Ultimate Resource For Bitcoin’s Impact In Africa And The African-American Community

The future of money will be defined by African markets, where cryptocurrency awareness and usage surged dramatically over the past year.

Aspiring entrepreneurs like Ghanan high school student Emmanuella see bitcoin as a tool for international trade, not just speculation. He plans to buy some as soon as he turns 18 and can apply for a local mobile money account.

“I will use it to open up a business,” he said.

Ghanian exchange founder Nawaf Abd of eBitcoinics said local demand for bitcoin increased since the coronavirus crisis began, even though his physical stores in Accra and Kumasi are both closed. Through trading online, he continues to supply local buyers with bitcoin. He said his sales were up 70% in March, so much that some days he sells out of bitcoin, but declined to say how many users that entailed. His servers briefly went down in April due to overwhelming traffic on the site.

According to researcher Matt Ahlborg, Ghanian volume at peer-to-peer exchanges LocalBitcoins and Paxful increased to roughly $6.2 million over 90 days of the lockdown, up from roughly $4.2 million the previous 90-day period. Yet another Ghanan student, 18-year-old Derrick Bannerman, bought his first bitcoin during the last dip.

“I already had interest but the period seemed like the perfect moment to do something about my interest in bitcoins since we’re at home doing nothing,” Bannerman said from Accra. “The thing that interests me the most is its increasing value, popularity and security.”

And Nigerian bitcoin market activity is nearly 10 times Ghana’s. Ahlborg’s metrics showed roughly $63.9 million worth of Nigerian bitcoin trades during the lockdown.

With some 60% of Africa’s 1.25 billion people under the age of 25, local traders, as well as crypto behemoths, are placing their bets on future growth.

For example, Yele Bademosi, co-founder of the Binance-backed social payments startup Bundle, said thousands of Nigerians downloaded the Bundle app since it launched in late April.

There’s been some traction in Ghana as well, where Bademosi said the startup is looking to expand. But so far Nigerian demand is overwhelming enough. Roughly a 1,000 people signed up for an introductory Zoom webinar about bitcoin, he said, although there was only room for 100 to attend.

“It’s about making it easy to move value, regardless of whether it’s cash or crypto,” Bademosi said. “You can send [money] to any [smartphone] number in your contacts, even if they’re not on the app yet.” 

For now, the app offers a fiat on-ramp to users with Nigerian bank accounts and supports bitcoin, ether, BNB, plus will soon support Binance’s dollar-denominated stablecoin BUSD.

“We have users who were interested in bitcoin but felt it was a little too difficult to get,” he said. “People use cryptocurrency as a remittance gateway as well as a hedge against any devaluations of local currency, plus speculative trading.”

And local entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones to notice the opportunity on the continent.

Updated: 5-15-2020

Cz Calls Africa An ‘Untapped Market’ With Unique Challenges For Crypto

Updated: 5-20-2020

Africa Is Bullish on Crypto Despite Infrastructure and Regulatory Hurdles

According to a new report, African nations have the highest rates of cryptocurrency adoption throughout the world.

A new report published by Arcane Research shows that African countries have some of the highest cryptocurrency ownership rates worldwide.

South Africa ranked third throughout the world with 13% of its internet users owning or using cryptocurrencies. Nigeria took the fifth spot with 11% of internet users owning cryptocurrencies. The worldwide average for the same stands at 7%.

Indeed, as Cointelegraph recently reported, Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume in Sub-Saharan Africa broke past records posted at the heights of 2017’s rally.

Clear Interest In Crypto

Arcane Research noted that Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana feature in the top-10 countries searching for the term “cryptocurrency” on Google.

Sub-Saharan Africa also has a huge remittance market that brings in about $48 billion annually. Expats today rely on slow and centralized remittance systems that charge transaction fees as high as 9%. Even mobile payment alternatives charge a fee of around 11%.

These factors along with high inflation rates in some African nations reflect the extreme need for cryptocurrency alternatives within the continent.

But There Are Obstacles

However, the report notes a significant lack of related infrastructures such as crypto mining operations, supporting merchants, smartphone penetration, and internet connectivity. These are obstructing wider reach and utility of cryptocurrencies among Africans.

Additionally, there’s little to no clarification from governments regarding cryptocurrency regulation in African countries. Almost 60% of African governments, the report states, are yet to clarify their stance on cryptocurrencies, which is causing a drag on the adoption of digital currencies.

The fact that African citizens are relying on crypto assets despite the lack of proper infrastructure and regulatory clarity is a testament to the wide room for cryptocurrency adoption across the continent.

Many major players in the cryptocurrency industry are already entering African markets. In a recent “ask me anything” session, the founder of world-leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance, Changpeng Zhao, said that Africa is an untapped market for cryptos, and the exchange was working on offering its services on the continent.

Updated: 5-22-2020

African P2P Volume Beats Out Latin America For First Time

African peer-to-peer Bitcoin trade has generated more than $14.6 million in weekly volume, comprising a new record for the continent.

African peer-to-peer, or P2P, Bitcoin (BTC) trading volumes have continued to increase, with the continent posting its third-consecutive all-time high for trade activity.

Africa’s surging volumes come amid a plateauing in global P2P trade, with Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Western Europe posting significant declines in post-halving volume.

As such, this past week saw African P2P trade overtake Latin America to rank as the second-strongest region by weekly volume for the first week on record.

Africa’s P2P Markets See Prolonged Volume Spike

More than $14.6 million worth of Bitcoins changed hands between African users of P2P crypto marketplaces Localbitcoins and Paxful this past week.

The week’s volume beat out the continent’s previous record of $11.6 million from last week, and the nearly $10 million traded at the start of the month.

Trade between the Nigerian naira and BTC represents two-thirds of the continent’s P2P trade, with $9.5 million worth of BTC changing hands in Nigeria in one week.

North American trade also increased in volume this week, extending the continent’s dominance with $25.4 million.

Only Africa And Asia See Annual Increase In P2P Trade

Comparing P2P volumes over 365-day intervals shows only Africa and Asia to have made gains in yearly trade activity.

Sub Saharan Africa ranks as the fifth-strongest region by volume, trailing behind North America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia Pacific.

North American generates over $1 billion in P2P Bitcoin trade each year.

Updated: 5-24-2020

Africa Is Experiencing A Crypto Renaissance

Crypto adoption appears to be growing across the continent of Africa.

Crypto adoption is making significant advances in Africa, with crypto ownership, trade volume, and regulation all moving toward greater adoption.

A recent report by Arcane Research and Luno found that Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya are frequently among the top 10 countries by Google searches for the word “Bitcoin.”

The report describes the continent as “one of, if not the most promising region for the adoption of cryptocurrencies,” emphasizing Africa’s combination of low existing crypto adoption alongside an “enormous” domain possibility.

The firms emphasize that Africa exhibits a young population, frequent monetary crises and currency failures, large unbanked or underbanked populations, and expensive means of payment.

South Africa Emerges As Crypto Hub

While Nigeria has long dominated the continent’s trade volume, the report found that South Africa has the highest percent of cryptocurrency ownership or use among internet users in Africa with 13%, followed by Nigeria with 11%.

Worldwide, South Africa ranks fifth for crypto adoption among connected citizens.

This past week saw South Africa post its second-strongest weekly volume on peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplace Localbitcoins, with nearly $1.65 million worth of BTC changing hands.

The surge in trade activity saw total P2P volume for South African trade edge out Kenya last week with $1.95 million in trade across Localbitcoins and Paxful.

Last month, South Africa’s financial regulator issued a policy document asserting that crypto assets and activities relating to virtual currencies “can no longer remain outside of the regulatory perimeter.”

