GiveDirectly Sent Cash to Venezuela Earthquake Survivors Using USDC Stablecoins

In La Guaira, 3,765 people got $340 each via Pago Móvil, starting 21 days after the June 24 quakes. Of each donated dollar, 86 cents reached them as cash.

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, November 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- GiveDirectly, a U.S. nonprofit that sends cash directly to people living in poverty, delivered $340 each to 3,765 survivors of the twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24, 2026. First payments went out 21 days after the earthquakes. GiveDirectly moved the money as USDC, a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, and recipients received it in bolívares through Pago Móvil, the mobile payment system many Venezuelans already use. GiveDirectly published the results and lessons on October 14, 2026.

Key facts
Where: Catia La Mar, La Guaira state, one of the areas hardest hit by the magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes. GiveDirectly worked with local organization Alimenta La Solidaridad.

How much: $340 per person, to 3,765 people.

How fast: first payments 21 days after the earthquakes. Once recipients were verified, the median time to payment was four days, and payments landed a median of two minutes after each batch was sent.

How the money moved: GiveDirectly used Coinbase Business to convert dollars to USDC on the Stellar network. Decaf, a stablecoin payments platform, screened recipients' details for compliance. Vetted local cashiers on Airtm's marketplace exchanged the USDC for bolívares and paid recipients through Pago Móvil.

Cost: 86 cents of every donated dollar reached recipients as cash, above the 70 to 80 cents GiveDirectly expected.
Results so far: in early follow-up surveys, 95% of recipients said their sense of stability and wellbeing improved and 60% said the cash helped them restart or keep up income-generating work. 97% said it arrived at the right time.

GiveDirectly had never worked in Venezuela and had no office or local team there. Sanctions limited which banks and payment providers it could use, physical cash was scarce, and common ways of sending dollars required a U.S. bank account. Recipients needed neither a crypto wallet nor a U.S. bank account, and GiveDirectly did not hold bolívares or transact directly with Venezuelan banks.

To choose where to work, GiveDirectly combined an AI-powered alert system, satellite damage assessments from DISHA, and volunteer mapping through the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and MapSwipe, then checked the findings on the ground. People enrolled on their phones by scanning QR codes. Automated ID and selfie checks meant only 5% of applications needed manual review, down from nearly 100% in GiveDirectly's first response in the Philippines.

GiveDirectly also reported what did not work. The $340 payment was meant to cover basic needs for about three months; recipients said it lasted about three weeks, as prices rose and more than 45% reported no regular income. A registration glitch let roughly 1,500 more eligible people enroll than planned, and donors and a contingency fund covered them. Because local cashiers hit daily banking limits, payment batches were capped at 100 to 300 people.

GiveDirectly is reviewing how it sets payment amounts.

"My experience was amazing — it fell from the sky, because I used it to partly rebuild what the earthquake destroyed. And I still have further to go," said Hector, 57, one of the recipients (translated from Spanish).

"Each lesson brings us closer to our five-day emergency cash goal — a world where families receive meaningful support within days of a crisis, wherever they are," wrote Gianmarco Morassutti Vitale, GiveDirectly's Delivery Manager for Emergency Cash.

Questions and answers
How did GiveDirectly send aid to Venezuela under sanctions? It worked through two providers, Decaf and Airtm, so it never held bolívares or dealt directly with Venezuelan banks. Decaf screened recipients' payment details for compliance, and local cashiers completed the last step as ordinary domestic bank transfers.

Did recipients have to use cryptocurrency? No. The stablecoin only moved the money into the country. Recipients received bolívares in their existing accounts through Pago Móvil, and almost all said they would use it again.

What did people spend the cash on? Half of respondents bought food and drinking water. Families also bought hygiene supplies, paid for medicine and clinic visits, and replaced damaged mattresses and cooking stoves.

Is the program still enrolling? No. The Venezuela response is no longer enrolling recipients. GiveDirectly accepts cryptocurrency donations through Endaoment.

The full post, with a step-by-step account of the payment route, is at givedirectly.org/venezuela-earthquakes-blog. GiveDirectly's goal is to get emergency cash to people within five days of any crisis.

ABOUT GIVEDIRECTLY
GiveDirectly is a nonprofit that lets donors send money directly to people living in poverty, with no strings attached. Since 2009, it has delivered more than $1 billion in cash to more than 2 million people. GiveDirectly currently works in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and the United States. Learn more at givedirectly.org.

Yonah Lieberman
GiveDirectly
press@givedirectly.org
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