According to Business Insider, 160 New York City residents are receiving a total of $12,000 in cryptocurrency through a basic income-style pilot program funded by Coinbase. The program, run by nonprofit GiveDirectly, began distributing $800 monthly payments in USDC stablecoin back in September. Participants also received an $8,000 lump sum payment in November, with the entire program scheduled to conclude in February 2025. The initiative targets low-income neighborhoods in the South Bronx and East Harlem specifically. Program lead Emma Kelsey explained they chose these areas because of both high economic need and local political support for cryptocurrency adoption.
Why Crypto for Basic Income?
This is fascinating because it’s basically taking two controversial but potentially transformative ideas and smashing them together. Universal basic income has been gaining traction as a potential solution to economic inequality, while cryptocurrency promises to revolutionize how we think about money. But combining them? That’s new territory.
GiveDirectly is deliberately testing whether people perceive and use crypto payments differently than traditional cash. Do they spend it faster? Save it more? Trust it less? These are exactly the kinds of questions we need answered if crypto is ever going to become mainstream for everyday transactions. The fact that they’re using USDC—a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar—shows they’re being smart about volatility concerns. Nobody wants their basic income payment to suddenly be worth half what it was yesterday.
The Lump Sum Twist
Here’s what really stands out: that $8,000 lump sum payment. Most basic income experiments stick to regular monthly payments, but GiveDirectly is deliberately breaking from that model based on their research. And honestly, it makes a ton of sense when you think about it.
A larger amount all at once can actually be more transformative for people living in poverty. Think about it—$800 a month might cover groceries and utilities, but $8,000 could cover a security deposit on an apartment, pay for vocational training, or start a small business. It’s the difference between surviving and actually building toward something better. The program lead mentioned they heard directly from communities that this approach would be more valuable, which shows they’re actually listening to the people they’re trying to help.
Coinbase’s Quiet Return to Charity
Now here’s the interesting backstory: Coinbase actually shut down its formal philanthropy program two years ago. This donation represents a quieter, more targeted approach to corporate giving. They’re not running the program themselves—they’re funding experts who know what they’re doing.
That’s probably smarter, honestly. Let the cryptocurrency exchange focus on being an exchange, and let the nonprofit that specializes in direct cash transfers handle the distribution. It also gives Coinbase some valuable data about how regular people actually use crypto in real-world scenarios. Win-win, assuming the participants actually benefit from receiving crypto instead of traditional dollars.
What This Means for the Future
So will this become a model for future social programs? It’s too early to tell, but the implications are huge. If crypto payments prove more efficient, cheaper to distribute, and equally useful to recipients, we could see more experiments like this. But there are real questions about accessibility—not everyone has a smartphone or understands how to use cryptocurrency wallets.
The choice of New York neighborhoods with existing crypto support suggests they’re being strategic about finding participants who might actually use the technology. But is that giving us an accurate picture of how this would work at scale? Probably not. Still, it’s a fascinating experiment that could teach us a lot about both basic income and cryptocurrency adoption simultaneously. Sometimes the most interesting innovations happen when you combine two seemingly unrelated ideas and see what happens.