P2P Volumes Surge Across Africa

Nigerian P2P trade is rallying to record highs, producing $9.2 million in combined weekly trade.

Kenyan trade has also seen a recent spike, with Localbitcoins trade between BTC and the Kenyan shilling producing its second-strongest week on record for the third consecutive time.

Morocco and Egypt have also posted record trade activity in recent weeks.

The increase in volume across the continent has also seen P2P volume from Sub Saharan Africa beat out Latin America for the first time.

Updated: 5-25-2020

Africa Is Experiencing A Crypto Renaissance

Crypto adoption appears to be growing across the continent of Africa.

Crypto adoption is making significant advances in Africa, with crypto ownership, trade volume, and regulation all moving toward greater adoption.

A recent report by Arcane Research and Luno found that Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, and Kenya are frequently among the top 10 countries by Google searches for the word “Bitcoin.”

The report describes the continent as “one of, if not the most promising region for the adoption of cryptocurrencies,” emphasizing Africa’s combination of low existing crypto adoption alongside an “enormous” domain possibility.

The firms emphasize that Africa exhibits a young population, frequent monetary crises and currency failures, large unbanked or underbanked populations, and expensive means of payment.

South Africa Emerges As Crypto Hub

While Nigeria has long dominated the continent’s trade volume, the report found that South Africa has the highest percent of cryptocurrency ownership or use among internet users in Africa with 13%, followed by Nigeria with 11%.

Worldwide, South Africa ranks fifth for crypto adoption among connected citizens.

This past week saw South Africa post its second-strongest weekly volume on peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) marketplace Localbitcoins, with nearly $1.65 million worth of BTC changing hands.

The surge in trade activity saw total P2P volume for South African trade edge out Kenya last week with $1.95 million in trade across Localbitcoins and Paxful.

Last month, South Africa’s financial regulator issued a policy document asserting that crypto assets and activities relating to virtual currencies “can no longer remain outside of the regulatory perimeter.”

P2P Volumes Surge Across Africa

Nigerian P2P trade is rallying to record highs, producing $9.2 million in combined weekly trade.

Kenyan trade has also seen a recent spike, with Localbitcoins trade between BTC and the Kenyan shilling producing its second-strongest week on record for the third consecutive time.

Morocco and Egypt have also posted record trade activity in recent weeks.

The increase in volume across the continent has also seen P2P volume from Sub Saharan Africa beat out Latin America for the first time.

Updated: 5-25-2020

Why Africa Is The New Crucible Of Crypto

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey calls Africa the future of Bitcoin. Local startup founders agree; is the continent set to play host to “Crypto Valley”?

Just like the explorers of a bygone age, Jack Dorsey came away entranced when he visited Africa for the first time last year. The Twitter and Square CEO is a big Bitcoin fan and investor—and during his visit, he declared that the continent was the future of Bitcoin.

Atsu Davoh, founder of Ghana-based cross-border transaction app Bitsika, was one of those Dorsey sought out during his recent visit there. “He was humble and very curious,” Davoh said.

And Dorsey is coming back, with other investors in his wake, because Africa is compelling, see—and especially so for crypto. The continent’s very specific challenges and its enthusiastic workforce are the key ingredients cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin need to succeed. Fragmented infrastructure means that Africans pay the highest remittance costs in the world, and are the second highest unbanked population, but these could prove to be opportunities in the right hands. Does Africa have the potential to lead the way on blockchain adoption?

How Is Crypto And Blockchain Adoption Progressing In Africa?

Ray Youssef certainly thinks so. The CEO of peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful, Youssef credits the continent with teaching him about Bitcoin’s true use cases. “Africans have had peer-to-peer financial systems in place for thousands of years,” he said.

Approximately 45% of Paxful’s three million subscriptions are from Africa. Sending money in traditional ways is so onerous for many that it’s easier to get on a plane and deliver it yourself, said Youssef.

Cryptocurrencies are used as a store of value, for speculation and, increasingly, as a medium for borderless trade across countries, said Philip Agyei Asare, CEO of remittance platform, BTCGhana, which was founded in 2015.

“African crypto is like the Wild West, there are no legal hurdles or regulations,” said Bitsaka’s Davoh. “Governments don’t know that much about crypto so they let people do whatever they want to do.”

He claims to know someone who processed $30 million in Bitcoin over-the-counter transactions in one year. Nigeria has a big population and the best programmers, but is also more politically unstable than Ghana, he added.

National Digital Currencies, Stablecoins And Schools

Africa’s major economies, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, are all keeping an eye on cryptocurrency. Ghana and South Africa are also among those exploring the potential of national digital currencies.

Among the continent’s more liberal crypto states is Senegal, where rapper Akon has started constructing the world’s first “crypto city.”

But the project has come under fire. Improving education is a more pressing need, many believe.

“The greatest national resources in Africa are above the ground, not below it,” said Paxful’s Youssef. “It’s the people—so driven, so ambitious, and just looking for a way to make a difference.”

In 2017, Paxful began a push to build 100 schools with Bitcoin.

African Projects To Meet African Needs

Africa’s unique qualities make it ideally suited as a giant sandbox for blockchain and crypto development—from blockchain commodity exchanges in Nigeria, to boosting agricultural yields and establishing land rights in Kenya. Cardano is prominent among blockchain platforms working with African governments to address local needs, and training developers.

“Africa missed the first, second and third industrial revolutions, but we have a real opportunity to be a part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” said Bitange Ndemo, who heads Kenya’s Blockchain and AI Taskforce.

The so-called “Leapfrogging” theory holds that it’s now irrelevant that Africa failed to develop current-generation IT infrastructure because next-generation services—5G, AI and the Internet of Things—can now be built without having to worry about the costs of overhauling legacy infrastructure.

In Kenya, birthplace of the M-Pesa, the digital revolution is transforming everyday life, paving the way for the application of emerging technologies like blockchain. Kenya’s startup scene is thriving, and the government is working on a trusted identity platform, and exploring biometrics for transaction verification.

Much of Africa’s digital revolution is due to the explosion in mobile phones, now commonplace even in the continent’s poorest countries. Close to 10 percent of GDP in transactions are made with mobile money—the highest proportion in the world. UK blockchain platform Electroneum is tapping into this trend, and has also teamed up with an NGO to create “a crypto ETN village” in an as-yet-undisclosed location, a spokesperson told Decrypt.

Africa is also on the cutting edge of crypto innovation; Many believe 2020 could be the continent’s year of the stablecoin.

Bitsika is currently developing its own ABCD stablecoin, and Nigerian Bitcoin exchange NairaEx is also working on one backed by the national currency, the Naira.

Africa: A Big Place

In a continent comprised of 54 countries and and 1.2 billion people, there’s plenty of disparity in how technology is used, something that also applies to blockchain and crypto.

Take the M-Pesa. Touted as digital currency for the entire continent, its success in Kenya wasn’t replicated in South Africa, and there’s no definitive answer as to why.

There’s also a huge disparity between Cape Town, South Africa, where you can now buy a pad near the city’s university complex with bitcoin, and Zambia, where cryptocurrency is illegal. But what Africa’s countries have in common is that across the continent, startup founders have grown up in an era of digital transformation—mobile, YouTube and the M-Pesa. That makes the continent a perfect crucible for the next wave of innovation, in crypto and blockchain.

“Jack said the future of crypto is in Africa, and I totally agree,” said Davoh. “If you just look at the freedom we have here, the talent and the attention we’re getting from outside—and the role and purpose these solutions serve—this is the perfect place. When I look at all the exciting companies being built here, I think that very, very soon, we’ll see a crypto valley happening in Africa.”

 

Updated: 6-7-2020

Opportunities For Blockchain-Based Technologies In African Healthcare

Emerging technologies such as blockchain can dramatically improve the situation with the healthcare industry in Africa by its implementation.

