um the we try to keep it really simple.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. And I'll make sure to include the links for all this in the show notes as well for folks listening along uh that are excited to get involved, join the community, uh, be a part of this. Uh and you know, we've talked a lot about the future of this, um, and this is just the starting point, right? Um, so I'm curious, like as we wrap up this conversation, um, you know, if Wide succeeds at the scale you're aiming for, and you've talked about, you know, like funding a billion meals, what would it mean to prove that markets themselves can be a force for good and that the act of trading could feed millions or the act of just spending?
SPEAKER_00I mean, you know, it's funny because I've never I've actually never thought about the answer that I'm about to say because there's something around how you you ask that question. But I think it's when people are not no longer talking about the issue, that's very interesting to me. Right? Like, you know, today today, you know, there there's all these issues that you have, and it's like, well, what today it's it's a it's a hot button topic when like politics comes around, right? With all these things from a from abortion to to everything, right? And it's very interesting when you sit into a world where um fundamentally like these things are just no longer talked about because you don't have to talk about them anymore, because we have funding to actually help, right, the people that actually need the help. Um so yeah, that's the world that like we're trying to push towards. Um there's a lot of like iterations and flow in in where we go and how we get there. Um, but but yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, amazing. Um yeah, what do you what do you think, Eric? I'd love to give you the final word on this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the I think it's interesting and and to piggyback on what Martin says, I I would say it just real direct, like what happens when there is no hunger in the world, right? I think it's not a billion meals, right? Right, we we're talking about a billion meals every day. We're talking like literally, um what what does that look like? I I think that's that's very interesting. Um, the billion meals standpoint, it's just a starting point. That's to show that there is capacity here. Um I think the the other direction um that that I would go is where how big is the problems of humanity? Like how big are these problems? I think they're bigger than crypto, right? I I think they're bigger than just like visa spending. Um that's that's kind of the world that we see. Um and I think at the same time you have human problems becoming both more solvable with AI, but also more disparate with AI, at least at this point. And so I think we're we're kind of running up against a parallel stream right now where you almost need this as AI gets bigger, as all the kind of the doom and gloom of AI becomes more more powerful. Um, and and that's kind of where we see this going, where this is the solution to a human, a humanless future um of how you redirect that energy back to humans.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, I love that. Wow. Uh great point and great note to wrap up the conversation as well. I mean, yeah, it's it's an incredible vision, and I'm excited to see how it goes. And I'll certainly be following along and participating in in the community. And for those that want to as well, I'll include all the links and how-to in the show notes. Um, Martin and Aaron, thank you so much. That was an absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed learning from you, and I'm really excited to see what you build, so thanks for your time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, Ladrew.
SPEAKER_02And that was Martin Sims and Aaron Rafferty, co-founders of Wide. What I love about Wide is that it challenges one of the most stubborn assumptions in both finance and philanthropy, that giving has to be a separate act and something that you do on top of everything else. Wide flips that. By building impact directly into the mechanics of trading and spending, it makes generosity something that happens by design. And the Feed the Children partnership grounds it all on something real. We're talking about meals, tens of thousands of them, men counting, going to families who need them. And the fact that it's all verifiable on-chain means the trust is built right in. I also appreciate the honesty about the trap that so much of crypto philanthropy falls into where the founder writes a check after a token rally and posts a screenshot, which to be clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with. This is still super important work. Keep doing this. But WIDE is trying to build something structurally different that doesn't depend on a single moment of generosity or a token rally. So, for listeners who want to learn more about WIDE, explore the E-Token, or get involved, we've included all the relevant links in the show notes. And a huge thank you to Martin and Erin for sharing their vision with us today and for demonstrating the power of crypto to change how we think about doing good. And that wraps up today's episode of Crypto Altruist. Thanks so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. If you're inspired to explore more stories at the intersection of Web3 and Social Impact, be sure to visit us at CryptoAltruist.com for articles, resources, and more. And if you love what you heard, it would mean the world if you could rate review and subscribe to the podcast. Your support is huge in helping us reach more listeners like you and keeping the platform going strong. Thanks again for joining us, and I look forward to having you back for the next episode. Until then, let's keep showing the world the good of crypto.