Blockchain adoption: even if you do a lot of things right, you can still be wrong

In 2026, the Republic of the Marshall Islands began distributing universal income through USDM1, a sovereign digital bond issued on Stellar and delivered through the Lomalo wallet. Distributing physical cash across its remote islands is unreliable, and dependence on a single private correspondent bank is risky. Here, blockchain payments offer real value, and many Marshallese appreciate easier access to payments and savings. But working technology does not guarantee successful adoption.

Builders funded technical development and political outreach while financial literacy, educational partnerships, and long-term user support received little attention. Imagine being asked to move from only recently getting online to managing onchain transactions without being told how or why. Drawing on ethnographic research we conducted in the Marshall Islands, we argue that context is part of the production environment. If people cannot understand or safely refuse a system, it is not fully deployed.

Speakers: victoria kozlova, Ben Biedermann

Track: Rights, Freedoms, and Governance