Blockchain for the Underserved: How Smart Communities Emerge When Cities Can’t Help

Based on research by Bourbon, B., & Murimi, R. 

Most blockchain hype revolves around smart cities, AI, and data security. Bourbon and Murimi show something more radical: when infrastructure is broken or nonexistent, blockchain becomes the foundation, not an accessory. Instead of optimizing services, blockchains create trust, financial access, and functioning micro-economies—often for people society overlooks.

Key Points

• Blockchain can seed “smart communities” in infrastructure-poor environments where formal institutions fail.
• Trust arises from blockchain identity, transaction immutability, and transparent participation.
• Four case studies demonstrate how blockchains enable identity, banking, food distribution, and refugee integration.
• Smart communities emerge bottom-up, not through centralized smart city planning.
• Blockchain ecosystems allow leapfrogging traditional financial and civic institutions.

Why This Matters

Leaders of financial services, cybersecurity enterprises, universities, and humanitarian organizations often assume technology works only once infrastructure exists. Bourbon and Murimi challenge this assumption. Their core insight: blockchain can be the infrastructure—not an add-on. That has profound implications for solving real-world inclusion problems.

The Kenyan Sarafu system is striking. When drought destroyed the cash economy, traditional banking failed. Instead of waiting for government reform or external aid to rebuild the banking system, a community currency—anchored to the Kenyan shilling—allowed commerce to resume using smartphones. Small merchants, farmers, and service workers created liquidity from nothing but shared trust and verifiable records.

bottom-up pattern mirrors what fintech pioneers do. Consider Mercado Pago in Latin America or India’s UPI framework: both bypassed traditional financial networks to reach billions of people without credit cards or bank accounts. Blockchain unlocks the same leapfrogging, but without requiring central banks or mega-platform intermediaries.

For corporate leaders, the lesson is clear: impactful innovation does not start with the wealthy, well-equipped consumer. It starts where problems are painful enough to warrant new architectures.

Cybersecurity firms should pay attention: blockchain can protect identity and data at the edge—where institutions are weak and corruption is endemic. Financial institutions should pay attention: stablecoins, identity wallets, and decentralized ledgers reduce onboarding risk, fraud, and friction in underbanked communities.

Managers should ask: Where does our organization enforce unnecessary centralization? In many settings, decentralization doesn’t undermine governance—it enables it.

Based upon the Analysis Of: Bourbon, B., & Murimi, R. (2024). Decentralization, blockchains, and the development of smart communities in economically challenging environments. Ledger, 9, 30–50. https://doi.org/10.5915/LEDGER.2024.302