If there is one ongoing issue that has proven itself where crypto has shown to be a real lifesaver, it's Gaza. For over a year, I've been assisting people in sending aid via cryptocurrency to those in Gaza who are relying on it as a lifeline for surviving some of the worst conditions humanly possible. This is in large part because I was asked to help those who have been doing the work since they weren't familiar with all of the tools that were available to them when it came to sending crypto. So I was honestly very surprised to find that there wasn't really a comprehensive guide for those who are doing this type of work to aid those who are in Gaza. I have been part of the cryptocurrency space for a long time now, advocating from a progressive point of view, and I really wish I made this video a lot sooner. But here we are now, and I want to share some of the practical realities about sending funds via cryptocurrency to those who desperately need it. First, let's talk about why this is even necessary and why we can't just use traditional banking institutions. The truth is that traditional finance has always been hostile towards Palestinians, and this is especially true now with the situation in Gaza. Fruse accusations about funding terrorism in Gaza can lead to your bank accounts getting blocked. Both PayPal and GoFundMe have frozen campaigns and accounts by those who have been doing fundraising for those in Gaza. Bank transfers can technically work, but they come with some serious risks. Some banks may process the transaction with no issue, but many of them will block or delay or hold your account for investigation if you try to do so. And even when transfers do go through, they can take a matter of weeks or even months, which is time that those in Gaza simply don't have. So we're left in a situation where the traditional banking system is either actively blocking the movements of these funds or are unreliable at best. This is why crypto has become so useful in this type of situation. Not because it's ideal or because it's perfect, but because it offers higher guarantees that those in Gaza will actually receive the funds. Before I get into this, let me explain why crypto is particularly useful for this situation. The first is instant transfer. Whenever you send crypto, it arrives in minutes, if not seconds, and the person on the other end has it in their crypto wallet. The second is censorship resistance. With some caveats, no central authority can actually freeze or block the movement of crypto transactions. Once a transaction is confirmed on the blockchain, it's done. No one can actually reverse that transaction. Third is accessibility. Despite everything happening in Gaza, people only need a phone and internet connection in order to be able to use cryptocurrency. You don't need a functioning relationship with any sort of banking institution. I know from those on the ground that some people do have access to cards in order to make payments directly from their accounts from the Bank of Palestine. However, not everyone has these accounts, and many people who did have these accounts before have lost access to their bank account. So these aren't abstract benefits. These are real practical reasons as to why crypto is one of the most reliable ways to get funds into the hands of those directly in Gaza. But it comes with responsibilities, and so I will talk about this throughout the video. And so here are some of the prerequisites and expectations for pursuing using cryptocurrency as a way to send aid. The first is that the person in Gaza needs to have a crypto wallet. This is a nonnegotiable. The wallet needs to accept the Ethereum network and tokens. I recommend that the wallet needs to be able to accept tokens on the Ethereum blockchain network. Most commonly, people will have a Binance account, which is access to many different types of cryptocurrencies, but that is not the only choice. Binance is a centralized service, so there are some risks with using Binance, but it is also one of the more user friendly ones, especially for those who don't know much about how to use cryptocurrency. The second is that they must go to an OTC or over the counter desk in order to send crypto to the person at the desk and to receive cash out. In Gaza, there is this infrastructure of over the counter desks that people can go to where people can make this exchange. My recommendation is to focus on USDC or USDT on Ethereum since those are tokens that are commonly accepted by the desks. They also accept USDT on Tron, but there are more limited options in sending tokens on that network, which is why I recommend Ethereum. The third is that there are always going to be fees. No matter which method you choose, some amount of money is going to go to pay the person at the desk. This is effectively unavoidable unless you have connections with someone who's willing to do it for free. And so the reason that this is important to know is because those at the desk are making money off of this, of course. And the main way in order to buy things in the market is through cash. I want to emphasize this simply because it's important to set realistic expectations. Every single method that I describe is going to go through a similar