One of the linchpins of the internet is the ability to access and share data seamlessly. Whether it’s financial metrics for an institution or something as innocuous as a meme, the internet’s distinct pathways of protocols and standardization are the ideal medium for exchanging information.

That transmissibility of information has not translated well to specific industries, however.

Regulatory moats, cumbersome and outdated database architecture, and poorly designed user interfaces are a hindrance to major industries — particularly healthcare. Even in the United States, where healthcare standards are high, onerous regulatory processes inhibit the ability of doctors to adequately share patient information across state lines or access sensitive medical data from past care providers.

If there’s a silver lining to COVID-19, it’s that it has induced a long-overdue examination of many archaic aspects of the healthcare system. When we apply these lessons to emerging markets, such as Africa, the horizon for change coming out of the crisis looks promising.

Africa’s Healthcare Problems Are Opportunities

The maxim that “every problem is an opportunity in disguise” applies aptly to the COVID-19 pandemic and the overall healthcare situation in Africa — COVID-19 aside. For context, Africa’s healthcare system is overburdened, lacks adequate resources and does not have a unified approach to its myriad endemic diseases ranging from Malaria to HIV/AIDS and Ebola.

World organizations such as the United Nations have taken an active role in bolstering the healthcare system in Africa for decades, but the progress is slow and lacks technological innovation. For example, African countries are making meaningful strides in preventing childhood diseases, with 60% or more children now immunized for measles — largely the effort of nonprofits and the United Nations.

On the contrary, public-private healthcare partnerships remain sparse on the continent (especially with foreign companies), yet they represent the greatest opportunity for bringing cutting-edge technologies to African medical facilities. In many cases, these technologies can be as simple as mobile diagnosis tools and more developed IT infrastructure.

The problem isn’t a lack of third-party donations and assistance to the African healthcare system. The same problem that, in many cases, hinders innovative tinkering in the developed world — adequate data sharing.

For example, telehealth was disparaged by many medical professionals in the U.S. before COVID-19. Now, however, it appears that telehealth is here to stay. Some of the early concerns with telehealth (i.e., telemedicine) are well-founded, though.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act standards for privacy and security of patient medical data are embedded into hospital practices and procedures, severely limiting the amount of data that can be shared between medical institutions without cumbersome processes. In addition, many major healthcare institutions in the U.S. rely on disparate IT systems, including non-congruent databases for storing and indexing patient data.

This has profound consequences on data sharing in the medical community.

Some medical providers may even be unwilling to share data for fear of not being able to control who else the data is doled out to from the initial party offered access. In other cases, the incentive for big data modeling using artificial intelligence is reduced, since it requires unobstructed access to sensitive clinical data by a technology company — further restricting the internet’s capacity to mold medicine for the better.

As a consequence, some medical professionals and institutions are exploring blockchain technology and its concomitant class of developments to tackle the data sharing barrier. And it’s implications present an enormous opportunity for Africa.

Africa’s healthcare infrastructure is not as mature as in developed countries like the U.S., but that may be an advantage.

For example, an African medical initiative to build hospitals, research enterprises and other organizations imbued with blockchain tech like secure multi-party computation and reduced regulatory overhead could unleash the floodgates for medical innovation.

In theory, African medical facilities could leapfrog many of the bottlenecks facing Western medical institutions that stem from their entrenched policies and aversion to sharing medical data without myriad regulatory processes. Blockchains are ideal for the secure sharing of sensitive data, and can even be imbued with advanced privacy-preserving primitives like zk-SNARKS to further obscure sensitive medical data.

While Africa’s limited medical infrastructure may have formerly proven an obstacle, when paired with dynamically growing technologies in the blockchain arena, it can catapult to a competitive landscape of innovation.

The continent is even showing signs of early success in combating COVID-19, largely drawing from its experience with Ebola.

Surveillance has been scaled up rapidly, and face masks and other personal protective equipment are commonplace. A South African team even designed a mesh-network COVID-19 tracing app that preserves privacy — a notable departure from the combined efforts of Apple and Google in the U.S.

Injecting Africa’s experience with data-sharing technology like blockchains would only further bolster the continent’s ability to stifle pandemics in their infancy.

Imagine the scale of intrigue by foreign scientists, AI firms and medical professionals into Africa’s myriad novel diseases and pathogens should the real potential of the internet’s data-sharing capabilities be realized on the world’s fastest-growing and most geographically diverse continent. Data on unique diseases plaguing Africans, such as river blindness, could be seamlessly and securely shared between hospitals, clinics and researchers — enabling real-time improvements in decision-making.

Mobile diagnoses could be uploaded to shared blockchain networks in real time, cryptographically secured, and passed on to third-parties with read-access restrictions baked into the patient data. No need to worry about a Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal at the medical level in the African sub-Saharan region.

Capital investment would subsequently pour into a region where the regulatory shackles are removed, and technology can flourish independently of government mandates. Interestingly, reduced regulatory overhead may be a direct consequence of COVID-19 as we take measure of our failures to respond to the pandemic. If Africa pursues the fusion of low regulatory burdens and blockchain-based healthcare IT systems, the consequence may have an endemic positive impact.

Africa, and the world, needs more nimble technology for disease monitoring, diagnosing and treatment in the field. The current systems have proven inadequate in the fight against COVID-19, and it’s clearly time for some deep introspection. Africa is a fertile hotbed for exploring the potential of new technologies in the healthcare sector.

But Africans remain firmly skeptical of third-party interference in its healthcare system as well. A murky history of the World Health Organization using Africans for experimental vaccine treatments has eroded trust in foreign aid, and even led to novel strain outbreaks of diseases like Polio, which have been linked to a mutation in a strain of a vaccine. That’s why a more self-sufficient African healthcare system is the ultimate goal, and one that blockchains can help realize.

That’s a promising vision for bypassing many of the bottlenecks facing the medical industry in the West, which has languished in red tape for decades. For a global medical landscape looking to reshape after a colossal disaster, the incentive for letting go of outmoded healthcare solutions and embracing more agile, connected yet less invasive models has never been greater.

Updated: 6-16-2020

One Man’s Mission to Deploy Solar-Powered Bitcoin Nodes Across Africa

Africa appears to have eight nodes total. From this map, entrepreneur and IT guru Chimezie Chuta inferred that he is the only person in Nigeria known to be running a Lightning node.

A crucial caveat is that many users might be running nodes without exposing them to the world. But, all told, Lightning activity looks sparse on the planet’s second-largest and second-most populous continent.

Chuta wants to change this. Like many Bitcoiners, he believes running a network node is one of the best ways to become truly financially independent. A Lightning node in particular, while experimental and maybe risky to use, allows Africans to earn a little cash by way of fees for relaying money across the network, he said.

To that end, BlockSpace Technologies Africa Inc., Chuta’s company, has released a kit for a Bitcoin and Lightning node, including all the hardware pieces for assembly, called SpaceBox, in the hopes of expanding the technology’s use across the continent.

“I think this will help many people living in low-income regions of the world to become part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Beyond trading and speculation, Africa seems to have zero representation,” Chuta said.

Many Africans don’t have access to financial services like traditional bank accounts. In 2015, the World Bank estimated that 350 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa were “unbanked.” In theory, running the pair of nodes could connect Africans to a more modern financial system – and do so in a way that gives them greater visibility and control over their funds than relying on third parties.

The SpaceBox sells for 210,000 naira, the Nigerian currency, worth roughly $541. The main component of the kit is a tiny hobbyist computer called the Raspberry Pi running the open-source Raspblitz software for Lightning nodes. It also has a solar panel component, since many Africans lack electricity.

