During ETHPrague on May 28, Ethereum Foundation President Aya Miyaguchi joined Christopher Fabian — founder of Giga and a key figure in UNICEF’s innovation unit — to reflect on how the United Nations Children’s Fund began exploring blockchain and cryptocurrency.
Fabian recounted the early days of introducing blockchain to UNICEF in 2018 and 2019, which led to the launch of its CryptoFund. With a background in startups and tech innovation, he described the uphill battle of persuading a major global organization to adopt emerging decentralized technologies.
“It was 2018 — a very different time in the crypto space,” Fabian noted. “There were a lot of misconceptions that slowed things down. Those same misunderstandings still make governments hesitant about blockchain today.”
To make blockchain more relatable, Fabian used analogies. One compared crypto to a motorcycle transporting vaccines to remote areas — simply a tool for delivery, just in a digital format.
“Crypto is like an intangible motorcycle — a way to move value efficiently,” he explained. “Helping people understand that a smart contract isn’t a legal contract was part of the learning process, especially with legal teams.”
He also described cryptocurrency as fungus growing on trees — with the trees symbolizing rigid institutions like governments and the UN, which are difficult to shift.
This metaphor highlighted how crypto can organically grow and evolve around established systems, even when those systems are slow to adapt.
“You can’t force the trees to change how they grow — it has to happen naturally, like other elements in the ecosystem,” said Christopher Fabian, describing the careful and gradual approach needed when introducing blockchain to large institutions like the United Nations.
Aya Miyaguchi, President of the Ethereum Foundation, recalled her first meeting with Fabian in Osaka during DevCon. She noted that their conversation revealed his deep understanding of how blockchain and crypto could serve humanitarian goals — particularly through organizations like UNICEF.
She said his vision aligned with Ethereum’s mission. That alignment sparked the idea of collaboration. “I decided to work with UNICEF not just because of its global name, which certainly added strategic value,” Miyaguchi said, “but because it was the right team. We weren’t going to be the ones steering the ship inside — it had to come from within.”
This partnership led to a landmark initiative: in October 2019, UNICEF launched its CryptoFund. The fund became the first financial mechanism of its kind within the UN, allowing it to accept, manage, and distribute cryptocurrency.
The fund initially supported eight early-stage tech startups with 125 ETH. Since then, it has scaled up, backing more ambitious efforts — including Giga, a project co-founded by Fabian that aims to connect schools and communities in underserved regions to the internet and modern digital tools.