pathway. First, the fundraising group is going to receive funds and turn that into crypto in some way. The second is that they are going to send that crypto to the wallet address of the one that they're supporting in Gaza. And the third is that the person in Gaza is going to the OTC desk, and they're going to exchange that crypto for cash. The methods differ in how you actually send the crypto to the person in Gaza. So the first method that we use when we were first starting off is a platform called SimpleSwap. There are plenty of other platforms that do basically the same thing, but essentially, you go to the platform, you take your debit card, and you buy cryptocurrency directly with your card, and then you set the crypto address that you want to send it to, probably the person that's in Gaza, and then there you go. It's a fairly straightforward process, especially if you're maybe trying to do a one time donation to someone in Gaza. The main advantage here is simplicity. You don't need to own any crypto yourself. You don't need to own a crypto wallet or anything like that, but you may have to do some KYC or know your customer process, which means showing your identity to the platform in order to do this in the first place. The second method that I found to be useful for people is to use Revolut. Revolut is a neobanking app that allows users to be able to buy crypto directly within the app. And so here, the process is also quite simple. You simply buy crypto within the Revolut app, and then you send it off to the crypto address of the person you're trying to send it to in Gaza. An important thing to note here is that Revolut is going to ask for information about the person that you are sending crypto to. However, I haven't tried this with very large amounts of crypto quite yet. So it is possible that maybe they will put more scrutiny on larger transfers. So just be sure to keep that in mind. The advantage of Revolut is that if you're sending money or crypto quite regularly, then you can easily just do it all in one application. It's also an already existing legitimate banking solution for those who may use it for their everyday purchases. So in this way, you don't require another sign up if you already have an account with Revolut. The disadvantage maybe is that you do have a record within Revolut that you sent a crypto transfer to a specific address, although Revolut is very likely to not know who that actually is. And so the third option is one of the newer ones, and this is called z k p two p, which stands for zero knowledge peer to peer. The main advantage with z k p two p is that you can onboard onto crypto without needing to do any know your customer or KYC process. You don't have to verify your identity or verify any documents with a new platform. You just need to have an account on some of the most popular neobanking apps like Wise, like Revolut, like PayPal, Zelle, Cash App, Venmo. There's a bunch of options there depending on the country that you're coming from and the currency you're trying to use. What's nice is that you can sign into the service without having your own crypto wallet in the first place. All you have to do is sign in with some other accounts, maybe Google authentication or something like that, and it will automatically create a wallet for you inside of the application. Next, you just want to choose the platform that you're going to send it through, the currency that you're going to purchase in, and then you'll want to choose the network and cryptocurrency that you're going to send to the person in Gaza. My recommendation is USDC or USDT on Ethereum. To input the address that you wanna send it to, this would ideally be the person who's in Gaza you wanna send to. However, if you don't put anything, it'll simply send it to the wallet that you have in the application. So no problem with that. After that, you simply just send it from the application. And so when you confirm your order, what you're going to get is likely a QR code to send some money on the same application that you chose to someone that is random. It's gonna be someone you don't know. Then you may need to download their browser plugin called PureAuth in order to verify that you have already sent the money and the exact amount of money that's important to the person that they designate. And then once that's proven, then your cryptocurrency will be sent. I could spend a long time about how this technology works, but basically, it uses cryptography to prove that you have made some sort of transaction in a verifiable way without needing to use their API. This method is particularly useful for those who may be more privacy conscious because on your neobanking app, the only thing they're going to see is that you made a transfer in the currency that you chose to a random person, which doesn't have anything to do with cryptocurrency. The downside is that it's a little bit more technically complex, but it does work. The user experience might not be as smooth at first, but it does work quite well. And so if you're going to do this type of work, the main thing you need to keep in mind is tax. For example, in Germany, there's a €20,000 limit on the amount of donations one person can send every ten years. And