“Our goal is to raise an army of full Bitcoin Lightning node operators to dot every nook and cranny of the continent in the next one year,” Chuta said. “We plan to sell and deploy at least 250 of these nodes … in the next six months.”

So far, over the last month the company has received seven orders, one from British Columbia, five from Nigeria, and one from Ghana.

Financial Sovereignty

Some readers may feel deja vu. Half a decade ago, Africa was touted as fertile ground for cryptocurrency adoption. Back then, cheaper remittances were supposedly the killer app.

Compliance costs, along with bitcoin’s scaling challenges, complicated that narrative. While some people, including in Nigeria, indeed use bitcoin for remittances today, it hardly put a dent in Western Union.

Chuta’s pitch is different, emphasizing the autonomy that comes with running a full Bitcoin node, and the income from a Lightning one. It’s a way to earn and safeguard money, not just zap it to someone else.

Operating a Bitcoin full node basically means running the underlying infrastructure for the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Unlike mining, which requires significant investment in specialized chips, electricity and cooling, anyone can run a node on a laptop with enough space. At least 10,000 people are running nodes today – a conservative estimate since not all nodes show the world they are running.

While there’s no direct financial reward for running a Bitcoin node, it has an advantage over both custodial services (where a third party holds the private keys) and simplified payment verification wallets (which verify only their own transactions). A full node “self-validates” by retrieving every transaction recorded on the blockchain. With this information and the node rules downloaded, users can verify firsthand that transactions follow the network rules.

As the ultimate bullshit detector, it can tell if you’re getting false data.

“Being financially sovereign has become a necessity and Bitcoin offers the primary tool to attain that,” Chuta said.

SpaceBox’s Lightning node component is built on top of the Bitcoin node. Lightning attempts to solve one of Bitcoin’s biggest problems: increasing scalability so more people can use the network at once. If successful, it might become the main method of making everyday payments in the cryptocurrency – and generate revenue for those running nodes.

“Although operating a full Bitcoin Lightning node is more like a hobbyist engagement, some people are already making some money by positioning their nodes as [a] Lightning payment routing channel,” Chuta said.

Solar-Powered

There are several options for building Lightning nodes, such as RaspiBlitz, or just purchasing them already put together from vendors like myNode.

Most node makers assume that users will have a stable electric source to plug into, which isn’t a safe assumption in Sub-Saharan Africa where, according to The World Bank, more than one half of the population lacks electricity.

“With regards to infrastructure, Nigeria (and a number of other African countries) have very poor electricity supply so keeping a full node running is very difficult,” Bitcoin Core contributor Tim Akinbo told CoinDesk.

Hence the solar panel that comes with the SpaceBox kit.

“This lack of regular electricity has denied most bitcoin enthusiasts in the continent the opportunity to participate in the global bitcoin multi-billion dollar industry as miners or routing node operators,” Chuta said. “By integrating [an] affordable solar power kit into bitcoin node operation, we expect that many more people across the world, especially Africans, can participate.”

Beyond electricity, Akinbo notes there are other costs to running a full node. They require a lot of storage space, for instance.

“It’s just untenable for most Africans at the moment,” Akinbo said, arguing that only wealthy bitcoins in Africa could afford a node.

But in Chuta’s vision, not everyone will necessarily run a node themselves. Perhaps there will be specialists that learn to run them, he said, who then pass the benefits on to their local community.

“The main point of this project … is to educate and train capable node operators across Africa, who then can help their small communities maintain ‘friends and family node’ in order to secure a healthy financial future for them,” Chuta said.

He hopes orders will snowball after the coronavirus fades, since the pandemic has hurt BlockSpace’s hardware suppliers.

“As soon as COVID-19 issues settle, we will launch a full campaign that will make a significant impact based on our vision,” Chuta said.

Updated: 7-1-2020

Africa Posts Triple-Digit P2P Volume Gains In Three Months

Sub-saharan Africa now represents more than $15 million in combined weekly peer-to-peer trade following triple-digit growth over just a few months.

Peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) trading has seen rapid growth in recent months, with the African continent now the second-strongest region in the world for P2P volume behind the U.S.

Africa was the sole region to produce an increase in seven-day P2P trade this past week — with sub-saharan African trade posting its seventh all-time high for weekly trade in nine weeks.

Since early January, the sub-saharan African has overtaken the Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, and Latin American regions to emerge as the second-strongest P2P market by a volume margin of more than 50%.

African P2P Trade Surges

Data posted to Twitter by crypto analyst Kevin Rooke on June 30 indicated triple-digit P2P activity among Africa’s top P2P markets over just three months, with volume increases of 125% in Nigeria, 194% in South Africa, 199% in Kenya, and 257% in Ghana.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, a spokesperson for top P2P Bitcoin marketplace Paxful noted that in addition to Africa’s top markets, Cameroon has emerged as a “breakout country” with $5 million in volume during 2020 so far.

Paxful attributes the dramatic increase in trade activity to its ethos of staying “connected to the streets” and fostering grassroots communities in developing markets:

“There’s no one catalyst for the recent significant jump in volume, rather it’s a result of a collective effort on the part of our various teams who have enabled us to successfully enter new markets like India and Argentina, build local communities (in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, etc.) and form new partnerships.”

“With every new market comes an opportunity to improve and we plan to continue to focus on our users’ needs as a roadmap for growth,” Paxful added.

US Dominates P2P Volume

Despite Africa’s meteoric rise, North America has further consolidated its lead in P2P volume with recent all-time highs for weekly trade exceeding $30 million.

The United States represented $30 million in trade by itself this past week, comprising nearly twice that of the entire continent of Africa. Paxful’s spokesperson noted that California is the strongest U.S. state for P2P trade year-to-date.

Nigeria is the second-strongest national P2P market, representing almost $10 million in weekly trade.

Updated: 8-3-2020

Where FATF Crypto Compliance Gets Interesting: Africa

Africa isn’t included on the virtual asset regulatory map just yet.

But crypto businesses seeing strong growth across the 54-country continent are working hard on know-your-customer (KYC) rules to meet the exacting standards set out by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

A broad range of entities operating in Africa, ranging from crypto exchanges to remittance providers to peer-to-peer marketplaces, are exploring KYC options, which could mean picking up licenses from other jurisdictions or even creating new regulatory frameworks in some cases.

The FATF makes reference to jurisdictions with “weak or non-existent” anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CTF) controls in its recently published summer plenary report.

If a so-called stablecoin provider were located in a jurisdiction with poor AML/CTF controls, other jurisdictions could apply their stronger AML/CTF laws to these providers, says the FATF report.

But enforcement of any rules might be difficult if the home supervisor of the virtual asset services provider (VASP) had not implemented the revised FATF standards strongly enough to respond to international co-operation requests, the report continues.

Nonetheless, innovative crypto players in Africa and other parts of the unregulated world are doing their best to be AML-compliant with a view toward meeting the requirements of the Travel Rule. The Travel Rule mandates that the senders and receivers of crypto transactions over $1,000 on regulated exchanges must be identified.

Shopping For Regs

“In places where there aren’t really e-regulatory rules yet, firms are doing KYC and using blockchain analytics for AML,” said former Kenya resident Pelle Braendgaard, CEO of crypto identity startup Notabene. “People are shopping around for regulation, looking at remittance licenses to deal with foreign partners so they can have at least some level of clarity.”

This was the approach taken by BitPesa, launched in Kenya in 2013. The cryptocurrency payments and liquidity platform, which rebranded as AZA last year, snagged a license from the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in 2015, then acquired money transfer company TransferZero in 2018, gaining a license from the Spanish central bank.

When AZA expanded into Nigeria, it helped the Nigerian central bank address the dearth of crypto regulation, taking part in a government DLT task force, said Stephany Zoo, AZA’s head of marketing.

