Switzerland for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, to launch the 1st worldwide digital asset philanthropic platform with Lido support. Commits to restaking all ETH raised with Lido.

Executive Summary

  • Since the end of the cold war, the world has rarely been as dangerous as today. For example, the recent and aggravating conflicts in Europe, Africa and the Middle-East have caused the loss of lives of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions of people.
  • UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution. Its role is as relevant as ever.
  • Switzerland for UNHCR (CH4U), the UN Refugee Agency National Partner for Switzerland, will become the world’s 1st charity to support the current global refugee crisis with its own digital asset infrastructure. This will allow Switzerland for UNHCR to directly
    • Receive and accept ETH and stETH-based private donations
    • Stake donations received in ETH through stETH
  • To do so, Switzerland for UNHCR will partner with Taurus, the leading digital asset infrastructure provider for financial institutions, and leverage Taurus-PROTECT custody to raise funds in a secure manner from a wide range of donors anywhere in the world.
  • The grant request estimate is USD 445’000 and is composed of 3 main building blocks
    • Finance Taurus-PROTECT custody platform with an exceptional discount offered by Taurus
    • Support the new crypto/digital asset philanthropy activity with 1 dedicated new hire.
    • Support Taurus-PROTECT integration within Switzerland for the UNHCR existing IT infrastructure (booking and accounting systems) with automations.
  • Switzerland for UNHCR is a gateway to the wider UNHCR organization consisting of 18 '879 -strong staff spread in over 130 countries (91% of all are fieldworkers) and further strengthening UNHCR’s + Lido partnership globally.

Our objective is to increase our reach to a larger digital-savvy community in order to further make a difference and deliver lifesaving assistance to those most in need. It is a great way of continuously generating critical resources which will then go towards UNHCR’s operations in the field and its innovation programmes. Individuals around the world will be able to delegate their funds and use blockchain for a good cause.

Total Grant Request: 445K USD

  • 2-year license* custody solution that supports Lido: USD 190K - 42% of total

    • Set-up and key ceremony (one-off) - 15 man days
    • Custody license fee for two years
    • Blockchain connectivity & hosting for 2 years
  • Integration within UNHCR IT systems: USD 115K Engineering costs - 26% of total

    • Engineering costs:. We assume ca. 100 man-days to include the below (any delta on top will be covered by UNHCR directly)
      • Design and implementation of connectors with our front-end systems ie., automated creation of one-time deposit addresses for those willing to make a donation
      • Design and implementation of connectors with our accounting systems (assets balances and transactions)
      • Reporting and analytics: build of standalone digital asset reports and enhancement of our global reporting systems to include digital assets
      • Compliance: enhancement of our compliance tool to integrate digital assets AML.
    • Support of other blockchains and use cases including tokenization
  • 1 full-time FTE: Product owner for 2 years USD 140K – 32% of total

    • We need one dedicated resource to maximize the success of the UNHCR / Lido Digital Asset Initiative: launch of this new fundraising channel (Digital Asset Philanthropic Activity)
      • Identify and develop new partnerships activities to raise funds
      • Ultimately responsible for building a sustainable and viable way to do Web3/Crypto Philanthropy
      • Act as product and platform owner of the digital asset custody product
  • Custody license fee for 2 years has been discounted significantly. The provider doesn’t make any profit on the service

Timeline of delivery
Go-Live of UNHCR new digital asset philanthropy activity: Jan 13th 2025 without full integration (eg, with manual reconciliations)

  • The fundraising will start 6 months after the grant is provided
  • Custody solution (immediate): set-up of custody including implementation of UNHCR target operating model within month of December
  • New FTE: We will advertise the role as soon as funding is secured. Ideally start on Jan 13th 2025
  • Integration implementation (immediate): moving from manual to automated reconciliations through connectors - roughly 6 months from the grant reception

FAQ

Why Switzerland for UNHCR (CH4U) is actively seeking crypto (ETH / stETH) donations?

  1. Increasing Funding Needs

  2. Growing refugee crisis: With the number of displaced people reaching record highs, UNHCR’s funding requirements have increased significantly.

  3. Limited government contributions: While governments provide substantial support, it’s often not enough to meet the growing needs of refugees worldwide.

  4. Flexible funding: Private donations, especially unearmarked funds, allow UNHCR to respond quickly to emerging crises and allocate resources where they are most needed.

  5. Public involvement: Private donations help engage the public in refugee causes, raising awareness and fostering a sense of global responsibility.