if someone goes above that €20,000 limit, then they will have a tax obligation. So when we started doing this work, we were generally funneling all of the funds into one person, and then they would send out the cryptocurrency to those in Gaza. It was a way to simplify the process, but what ended up happening is that people would reach that €20,000 limit quite quickly because we're sending quite a lot, and then we would need to switch to another person who would have to send all of the funds through cryptocurrency to those in Gaza. And so we realized quickly that this was quite a bottleneck for us. And the issue is because the flow of money in euros or dollars or whatever was going through one person, and then they would be potentially liable tax wise for the funds coming in, which to the taxation authority, it can simply look like income. So this is where options like Revolut and zkP2P become really valuable. They help us solve the problem of having a centralized point. Instead of everyone sending fiat currency to a single person, people are able to buy and send cryptocurrency themselves to a wallet. And, therefore, this helps us avoid any one person having to take the brunt of the tax burden. Now I want to be very careful here. I am not a lawyer, and I am not a tax accountant. So be sure to check your own country's laws and regulations on how all these things work. And so before I wrap up, I just wanna leave you with some tips whenever you're doing this type of work to make sure you don't make any mistakes. So know that crypto transactions are irreversible once they're done. When you hit send, the money is gone and you cannot reverse it. So if you make a mistake, you may lose also that money. So in order to protect yourself, first, verify the identity of the person that you're sending to. Make sure you check through multiple channels and be sure that the address that they're giving you is an Ethereum address, which always starts with zero x. If it's an address on the Tron blockchain network, then it'll start with a t. Next is to be sure to check the network that you're sending on. There are several different blockchain networks and different cryptocurrencies can appear on multiple blockchain networks. For example, USDC and USDT that I recommended are both on Ethereum and on Tron. It's common for people in Gaza and throughout The Middle East to be using USDT on Tron, which is also possible to buy on SimpleSwap, but I do recommend Ethereum because it offers more flexible options. Next is to make sure that you copy and paste the address very carefully. Never type a wallet address in manually. Always copy and paste and verify the first few digits and the last few digits in order to be sure that you're sending it to the right address. And lastly, what you can always do is start with a small test transaction. Sending a small transaction first and then verifying that the person in Gaza has received it is always an option. You don't have to send all of it all at once. You can confirm that they received the first test transaction and then send the rest of it. So maybe send a dollar or $10 first and then send the rest of it. So please be careful. Verify everything. It's better to take your time and be sure that you're sending it to the right person than it is to go fast because you may lose the money for someone who genuinely needs it. So let's recap. The universal requirements for these methods are that the person in Gaza is going to need an Ethereum address, which starts with zero x. They're going to have to go to an over the counter desk in order to cash out the cryptocurrency, and they're always likely going to have to pay fees. The options for the person who is fundraising and wanting to send money to those in Gaza that I recommend are SimpleSwap, Revolut, or zk p two p. A fourth option that I didn't mention is that you could have your own account on a centralized exchange and send the money through that. But here, I was focusing on options for those who don't have an account. Now if you're watching this and you wanna help immediately, I can share you more about the person that we've been helping out. His name is Ibrahim and he's been in Gaza this entire time as this genocide unfolds. He's not just surviving, he is taking the money that we've been able to raise in order to support him and support his extended family network and local neighbors. He's been proving this on his Instagram page, which you can find in the show notes or here. So if you want to send crypto and support Ibrahim, then I recommend you send it to the address at casino berlin dot eth. This is the ENS name that most wallets are able to recognize, but I will also put the full Ethereum address starting with zero x in the show notes. That address is our collective wallet and is one we use to manage some of the funds for Ibrahim. We will make sure it gets to him and the people who need it. This is a verified and trusted channel, and we've been using it for months now. And if you wanna support me in making content like this to help others, then please consider donating to my Patreon. I hope this guide helps, and I hope this makes it a bit easier for those doing the fundraising and for those in Gaza right now. Thanks for watching.