“Our AML and KYC are of U.K. and European standards, which means we are asking for things that nobody else on the African continent is asking for,” said Zoo, adding:

“We have a number of automated AML and KYC platforms that are integrated into ours, but when you don’t have the same kind of access to government databases, it becomes much harder to run these checks. So, unfortunately, we do have to use a combination of automated and manual systems.”

AZA also recently became the first company to get a digital remittances license in Uganda, which involved some hands-on effort.

“We basically lobbied the central bank for three years and finally they created a license for us,” Zoo said. “In Africa, that’s what you kind of have to do, you have to work with the government very closely because these regulations don’t exist, so you have to create them.”

Collecting remittance licenses is one approach; formulating an entire regulatory framework is another. That’s what Cryptobaraza CEO Michael Kimani is attempting to do with the Blockchain Association of Kenya.

Kimani counts South African crypto exchange Luno among the association’s backers, and says members would like to move the regulatory process forward on their own steam, rather than wait for state-led supervision to emerge.

He also expects guidance on this project from the likes of FATF and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“We are creating our own virtual currency guidelines and we are hoping to submit about 15 regulations,” said Kimani. “One of the reasons I’m trying to push this, as the chairman of the association, is because I feel it’s important we cater to local peculiarities and don’t just end up adopting some laws that may have been customized for a completely different market.”

Africa is a complex and varied market. Its many local nuances mean Western companies can experience epic failures, such as BebaPay, Google’s bank-backed attempt at travel cards.

Even M-pesa, the Vodafone-backed mobile-phone money with a monopoly in Kenya, failed miserably in South Africa, where some 75% of the population have bank accounts.

There’s also a lesson here for Facebook and the proposed cryptocurrency libra, says Kimani: “I think the challenge is, no one wants to see a foreign company come in here and just dominate the payments scene.”

P2P Pump

African countries with more advanced banking and financial infrastructure such as Nigeria are beginning to see impressive growth in crypto, not only in remittances but around investing and trading, said Ruth Iselema, CEO and co-founder of crypto exchange Bitmama.

“There’s not much in the way of government rules,” said Iselema, “but we can KYC users with Nigeria’s BVN [bank verification number]. It’s like a social security number, but not everyone has one. Or you can use an international passport when you have higher transaction limits.”

But exchange-based trading in Africa is only part of the picture, as Cryptobaraza’s Kimani points out. Peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces are growing fast across the continent. This type of crypto adoption between so-called “unhosted wallets” occupies the other end of the regulatory spectrum from the FATF’s VASP regime.

“The best way to mitigate the ML/TF [money laundering/terrorist financing] risks posed by such disintermediated transactions remains an area of focus and will be considered in further detail by the FATF as part of its ongoing work on virtual assets,” states the FATF plenary report.

There are, in fact, two types of P2P markets in Africa, said Kimani. The first includes the likes of LocalBitcoins and Paxful. But there’s another whole system of informal networks based on trust and reputation. Pockets of trading using Telegram and WhatsApp are also very popular, said Kimani, who has acted as an escrow agent to such trust networks.

“This happened before crypto with PayPal, Skrill and Neteller,” said Kimani. “People feel comfortable knowing they are dealing with someone they trust. A lot of crypto conversations are fixated on AML, but I think crypto could learn a lot from how these trust networks operate.”

The Paxful Challenge

Meanwhile, P2P marketplace Paxful, which is now experiencing explosive growth in Africa, has taken on an inordinate KYC challenge across the region.

Paxful CEO Ray Youssef explained his company is building a localized KYC “switchboard,” in rather the same way Paxful itself has evolved into a universal switchboard for money.

“It’s a big job, believe me; it’s like a whole other startup,” said Youssef. “For example, Nigeria has five different types of national ID, most of them don’t have an expiry date. In Kenya, there’s no such thing as proof of address. If someone has an ID from a little country like Malawi, for example, we are routing KYC requests to one of the very few appropriate KYC providers. Sadly, most KYC providers have left Africa behind.”

A large slice of Paxful’s business in places like Nigeria involves the trading of gift cards (Amazon, Apple, etc.) for bitcoin. These gift cards are sold for bitcoin at between 60 cents and 80 cents on the dollar, which critics flag up as inherently scammy.

Some of the business is fraudulent, as Paxful will admit.

“We have made 99.5% of gift card transactions safe, which is a monumental achievement,” said Youssef. “LocalBitcoins dropped gift cards because they don’t have the capability to support this. But we haven’t abandoned gift cards, and they are most challenging. Why? Because they are a key route to onboarding the emerging world.”

There appears to be a vibrant system of gift card remittance (many gift cards are purchased by expat Nigerians in the U.S., who immediately send pictures of the cards, plus receipts back to relatives who then trade for bitcoin).

Indeed, gift cards are even described as a kind of “stablecoin” to the Paxful ecosystem; this is not so different from the hack where Kenyans started selling mobile-phone minutes, which ultimately led to M-pesa.

Youssef said gift card trading, plus the creation of a bitcoin trade route between Nigeria and China, have paved the way for a crypto gold rush in Africa. He also thinks P2P is going to be front and center.

“P2P is how the world works,” said Youssef. “Dare I say it – and I do – in two years time, P2P volume will flippen exchange volume, which is vastly inflated. They’ve got some surprises coming from the people of Africa.”

Updated: 8-12-2020

Championing Blockchain Education In Africa: Women Leading The Bitcoin Cause

“Women need to be financially independent. This is the biggest weapon they can use to liberate themselves. When they no longer depend on anyone, they can then reach their full potential.”

It’s no secret that women are underrepresented in the technology and financial industries. In the U.S, women only hold a quarter of computing-related jobs. Some sectors, like software engineering, fare even worse, with female representation as low as 15%.

And now along comes blockchain, a technology that promises a global revolution through decentralization. Blockchain has already begun to transform many industries, from finance and supply chain management to healthcare and governance.

However, it has yet to significantly change the demographics of the tech industry.

According to a study conducted by Long Hash, a cryptocurrency research firm, women only represent 14.5% of blockchain startup team members. At the management level, the number is even lower, with women only accounting for 7% of executives and 8% of advisors.

Africa Paints A Different Picture

In Africa, the story has been quite different. The continent has greatly taken to blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, and women have been playing a key role. Despite the tech industry traditionally being a ‘boys’ club,’ a rapidly growing number of fearless, dedicated and determined women have taken the industry by storm, rising to various positions of power and influence.

In Africa, women have faced marginalization for centuries. Economic exclusion, lack of access to education, gender-based violence, limited participation in political decisions – these are just a few of the many challenges that the continent’s women face.

This has been one of the reasons Bitcoin, and the underlying blockchain technology, have appealed to many women. For them, blockchain promises freedom. The technology gives them hope that they can break free from the shackles of financial captivity by the legacy systems, decades of corruption, lack of opportunities and more.

For example, in Botswana Alakanani Itireleng has been on the frontline in preaching the blockchain gospel. Known as ‘The Bitcoin Lady,’ she is the founder of Satoshicentre, a blockchain hub which works with several developers to use blockchain to solve Africa’s biggest challenges.

In South Africa, Sonya Kuhnel has continued to be one of the most renowned leaders in the blockchain space. Kuhnel is the founder of Xago, an XRP cryptocurrency exchange and payment gateway that allows retailers to accept XRP payments. She is also the founder of The Blockchain Academy, an institution committed to up-skilling 10,000 software engineers on blockchain technology by 2022.

In Kenya, Roselyn Gicira leads blockchain innovation and adoption, serving as the chairperson of the Blockchain Association of Kenya. Gicira also leads the Kenya Women in Blockchain Chapter which seeks to ensure that more women get into the blockchain industry.