  6. Collaborations with private sector entities not only provide funds but also leverage their expertise and networks for refugee support.

Why Switzerland for UNHCR needs to run its own custody infrastructure

Adding intermediaries in the donation processes creates friction and slows down the ability for CH4U to move and react fast when a crisis occurs. In addition, banks are not familiar with these types of donations and prevent us from reaching our potential.

Banking-grade security and compliance with local and global regulations are also critical drivers for the decision. It is more cost effective in the long run to operate its own infrastructure when scaling crypto donations reception at a global level. It also provides CH4U additional flexibility and autonomy to receive and stake directly stETH & ETH from private donors.

Why partnering with Taurus

Taurus is the leading digital asset infrastructure provider for regulated financial institutions, with a pristine security and compliance track-record. It is a Swiss-based fintech, and is the only technology provider supervised by the FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Authority Supervisor. Taurus-PROTECT is one of the most advanced custody solution in the market and already supports and collaborates with Lido Foundation: Taurus Blog - Taurus and Lido Enable stETH Custody and Staking Amid Demand from Banking and Corporate Clients

Switzerland for UNHCR have been collaborating with Taurus over the last 2 years with the launch of the 1st charity stake pool run and operated by Taurus.

Who would YOU be supporting

Over 73 years of existence, UNHCR has saved millions of lives and given a future to refugees around the world. Our operations cover more than 135 countries, and the rise in overall displacement to 120 million people (May 2024) would make the global displaced population equivalent to the 12th largest country in the world, around the size of Japan. Among them, families whose lives were shattered overnight, forced to flee their home and leave everything behind. 40% of forcibly displaced people in the world are children, 4.4 million are stateless.

By participating in this journey the Lido ecosystem will become a key contributor to our noble cause, as 100% of your donations will be allocated towards UNHCR’s operations. In fact, 20% will go towards innovation programmes and 80% will be unearmarked, meaning they can be directed towards the most urgent operations in the field. For example, UNHCR’s most underfunded crises such as Lebanon, Sudan, DRC or Bangladesh.

Detailed report of:

UNDERFUNDED report Jan-July 2024

UNDERFUNDED crisis

About UNHCR

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) is a key United Nations agency mandated to protect people forced to flee because of conflict and persecution as well as those denied a nationality. Its scope includes several missions:

  1. Responding with life-saving support
  2. Safeguarding fundamental human rights
  3. Building better futures

To do so, UNHCR relies on

  1. 20,000 strong staff spread in 136 countries (see below).
  2. Helped more than 50 million refugees restart their lives
  3. A mandate to protect and provide support for 120 million people currently forced to flee around the world.

UNHCR is mandated by the United Nations to protect and safeguard the rights of refugees and also support former refugees who have returned to their home country, people displaced within their own country (IDPs), and people who are stateless or whose nationality is disputed.

UNHCR is guided by and act as the guardian of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.

https://www.unhcr.org/about-unhcr/overview/history-unhcr

Beyond emergency relief, UNHCR makes sure to find sustainable solutions for refugees for a better future.

Origins until today

UNHCR was established by the United Nations General Assembly on January 1, 1951, in the aftermath of World War II. Initially, it was given a three-year mandate to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes due to the conflict.

Unfortunately since then, the world has always seen a country, countries, or a region be in conflicts or crises. UNHCR’s mandate was extended multiple times and the agency was made permanent in 2003 through a UN General Assembly resolution. The agency’s raison d’être is still valid today and it is expected to remain so for the decades to come. In fact, as of 2024, the 120 million. Refugees and other forcibly displaced people around the world are additionally subject to deteriorating conditions and new risks related to climate change.

About Switzerland for UNHCR

Switzerland for UNHCR is a foundation that has been proactively looking how blockchain can help UNHCR’s mission globally. Its foundation status allows it to be a Sandbox for running projects which could be escalated in other organizations of the UN ecosystem (125’000 employees employed in >10 separate entities, see PERSONNEL BY ORGANIZATION | United Nations - CEB (unsceb.org)). In addition there are options for tax certificates for donors (for Swiss residents).

It was the 1st charity worldwide to launch a charity stake pool in partnership with Taurus, the leading digital asset infrastructure provider for regulated financial institutions.

As the use of blockchain technology is continuously increasing to support real-world use cases, the benefits for fundraising and philanthropy are beyond doubt. In fact, the most beneficial features of blockchain are its enhanced security, increased transparency, and instant traceability.

