The world's first on-chain universal basic income: How the Marshall Islands achieved it through Stellar and USDM1 bonds

2025-12-16 18:00:11

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【Crypto World】The Marshall Islands government has just completed a groundbreaking achievement: launching the Universal Basic Income project ENRA on the Stellar blockchain. This is not just a simple proof of concept, but a real-world implementation of cash distribution on the chain.

How was it done? The government issued sovereign bonds like USDM1. Each one is fully backed by short-term U.S. Treasury bills, aligning completely with traditional financial instruments. Then, the funds are directly transferred to each citizen via the Lomalo wallet app, making it fully digital.

Here’s a key point: the government emphasizes that USDM1 is not a new currency, but a bond. This approach preserves the credit framework of traditional finance while leveraging the efficiency and transparency of blockchain. From universal basic income to on-chain government bonds and digital wallet payments, the entire process achieves “end-to-end” financial innovation. For those interested in how governments are using blockchain, this case is definitely worth studying.

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DataOnlooker

· 12-17 16:16

Marshall's approach is indeed brilliant, using bonds to bypass the pitfalls of monetary policy. Blockchain is responsible for improving efficiency, and this can be considered a way to find a balance.

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SchrodingerGas

· 12-16 20:46

Marshall's approach is interesting; essentially, it's still playing the game of credit arbitrage... No matter how fancy the bond packaging is, it can't change the weak reality of sovereign backing. The true game-theoretic equilibrium lies here—using short-term US Treasury bills as a safety net, which instead exposes that the credit on the Stellar chain is not independent. No matter how transparent the on-chain evidence is, it still depends on whether that piece of paper is worth anything.

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alpha_leaker

· 12-16 18:30

Marshall's move is really brilliant—putting UBI on the blockchain and still wrapping it in a bond disguise. That's impressive.

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MevHunter

· 12-16 18:28

Wow, Marshall's move is quite clever, really bringing UBI onto the chain.

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Layer2Arbitrageur

· 12-16 18:28

ngl, the debt structure here is actually genius from a gas optimization perspective. they basically bypassed regulatory arbitrage windows by framing it as bonds instead of currency—bullish for basis points efficiency. stellar's throughput isn't breaking records tho, wondering what the actual settlement latency looks like across different validator sets...

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FUD_Vaccinated