The Case for Private Stablecoin Payments in Humanitarian Aid & Cash Assistance

Disaster can strike in seconds. Financial aid needs to respond just as quickly.

When a crisis hits communities, those caught in the middle need immediate resources to survive the weeks ahead. But with the current financial system, it can take weeks to receive the aid. Banking systems stall at borders. Local currencies collapse. And for those places where help is most needed, traditional systems may not even reach the given jurisdiction.

For organizations delivering aid, the stakes are extremely high. They need to ensure that help arrives fast enough to generate the intended impact and that the funds properly serve those receiving them.

The data highlighting the problems of traditional finance are stark:

• $38 billion in humanitarian funds is slowed by traditional banking systems.
• 1.4 billion people worldwide remain unbanked.
• 3.5 million households across 48 countries relied on UNICEF cash transfers in 2024.
• A complete aid payment cycle can take up to 45 days.

Why the UN had to fly $2.9B in physical cash to Afghanistan

In 2021, the Taliban took control of the government in Afghanistan and paralyzed the country's payment system in the process. With no way to electronically move money into the communities, the UN had to resort to flying in more than $2.9 billion in physical cash shipments.

Upon arrival, the money still had to move through the local banking system. This increased the chances that money ended up in the wrong hands through systemic corruption, recipient extortion, and other forms of exploitation.

The situation exposed the truth that humanitarian finance teams face on a regular basis: the tools for moving aid deteriorate exactly when they’re needed most.

Charting the rise of stablecoins in humanitarian aid

For years, this looked like an unsolvable problem. But over the past decade, a different set of financial rails has arrived, built on the same technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Stablecoins are digital dollars that hold their value (often 1:1 with the US dollar) and move over the internet, rather than through banks. Offering near-instant settlement with minimal fees, stablecoins maintain value despite local currency volatility. And anyone with a mobile phone and internet connection can access them.

Stablecoins have proved to be the perfect tool for humanitarian aid organizations. As adoption accelerates, their impact continues to grow:

• Mercy Corps, Syria. A 2024 stablecoin pilot delivering aid to farming households in the northeast cut the payment cycle from as long as 45 days to under one day. It also lowered costs by 60%, and increased the amount of aid reaching recipients from 85% to 94%. After the pilot, 72% of participants said they preferred this method of aid disbursement.
• UN Refugee Agency, Ukraine. UNHCR began delivering aid to people displaced by the war in Ukraine with Circle's USDC stablecoin. Funds were paid directly to recipients’ digital wallets and redeemable at any of 4,500 MoneyGram locations across the country. This allowed people to carry funds securely, and even cross borders, without a bank account or physical cash.
• World Food Programme. The WFP’s Building Blocks network is one of the largest humanitarian uses of blockchain to date, with 4 million people supported each month, $555 million in cash-based transfers processed to date, and $3.5 million in bank fees saved using digital payments.

Through these and other programs, organizations have discovered a better system than antiquated financial tools. Money moves in seconds, not days. A greater percentage of every dollar donated reaches its destination. And programs can service people that the traditional banking system doesn’t support.

Perhaps most impactful is that many who receive aid into their wallet begin to hold something they never had before: a financial identity of their own. For the 1.4 billion people the banking system has left out, that first wallet provides financial autonomy for the first time.

What visible transactions expose in cash assistance programs

Even with the massive efficiencies that stablecoins open up, many NGOs have yet to fully embrace them. This is due to a critical weakness plaguing most stablecoins, and one that Aleo is confronting head-on.

Almost all of the programs mentioned above run on public blockchains. This means that every transaction is visible to anyone, forever. For donors and auditors, that transparency has been sold as a benefit: you can trace exactly where the money went. But that's only half the story.

A public ledger turns an aid payment into a permanent record. It shows who received funds, how much, from whom, and where they spent it. In a stable country, that may be a harmless footnote. But, in a fragile one, it’s a map that leads straight to the most vulnerable people.

This risk isn’t unique to stablecoins. Any system that collects sensitive information about aid recipients can expose the people it intended to help. This is especially true in the traditional centralized databases that NGOs already rely on. Unfortunately, the sector has learned this the hard way:

• Red Cross cyberattack, 2022. A cyberattack on a system storing data for the International Committee of the Red Cross compromised the personal information of more than 515,000 highly vulnerable people.
• World Food Programme data leak, Gaza, 2026. A breach of WFP's beneficiary registration system for Gaza exposed the names, ID numbers, and location data of roughly 600,000 households, in what has been described as possibly ”the largest known breach of humanitarian beneficiary data to date”.
• Biometric data concerns, Yemen, 2021. A standoff over control of beneficiary data left civilians caught between two dangers. As the Peace Research Institute Oslo noted, collecting personal data on vulnerable people in a contested conflict creates its own risks, and in that context a breach of privacy can be a “matter of life and death.”

