Author: Forbes
Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News
In the Gaza Strip, a fundraising campaign that should have brought hope has been mired in obstacles due to the limitations of traditional finance.
Sami Jamal Al-Shannat raised over £55,000 (approximately RMB 500,000) on GoFundMe for his family trapped in the war zone, thinking the hardest part was over. However, after the platform deducted a 3.9% fee, it did not support direct payments to Gaza. The remaining funds had to be transferred to a designated beneficiary living in a supported country, who would then forward the money to his family.
This arrangement complied with platform rules but placed the final delivery entirely on personal trust. Sami says the arrangement with his brother-in-law, who was the beneficiary, later broke down, and he has yet to receive the full amount, with the dispute unresolved. He described it not merely as a financial loss but as leaving his wife and children in an extremely vulnerable situation.
"Raising the money wasn't the problem," Sami told me from a displacement camp in Gaza. "The problem started when we had to rely on someone else to receive it for us."
Sami's primary hope now is to recover the funds and seek accountability, but from Gaza, he finds it difficult to locate a lawyer and lacks the necessary funds and connections. He also plans to continue fundraising for his family as wartime inflation has caused prices for basic necessities like food to soar.
GoFundMe did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The Trap of Compliance
Sami's experience exposes a widespread issue faced by humanitarian crowdfunding platforms: platforms must comply with banking rules, sanctions regimes, and anti-money laundering requirements, which strictly limit the regions where funds can be sent.
When people in crisis cannot receive funds directly, they must rely on intermediaries. This not only shifts responsibility onto individuals but can also result in the aid raised for them failing to arrive.
This compliance bottleneck can even paralyze global human rights organizations. Lyudmyla Kozlovska, President of the Open Dialogue Foundation, recalled that during the initial days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, platforms like PayPal, GoFundMe, and Wise blocked their fundraising appeals for Ukraine. By using Bitcoin, the foundation was able to bypass traditional delays and deliver urgent humanitarian aid on the second day of the war.
Charities, aid organizations, and tech companies have been grappling for years with how to reach people cut off from the traditional financial system. A growing number of developers believe the current model relies on too many intermediaries, especially when funds need to cross borders or reach restricted jurisdictions.
Redesigning the Architecture of Trust
Michele Morucci, co-founder of the Bitcoin crowdfunding platform Geyser, points out that trust is the core issue.
"People think the biggest challenge is moving money. It's not. The biggest challenge is deciding who to trust."
Donors often don't know the beneficiaries personally; they rely on platforms, charities, journalists, and community leaders to judge a project's authenticity. Removing one intermediary only makes sense if there is an equally credible alternative.
Geyser reviews projects before they go live, requiring creators to provide proof of work, team information, and necessary documents. Projects that don't meet credibility standards are not approved.
Furthermore, over 100 Geyser Field Partners are responsible for identifying and supporting projects within their familiar communities, forming a chain of trust between local communities and global donors. Michele notes these partners have helped deliver 12 million satoshis (approximately £5,600, equivalent to 0.12 Bitcoin) directly to community projects. He acknowledges the model is still new and data remains limited.
More Than Just One Fundraising Case
The weaknesses exposed by Sami's case are not isolated. Crowdfunding platforms can raise money for families facing war, disaster, or oppression within hours, but getting the funds safely into the hands of the intended recipients is far more complex.
GoFundMe isn't the only platform restricting payment regions. Mainstream crowdfunding platforms rely on banks and payment providers and must comply with sanctions, identity verification, and anti-money laundering rules specific to jurisdictions.
When direct payment isn't supported, organizers may need to designate a beneficiary in another jurisdiction to receive the funds on behalf of the recipient. While this satisfies the platform's legal and banking requirements, it transfers responsibility to the intermediary. If the relationship breaks down, the recipient has very limited recourse through the platform.
Shifting Trust to Verifiers
The Agora platform takes a different path. It allows funds to flow directly between donors and recipients, while verification comes from organizations and individuals with first-hand knowledge of the project.
Mary Kate, co-founder of Soapbox (the team behind Agora), explains that donors might not know the person in need, but they might know and trust the organization verifying the project.
