King's College London

This project addresses an urgent need to share learning on the growing adoption of an emerging type of cryptocurrency - stablecoins - in humanitarian aid. At a time of unprecedented funding constraints across the aid sector, the project brings together humanitarian organisations, technology partners, and researchers to reflect on early implementations of stablecoin-based emergency assistance in crisis contexts such as Ukraine, Syria, and Sudan, creating structured opportunities for cross-sector knowledge exchange.

Stablecoins are attracting interest because they may help overcome common challenges in crisis-affected economies. Pegged to relatively stable reference assets like the US dollar, they promise to help protect the value of assistance where local currencies are volatile, enabling faster and cheaper cross-border transfers in places with weak or unreliable payment systems. At the same time, their adoption raises important concerns around regulatory compliance, unequal access to digital infrastructure, protection and safeguarding risks, and questions about how local organisations can be meaningfully involved in the design and governance of these systems rather than sidelined.

The project will focus on shared learning that connects research with practice by centering frontline experience. It brings together Dr Margie Cheesman’s long-term research on money and technology in humanitarian aid with The CALP Network and Rory Crew’s operational expertise in digital cash systems. At a moment of systemic strain in humanitarian financing, when long-standing assumptions are being tested, the project will generate grounded insights into the implications of stablecoins in humanitarian assistance, informing future policy, practice, and research on the rapidly evolving role of financial technology in aid delivery.