The people on the receiving end of aid are already vulnerable enough. They shouldn’t have to weigh their safety against their need for help.

But that’s exactly the choice that data exposure forces. A visible payment record can invite extortion, with bad actors who know precisely who received funds and how much. It can make recipients targets in regions where crime is already high. And for refugees who have fled an authoritarian government, a single leak can reveal their location to the very people they escaped.

The instinct might be to hide everything, but full anonymity is a dead end for established aid organizations. It breaks the sanctions screening, compliance, and donor reporting that the work depends on. So the sector has been stuck, until now.

How Aleo’s private stablecoins maintain efficiencies

Aleo is designed to solve this problem. To avoid the risks of exposure, aid organizations need recipient transaction data to be cryptographically private. Not hidden behind a password or stored in a database someone promises to protect, but private at the level of the code underpinning the payment protocols being used.

Aleo is payment infrastructure built on zero-knowledge proofs, which are a way to prove something is true without revealing the information behind it. Imagine proving you’re old enough to use a product without entering your date of birth, or proving you’re on an approved list without revealing your name. The fact is confirmed by the code but the underlying details stay private.

Applied to humanitarian aid, this changes everything. An organization can prove a recipient is eligible, unique, and not receiving duplicate assistance, without ever exposing who they are. Payments can be settled with private stablecoins like USDCx.

As a blockchain, Aleo is programmable, so it supports smart contracts. This enables asset issuers and platform operators to set custom rules for assets or transactions: each organization decides exactly which information is disclosed and to whom. This is called selective disclosure, and it’s what makes the technology work for institutions rather than around them.

• The organization can keep a complete, verifiable record for donor reporting, sanctions compliance, and audits.
• That record stays private to the outside world. Anyone using tools like block explorers to watch the flow of money will see nothing.
• If required, a designated compliance role can monitor activity and freeze bad actors in real time. This way privacy never means a loss of control.

The accountability that the sector depends on stays fully intact. But the public exposure that may have put recipients at risk in the first place disappears.

The same protection extends beyond payments. Because zero-knowledge proofs can verify any kind of information, the same technology can secure the other sensitive data aid programs handle, from identity and eligibility to household details.

Aleo’s private stablecoins in the field today

After launching the first private programmable stablecoins to mainnet in January of 2026, Aleo has initiated impact-driven pilots that showcase the power of this new technology.

In April 2026, Mercy Corps Ventures, Aleo, Humanity Link, Goal Global, and the Danish Refugee Council announced a first-of-its-kind pilot delivering private stablecoin aid to displaced communities near the Venezuelan border. The project perfectly illustrates the practical applications of private stablecoins.

In regions shaped by armed groups and extortion networks, many migrants and refugees avoid registering for aid, fearing that exposing their data could lead to detention, deportation, or worse. By disbursing funds in USDCx, the pilot allows recipients to receive aid without exposing their identity to merchants. It's the first time a private stablecoin has been used in a humanitarian setting.

The pilot is also built for the people traditional digital aid and other blockchain solutions leave behind. Recipients interact through WhatsApp, with no crypto knowledge needed. Results will be released once the pilot completes in late 2026.

In another example, unveiled in May 2026, Aleo partnered with UK-based crisis response firm, Labrys, to demonstrate a tool called Confidential Sponsor built for payments in emergency response and humanitarian operations.

The Mercy Corps pilot shows that private stablecoin payments are no longer theoretical. It's a working example of aid being disbursed, verified, and received with little friction for both the organization and recipients. And it’s a model other humanitarian organizations doing cross-border disbursements could adopt.

Aid that reaches people, and protects them

For years, aid organizations have been responsible for two conflicting tasks: moving help quickly, and keeping the people receiving it safe. Stablecoins solved the first problem. Aleo’s private payments tech solves the second.

Together, stablecoins and Aleo change what’s possible at every step:

• Financial rails no longer fail in a crisis. Disbursements that once took weeks, or had to be flown in as physical cash, now settles in seconds and reach anyone with a basic phone.
• More of every dollar arrives. Stablecoin programs have cut costs and put a greater share of each dollar directly into the hands of the people who need it.
• Accountability stays intact. With selective disclosure, organizations maintain a complete, verifiable record for donors and regulators, and the ability to freeze bad actors when required.
• Recipients no longer sacrifice exposure to receive help. Zero-knowledge privacy means an aid payment is no longer a public record leading back to a vulnerable person.
• Relief becomes a foundation for empowerment. People hold their own funds and can safeguard their privacy, all while accessing a world of finance that currently excludes 1.4 billion people.

This is the promise of private stablecoins. All the speed, reach, and efficiency of digital dollars, without asking vulnerable populations to trade their safety for help.

The technology to do this is here, it works, and it’s already in the field.

Learn more about how private stablecoins are built to move money for humanitarian aid and everything else the world depends on with USDCx. Find out how you can get up and running with private stablecoins in your organization.