And in Nigeria, Doris Ojuedeire’s efforts to promote blockchain have gone beyond her home country, reaching out to women across the continent and bringing them into blockchain and cryptocurrencies. She shared her journey with me, one that has seen her rise to become one of Africa’s most influential blockchain voices.

Of Scams And Triumphs

Doris got into cryptocurrencies when she was studying accounting in university, eight years ago. At the time, crypto was a niche field that few in Africa were involved with — most of them men. This didn’t faze Doris, and she sought all the materials she could find to learn more about Bitcoin and other upcoming cryptocurrencies.

She started off by investing in crypto trading. As a novice, Doris lost a lot of money initially through online scams. However, she battled on, and in time she started making profits from crypto trading. The venture proved to be quite fruitful for her, giving her financial independence while still at the university.

It was when she graduated that she discovered there was much more to Bitcoin than just making profits. As she learned about blockchain technology, she realized that it had the potential to transform lives for millions of Africans, especially the continent’s women. It was then that she decided to embark on educating the masses about blockchain, a passion that still drives her today.

Blockchain Africa Ladies

In Africa, Bitcoin had become synonymous with scams after several investors lost millions of dollars to Ponzi schemes. This was the first thing Doris set out to change, educating thousands of Nigerians about Bitcoin and the world of opportunities it opens up.

She realized that women were vastly underrepresented in Bitcoin and blockchain. She set out to change this, eventually leading to the birth of Blockchain African Ladies (BAL).

BAL is a non-profit organization that educates African women on blockchain technology. The organization has grown rapidly and now has members in Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire and many other countries.

BAL organizes meet-ups, workshops, mentorship programs and conferences for the women, geared towards sparking an interest in blockchain.

Its biggest event is the Blocktech Women Conference, an event that attracts some of the foremost leaders in blockchain to inspire, educate and interact with the women. Unlike most blockchain events that have only a few female speakers, 80% of the speakers at Blocktech are women.

Doris Has Gone Beyond Education, Though. She Told Me:

“While blockchain can help eradicate, or at least reduce, many of the challenges that African women go through, teaching them about it isn’t enough. The women need to be financially independent. This is the biggest weapon they can use to liberate themselves. When they no longer depend on anyone, they can then reach their full potential.”

Her desire to make African women financially stable led to the founding of Crypto Lioness, a platform she uses to educate women about crypto trading. Crypto Lioness allows the women to connect via WhatsApp, Telegram and other social media platforms to learn the do’s and don’ts of crypto trading, share tips, learn from experts and support each other.

Women In Blockchain

Through Doris’ efforts, thousands of women in Africa have joined the blockchain industry. This is her greatest accomplishment, she tells me. She believes that this will be a catalyst for widespread adoption of the technology and cryptocurrencies across the continent.

However, she believes that there is much more to be done if women are to become fully involved in blockchain, a belief that Ciara Sun, the vice president of Huobi Global shares.

Sun joined the blockchain industry after working with global giants such as the Boston Consulting Group and Ernst & Young.

“Having seen how the current financial world was working, it was an easy move towards what I considered the future world of finance,” she tells me.

Women continue to face challenges that most men don’t, including having their decisions frequently questioned, she revealed. With blockchain being an intersection of finance and technology – two industries where women are underrepresented – it’s no surprise that women occupy very few positions of power and influence.

This Has To Change If Blockchain Is To Achieve Its Full Potential, She Believes, Stating:

“Crypto and blockchain is so heavily based on doing things differently, but when you have only one half of the population involved in up to 99 percent of the big decisions, you are limiting the potential to really change things and cause great disruption.

The crypto and blockchain space needs to be bold and brave enough to seek out the other perspectives that can come from women in the space.”

Updated: 10-19-2020

Exploring The Landscape Of Crypto Regulations In Sub-Saharan Africa

Despite facing hot-and-cold rules, growing crypto usage in sub-Saharan Africa is forcing regulators to reconsider the industry.

Sub-Saharan Africa has no doubt suffered many regulatory setbacks in adopting cryptocurrencies. With most countries in the region struggling not to buckle under economic uncertainties and pressures looming over them even as the ripple effects of COVID-19 set in, it would appear that many Africans, especially millennials, aren’t waiting for the government anymore.

The main issue inhibiting regulation seems to be a combination of resistance and indecision both from regulators, which has majorly been a result of little or no understanding of cryptocurrencies.

Speaking to Cointelegraph on the attitude of regulatory bodies in Africa toward cryptocurrencies, Andrew Nevin, partner and chief economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers Nigeria, said:

“I think it’s fair to say that around the continent, people are being cautious. There’s been a lot of problems with cryptocurrency and various kinds of fraud: initial coin offerings and projects that didn’t have sufficient value and have gone backwards or folded up. So, I think that the authorities are taking the right view in taking this step by step.”

For the most part, governments of most sub-Saharan countries have not taken any clear stance toward cryptocurrencies.

The Waiting Game

Many African governments pretty much don’t know what to do about cryptocurrencies, although recently, there has been some progress. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria has officially defined digital assets under its regulatory umbrella in a recent statement. Before, the Nigerian Central Bank had flip-flopped, going from warning its citizens against doing business in digital currencies to launching research on potential policy proposals. In Kenya, authorities have gone from comparing cryptocurrencies to pyramid schemes to setting up a task force to study the challenges and benefits associated with the underlying blockchain technology.

Over the years, the legality of Bitcoin (BTC) and other crypto assets has varied significantly across the region, with over 60% of African governments yet to make their position known.

Updated: 8-1-2021

Yele Bademosi Steps Down As CEO of Bundle Africa

Bademosi will be succeeded by Binance Africa director Emmanuel Babalola.

Yele Bademosi, the founder and CEO of the Nigeria-based crypto payments app Bundle Africa, is stepping down as the head of the company.

Bademosi announced his decision to step away from his current role, effective today, in a blog post on Friday. He wrote that he intends to focus on driving digital currency adoption across Africa. He will be succeeded by Binance Africa director Emmanuel Babalola, at least on an interim basis.

“My focus for the next 12 to 18 months is really building infrastructure that can allow the inflow of capital to support innovation beyond the buying and selling of crypto,” Bademosi told CoinDesk.

Bundle Africa launched last year with backing from global cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which contributed $450,000 in seed funding for the creation of the payments app. According to Bademosi, the app has about 350,000 users now. Bademosi, who grew up in Nigeria, was a former director of Binance Labs before creating Bundle.

Babalola is not only familiar with Africa’s crypto market. but he also knows how to navigate the global crypto sector comfortably, Bademosi said of his successor.

“[Babalola] is someone that I trust because we have the same mission and values, and I basically can’t imagine anybody else taking over,” Bademosi said.

Updated: 8-5-2021

FBI joins Mirror Trading Probe In Africa To Help Recover US Investor Funds

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is joining the investigation into one of the largest alleged crypto scams of 2020.

Investigations into the South African company Mirror Trading International (MTI) — widely seen as last year’s most ruinous Bitcoin (BTC) Ponzi scheme — are now engaging the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

MTI, which went into provisional liquidation in December 2020, claimed to have over 260,000 members across 170 countries at its height. It had first caught regulators’ attention in Texas back in July of last year, where its operations were quickly shut down. South Africa’s Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) issued its own statement in August 2020, warning that the company lacked a mandatory license and was offering investors implausible, fantastical returns on their investment. The FSCA had advised MTI’s existing clients to request immediate refunds.

Since the scheme’s collapse, the liquidation team in South Africa has been attempting to trace MTI’s assets, with the company believed to have held around 23,000 BTC worth around $874 million at today’s price. The team has been seeking to expand powers to aid their efforts since January.