"This allows us to shift trust from the project itself to the verifier. You might not know the person in need, but you might know and trust the organization verifying it."
This model leaves the final decision with the donor. A project can still be visible even without verifier support; trusted organizations can add context and credibility without being the sole gatekeepers.
Agora also removes the crowdfunding platform from the payment flow. Donations are sent directly to a wallet controlled by the recipient, reducing the risk of funds being held by the platform or passed through another person's hands.
Bitcoin enables cross-border fund movement without requiring platform custody or beneficiary forwarding. Of course, wallet security, access, and exchange rate risks remain.
For Mary Kate, this control extends far beyond the movement of money itself.
"We can't take away your account, we can't shut down your project, we can't take your money," she says. "For people going through trauma and feeling a lack of control over their lives, this can be a huge moment of empowerment."
Direct payment doesn't solve all problems. Projects still need vetting, donors still need sufficient information to make informed decisions, and recipients could still misuse funds. Agora is working to make these risks more transparent while giving recipients greater control over funds raised in their name.
The Unintended Consequences of Financial Sanctions
Sami's experience is not an isolated case because the underlying issue is widespread. Activists, journalists, and humanitarian organizations worldwide are finding it increasingly difficult to legally transfer funds across borders as financial regulations grow more complex and sanctions impact entire jurisdictions rather than just governments.
Femi Longe, Global Tech for Freedom Strategy Lead at the Human Rights Foundation, believes these restrictions often unintentionally harm the very people meant to receive humanitarian aid.
"Traditional crowdfunding platforms are regulated; moving money across borders requires compliance with AML and sanctions rules. The problem is that these rules ultimately affect legitimate opposition groups, nonprofits, and ordinary citizens, not the governments they were originally aimed at."
Femi notes that even organizations operating legally within sanctioned countries struggle to receive donations. Visible financial ties can put domestic supporters or relatives at risk of retaliation.
Lyudmyla warns that this issue has evolved beyond administrative friction into "transnational financial repression" – where regimes leverage global AML/CFT rules to deprive dissidents of banking access, even in Western countries.
She cites a landmark resolution passed by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in July 2026, which recognized transnational financial repression as a systemic threat and called for stronger protections for donor privacy and privacy-preserving digital tools. Lyudmyla states that Bitcoin payment tools are becoming a necessary lifeline for targeted donors and activists.
Political opposition groups, independent journalists, and civil society organizations often rely on international donations to sustain their work. When donations are hard to send or easier to monitor, financial infrastructure becomes another form of pressure.
This doesn't mean regulations should be abolished. Public fundraising requires accountability, transparency, and safeguards to protect donors from fraud. All interviewees acknowledged this challenge and accepted that there is no perfect solution.
Femi argues the goal should be to remove unnecessary intermediaries while retaining accountability.
"If you allow the project operator to directly control the wallet receiving the funds, I think that's an improvement over the status quo," he adds, noting that verification and oversight remain integral to any system handling public donations.
Sami's case highlights a fundamental weakness in the humanitarian financial architecture. Systems built around banks, payment processors, and judicial borders often struggle when transferring funds to people in war zones, under political repression, or facing humanitarian crises. No one believes technology alone can solve humanitarian fundraising problems.
Direct payment to recipients removes one layer of risk but does not guarantee a project's authenticity, the organizer's honesty, or that donations will be used for the stated purpose.
Femi says, "I don't think Bitcoin solves everything. You still need systems to verify project creators, you still need accountability for how funds are used. These challenges don't disappear just because payment becomes direct."
Platforms like Michele's and Mary Kate's are working along similar lines: they don't claim to eliminate trust but attempt to redesign where that trust is placed.
The new generation of humanitarian crowdfunding is more than a temporary patch for a broken traditional model; it is a systemic shift. Open payment networks can give recipients direct control over funds raised in their name, while decentralized trust networks help donors decide whom to support.
Although judgment, verification, and accountability remain indispensable, this open architecture is bypassing the legacy financial restrictions and regulatory hurdles that prevent traditional platforms from reaching those most in need.