The combination of LIDO’s liquid staking model with Taurus’ infrastructure could open up new possibilities for innovative fundraising methods, aligning with UNHCR’s interest in leveraging blockchain technology for humanitarian purposes.

By incorporating LIDO into the donation process, Switzerland for UNHCR could potentially attract more donors, generate higher yields from donations, and provide a more flexible and appealing donation option for supporters of their cause.

About Taurus

Taurus SA (“Taurus”, https://www.taurushq.com & https://www.t-dx.com) is a FINMA regulated Swiss FinTech specialized in digital assets and distributed ledger technologies for custody and tokenization. It was founded in 2018 by senior executives with financial services, regulatory (incl. ex FINMA), IT security and blockchain expertise. Taurus holds a securities firm license from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) allowing us to operate the first independent regulated marketplace for digital assets in the world, including tokenized securities.

Taurus employs around 100 people, the majority being highly qualified PhDs (incl. Cryptography, computer networking, distributed systems, physics), engineers and blockchain & security experts. One of the co-founders and Chief Information Security Officer, Dr. JP Aumasson, a PhD in cryptography and recognized security expert, has audited some of the world-leading blockchain protocols and is widely known in the industry.

Taurus’ solutions and services are specifically designed for the needs of sophisticated, regulated, financial institutions and have been focused on increasing the adoption of digital assets by institutional financial players including banks, asset managers, exchanges and pension funds.

Taurus is now the global market leader with regulated financial institutions with the following publicly known clients, such as Deutsche Bank, State Street, CACEIS, Credit Agricole and Credit Suisse.

Taurus’ product suite covers:

  1. Taurus-PROTECT custody: institutional-grade custody platform to store and transact any digital assets. In a hot, warm, or cold setup, it combines the highest security through FIPS 140-2 L3 Hardware Security Modules (HSM) strengthened by Taurus’ own firmware or MPC with flexible deployment through on-premise, SaaS and/or hybrid. It solves for multiple use-cases (i.e. staking for crypto, asset servicing for tokenized securities) and is built to scale through a multi-tenant and practically limitless wallets/address provision.

  2. Taurus-EXPLORER nodes infrastructure: high-availability blockchain connectivity with advanced indexing features. Deployed in SaaS format, running on Swiss cloud infrastructure and available via APIs, banks and technology companies save up to 80% costs and benefit from exceptional SLAs.

  3. Taurus-CAPITAL tokenization: fully integrated tokenization platform with Taurus-PROTECT to issue and manage smart contract lifecycle for their own needs or on behalf of their clients

  4. Taurus Digital eXchange - TDX: the first independent, FINMA-regulated, marketplace to trade and exchange tokenized assets and securities. TDX is an Organized Trading Facility (OTF) operated by Taurus SA, a FINMA-regulated securities firm.

Taurus has also contributed significantly on a pro-bono basis to educating financial institutions and defining the standards of tomorrow:

Taurus is an active member of the Capital Market Technology Association (“CMTA”, www.cmta.ch). CMTA is a Swiss non-profit organization aiming to create generally accepted industry standards in the various areas related to the application of the DLT to private capital markets. CMTA focuses in particular on the tokenization of traditional capital market instruments with a strong focus on Swiss law. Dr JP Aumasson, Taurus’ co-founder and Chief Information Security Officer, is chairing the Technology Committee.

Additionally, Taurus is working in close collaboration with academic institutions on research topics, such as the HES-SO in Sierre (Dr. J.-L. Beuchat) and EPFL DEDIS laboratory (Dr. Bryan Ford, who is member of Taurus Technology Advisory Board) and Dr. P. Jovanovic from UCL in London.

As part of this, Taurus released the world’s first open-source implementation of the state-of-the-art cryptographic protocol known as “CMP”, a multi-party computation (MPC) protocol that allows a number of distinct parties to collectively compute a digital signature (ECDSA) according to a quorum logic; in other words, what cryptographers call a threshold signature protocol.

2 Likes

Thank you for the proposal. Unique indeed.

Strictly breaking down the financial part of the proposal. 445K USD request. Meaning, considering a 2 year pay back timeline for the DAO, the TVL required to breakeven would be:

445K / 0.05 (Lido DAO take rate) / 0.03 (ETH staking yield) / 2 (2 year pay back timeline) = 150M USD TVL

Surely, there will be other motivation as well. Keen to get the thoughts of DAO contributors.