In an email to Bloomberg, five MTI trustees said they had now “had meetings with international law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, after being approached by them,” revealing that “the FBI is joining forces with the liquidators of Mirror Trading International in the interest of several U.S. and local investors.”

As previously reported, South African media outlets have leaked alleged internal MTI communication that suggests that the company’s senior executives were in the dark about the scheme’s operations, with MTI CEO Johann Steynberg the sole person to have had full control.

In their correspondence with Bloomberg, the liquidators said that “although there is a paper trail (airplane ticket) regarding [Steynberg’s] possible flight attempt to Brazil, no video or photo confirmation could be obtained that he did leave the country.” Steynberg has remained AWOL since December 2020.

An executive at the South African crypto exchange Luno has this week revealed to reporters that some of the victims of a major alleged crypto theft in the country this spring, tied to the Africrypt investment scheme, had also previously sent their funds to MTI.

Updated: 8-27-2021

New Leader Takes Zambia from Defaulter to Investor Darling

Zambia’s new president, Hakainde Hichilema, is turning the nation’s economic fortunes around barely a week into the job.

The southern African nation’s currency and dollar bonds have surged to become the world’s best performers since he was announced the winner of Aug. 12 elections.

His pick of economist Situmbeko Musokotwane as finance minister has gone down well with investors, as have his pronouncements that he’ll speedily conclude a financing deal with the International Monetary Fund and court foreign investment.

Zambians have grown used to bad news in recent years.

Production of copper, which accounts for more than 70% of export earnings, stagnated as the government clashed with mining companies. The kwacha currency depreciated from 5.10 to the dollar at the end of 2011 to a record low 22.68 this year. Annual inflation reached almost 25% in July, the highest level in nearly two decades.

The change in power has brightened the nation’s economic prospects, with investors optimistic that the new administration will drive a sustained recovery, and restructure almost $13 billion in external loans after securing IMF funding. While Hichilema had said he hopes to reach a deal with the fund by April, Musokotwane is targeting October.

“It’s night and day at the moment,” said Neville Mandimika, economist and fixed income strategist at FirstRand Bank Ltd. in Johannesburg. “The expectation has been completely raised.”

Hichilema, 59, studied economics in the U.K., served as the chief executive officer of an accounting firm and unsuccessfully ran for the presidency five times before finally winning this month. The late President Michael Sata, who’s party he dislodged from power, dubbed him “calculator boy” — a snipe at his economic jargon-laden speeches.

Hichilema capitalized on widespread discontent over rampant unemployment and soaring prices especially among young voters to secure his landslide election win.

He was sworn in on Aug. 24 and pledged to stabilize the nation’s finances following years of overspending by his predecessor Edgar Lungu’s administration that culminated in Zambia becoming the first African sovereign-debt defaulter since the coronavirus pandemic struck.

Hichilema will probably need to cut fuel and farm subsidies that have contributed to repeated budget blowouts to secure the IMF funding. That will be a hard sell to an electorate that’s expecting him to lower living costs.

And even with with IMF endorsement, the new administration faces complex restructuring talks with a diverse group of creditors ranging from China Development Bank to European funds holding its dollar debt.

High on the government’s list of priorities is mending ties with the mining industry.

Musokotwane wants to more than double annual copper production to as much as two million metric tons by 2026. That would help bolster foreign reserves, which had dwindled due to rising debt-servicing costs.

“You will be amazed how much foreign exchange this country is going to make,” the finance minister said on Friday after being sworn in. “You will not know what to do with the dollars that this country will be receiving.”

Updated: 8-30-2021

Zambian Debt In Record Demand With Investors Betting On Recovery

Zambia attracted bids for more than eight times the amount of domestic-currency bonds offered at the latest auction, with yields plunging as investors bet on an economic recovery under new President Hakainde Hichilema.

The central bank raised 2.5 billion kwacha ($157 million) at a sale on Friday, having received bids for a record 12.5 billion kwacha. Yields fell across the curve, with those on the five-year notes dropping almost 8 percentage points to 25%.

While that yield doesn’t offer much real return, with inflation at 24.4% in August, a sharp appreciation in the nation’s currency could signal that consumer-price growth will ease in the coming months. Zambia imports everything from fuel to fertilizer, so currency volatility has a major bearing on inflation.

“There’s a sense of euphoria,” said Mweemba Mwiinga, chief investment officer at African Life Financial Services Ltd. in Lusaka, the capital. “If you’re a local investor, with the appreciation of the kwacha, there’s the expectation that inflation will come down. There’s a bit of FOMO as well.”

Since Hichilema was declared the election winner on Aug. 16, Zambian assets have rallied. The kwacha has surged 21% against the dollar, more than any other currency tracked by Bloomberg globally, and the southern African nation’s dollar bonds have shown world-beating returns. Investors are betting he’ll be able to revive an economy that became Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign defaulter last year after a decade of overspending fueled by external loans.

The currency appreciation will continue, according to Situmbeko Musokotwane, who Hichilema appointed as finance minister on Friday. He aims to secure a deal with the International Monetary Fund by November, which will further boost confidence. He’s also seeking to more than double copper output over five years in Africa’s second-biggest producer of the metal.

Musokotwane has emphasized the need to create jobs by boosting economic output, especially in mining. He’s struck a different tone to the previous government that had a hostile relationship with mining companies, that in turn held back on investment.

“It’s not having copper underground that makes you rich,” he said in comments broadcast on state television on Sunday. “What makes you rich is the stuff to be mined out and sold, profits made, taxes paid, jobs created.”

Musokotwane will need to deliver a credible budget that finds a balance between appeasing voters and winning endorsement from the IMF, which may require cuts to fuel and farm subsidies. He also faces what promise to be tough debt-restructuring talks with creditors.

The finance minister said he intends to present his plan to lawmakers by late October.

“He has made a lot of positive pronouncements, but obviously the proof of the pudding will be in how some of these things will be implemented,” Mwiinga said by phone. “The key thing to watch will be the budget.”

Updated: 9-14-2021

Africa’s Crypto Market Has Grown By More Than 1,200% Since 2020: Chainalysis

P2P platforms, the need for remittances to circumvent restrictions from banks, and putting savings into crypto as a means of avoiding inflation could have contributed to the growing market in Africa.

Digital analytics firm Chainalysis reported that the cryptocurrency market in Africa has grown significantly since last year in addition to the region having a larger share of overall retail transaction volume compared to the global average.

In a report released on Tuesday, Chainalysis said Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021, with high adoption in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The company added that the popularity of P2P platforms could have been one of the driving factors toward greater crypto adoption in the region, given some countries have restricted or banned residents from sending money to exchanges through local banks.

According to Chainalysis, the entire continent received $105.6 billion worth of crypto between July 2020 and June 2021.

Yet, it had a share of the market’s overall transaction volume made up of “retail-sized transfers” larger than any other region in the world — roughly 7% as opposed to the 5.5% global average. In addition, P2P platforms — including Paxful and LocalBitcoins — account for 1.2% of all crypto transactions in Africa.

“In many of these frontier markets, people can’t send money from their bank accounts to a centralized exchange, so they rely on P2P,” said Paxful co-founder and COO Artur Schaback. “Crypto products are getting more user friendly, so they can onboard more people into the crypto economy and help them see that crypto is faster, cheaper and more convenient.”

Other drivers for crypto adoption in the region may include remittances as a means to get around governments limiting the number of funds that people can send abroad.

Many users in Africa may also be using crypto as a faster and cheaper way to pay for international commercial transactions and hodl their savings to avoid any possible fluctuations in the value of their fiat currency.

