Cover Up Front Costs for CryptoU Challenges

While we all absolutely want to upskill ourselves, tied to our company ethos of continuous learning, for some folks the upfront costs are too arduous, even with the reimbursement mechanism we can use to be compensated for our funding the challenge.

During the Q3 Challenge, I noticed a lot of individuals from Manilla were looking for an alternative to the purchases of crypto needed to complete the challenge. Since this was a requirement for our team, many found themselves having to choose between the mortgage payment and completing the challenge. For Q3, we assisted folks with adding USDC (Polygon) to AAVE. This required USDC (Polygon) and Matic (Polygon). The minimum purchase of crypto in Manilla was 50 USD worth. The only way we were able to complete this assignment as a team, was because their teammates in the US were able to provide 3 USD of Matic and 3 USD of USDC to each of the folks from Manilla to help assist them to complete the challenge. They also took the funds provided, and after staking with AAVE, withdrew and sent it on to other colleagues. We reached 100% participation for that challenge.

For the sake of understanding, 50 USD worth of the required cryptocurrency was 2859.75 Philippine Peso. They needed to do this twice, to gather enough crypto at the minimum level to complete the challenge.

For Q4, they'll be required to purchase ETH which has much higher fees than Polygon based assets. Living in the US, if I was asked to pony up 2800 USD upfront to complete a challenge, I would not be in a position to be able to do so at this time.

The solution, perhaps, would be to have CB provide all FTE participants with 20 USD worth of whatever asset would be required to complete the challenge. No need to reimbursement. No need to purchase and send from Coinbase. Participants would provide their ETH address and receive the funds at the beginning of the quarter, knowing that the challenge MUST be completed especially due to the company's provision of crypto to complete it.

We feel that the challenge should be accessible to all employees regardless of their geolocation or personal financial status and without the need for workarounds to help assist them to complete it. The agents we worked with are very motivated to learn about CB Wallet and the lessons provided, but not at the cost of their livelihood even if on a temporary basis.