Nigeria is planning to pilot its central bank digital currency, the eNaira, starting on Oct. 1. South Africa is also part of a joint initiative with Australia, Singapore and Malaysia to launch a fiat-pegged digital currency but has not yet released a possible start date to trial the CBDC.

Updated: 11-8-2021

Nigeria’s Central Bank Reportedly Freezes Crypto Traders’ Accounts

In February, the CBN banned banks from servicing crypto exchanges in the country, citing concerns including volatility, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The Central Bank of Nigeria has reportedly ordered all commercial banks in the country to freeze the accounts of at least two individuals engaged in crypto trading.

According to a Sunday report from Nigerian news outlet Peoples Gazette, the CBN’s director of banking Supervision, J.Y. Mammanand, issued a notice directing the central bank to close the accounts of two alleged crypto traders and move their funds to “suspense accounts.” Mammanand cited a CBN circular issued in February as grounds for the account closures.

The crackdown is reportedly part of a larger move by banking regulators to immediately close the accounts of Nigerian residents or companies “transacting in or operating cryptocurrency exchanges” using local banks. In February, the CBN banned banks from servicing crypto exchanges in the country, citing concerns including volatility, money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

CBN Governor Godwin Emefiel later claimed that most of the crypto transactions through commercial banks in the country were “illegitimate” — that is, used to finance illicit activities.

Despite the central bank’s actions, Nigeria’s crypto market has emerged as one of the biggest in Africa, with the continent’s overall retail transaction volume having increased by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Cointelegraph reported in August that the country had the second-largest market for peer-to-peer Bitcoin (BTC) trading.

In addition, the CBN is preparing to introduce the country’s central bank digital currency, the eNaira, following approval from the Nigerian Federal High Court in October. The eNaira is being marketed as a faster, cheaper, more secure option for monetary transactions, but will reportedly continue to circulate alongside Nigeria’s fiat currency.

Updated: 12-10-2021

Nigerian Minister Against Crypto Clampdown Seeks Fair Regulation

* Backs Regulation That Promotes Wider Blockchain Opportunities
* Individuals In Nigeria Own Cryptocurrencies Despite Trade Ban

A minister in Nigeria, where cryptocurrencies are largely banned, is calling for regulation that promotes opportunities from the wider use of the digital technology rather than clamp down on it.

Clem Agba, minister of state for budget and national planning, said uncertainty in regulating cryptocurrencies risks denying government and citizens the chance to maximize opportunities from the technology.

Agba’s comments come after Central Bank of Nigeria in February ordered commercial banks to stop transactions or operations in cryptocurrencies, citing a threat to the financial system which it regulates. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which views cryptocurrencies as exchangeable securities, said it’s seeking clarity on regulation of the asset.

There is a challenge of who regulates cryptocurrencies because of its different classifications as securities or currencies, Agba said at a conference on Thursday. “Since our existing laws cannot explicitly stipulate who holds the power to regulate cryptocurrencies, there may be a need for an additional body to play that role,” he said.

Better regulation should help the government promote and grow the blockchain technology for broader use and not to clamp down on operators, according to Agba. “It is crucial for all stakeholders to view each player as a key teammate toward a healthy crypto space in Nigeria,” he said.

Regulatory uncertainty, however, hasn’t kept Nigerians away from digital currencies — individuals in the country hold the world’s highest proportion of such assets per capita, according to a survey by Statista. In October, Nigeria’s central bank joined a growing list of emerging markets in introducing its own digital currency, the eNaira, to help cut transaction costs and boost participation in the formal financial system.

Updated: 1-25-2022

Crypto Firms Ignore Africa At Their Peril As Continent Set For Major Adoption

Experts believe that Africa is primed to lead the next wave of global crypto adoption.

Even though the digital asset market seems to be witnessing a bit of a lull at the moment, the adoption of crypto-centric tech has continued to move forward with a full head of steam globally.

Africa, in particular, is a continent where a growing list of mainstream financial entities have continued to make their presence felt, as they have begun to realize that the economic opportunities presented by the region are immense.

To put things into perspective, a recent report released by Singapore-based crypto data provider Triple A shows that the North African country of Morocco currently boasts one of the largest crypto populations in the region at nearly 2.5%.

The kingdom currently leading many prominent countries in terms of daily Bitcoin (BTC) trades, trailing only behind Saudi Arabia across the entirety of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, an impressive feat, to say the least.

What’s even more interesting is that Morocco’s existing legislative framework is largely anti-crypto, with the country’s Foreign Exchange Office giving no indication of softening its stance anytime in the near future.

Despite these stringent regulations, people across the region have continued to find means such as peer-to-peer (P2P) and over-the-counter trading through which to make inroads into this rapidly-evolving ecosystem.

Crypto Firms Entering Africa At Unprecedented Rate

Emmanuel Babalola, the Africa director for cryptocurrency exchange Binance, told Cointelegraph that with each passing month, the number of cross-collaborations taking place between local blockchain/crypto firms and various mainstream entities has continued to grow.

Babalola said that most forward-looking tech companies are vying to gain exposure within the region, all while trying to help people across the continent embrace and realize the true utility of blockchain.

He further pointed out that Binance has recently partnered with the Confederation of African Football (AFCON) to sponsor the TotalEnergies African Cup of Nations tournament, a move which he sees as a small step toward a grander scheme, adding:

“The AFCON sponsorship was a very exciting one. Football is the most popular sport in Africa, one that unites the entire continent and so, sponsoring the biggest football tournament in Africa was honestly a no-brainer. It corroborates our mission to take crypto mainstream across the continent.”

Staying in line with his company’s ideal of widespread crypto adoption across the African landscape, he also pointed out that Binance recently collaborated with some of the stars participating in this year’s iteration of Big Brother Naija (Nigeria) — the biggest reality show on the continent — to help bring crypto education to a wider mainstream audience. “We are [even] sponsoring Nigerian Idol — the Nigerian version of a popular singing contest,” he added.

Lastly, Babalola noted that in recent months, many unprecedented happenings have taken place across the global crypto ecosystem such as countries like El Salvador adopting Bitcoin as legal tender — something he believes was totally unfathomable just a few years ago — and thus it would not be surprising to see African nations follow suit:

“I think this is only the beginning of things to come. In general, as institutional interest in cryptocurrencies continues to rise, more mainstream entities making their way into the region is inevitable.”

Crypto Can Help Redefine Business Across Africa

When asked about the continued growth of crypto across Africa, especially within the northern part of the continent, Adedayo Adebajo, Africa director for Jelurida, a blockchain software company that develops and maintains the Nxt and Ardor blockchains, told Cointelegraph that a vast majority of African countries like to consider themselves as one bloc, rather than being divided into regional categories.

In this regard, he noted that one aspect that has united most people living in Africa is their lack of tangible business opportunities, as well as a clear lack of access to high-quality banking alternatives that they can use to send and receive funds from across the globe. Adebajo added:

“African nations believed they were left out of the first three industrial revolutions. The 4IR (fourth industrial revolution) technology including blockchain and cryptocurrency has, for the first time in history, provided them with an opportunity to participate in making history.

Most governments in the continent are now open to capacity building and localizing solution developments, among others. To do so, their doors remain wide open to foreign offers that will get them closer to their aim.”

When asked about the challenges that may arise as a result of most nations in the continent (especially those located across North Africa) adhering to an Islamic way of life, Adebajo noted that the key issue preventing crypto-based banking services from reaching the masses is not religion but a clear lack of understanding of what the technology brings to the table.

“As Muslims, we have learned from quotable religious scholars that we are not excluded from using crypto or participating in its offerings, although this stance may perhaps remain debatable,” he added.

Blockchain-Based Banking Solution

Africa’s vast geographic size compounded by the presence of many small economies across the continent has led to many nations struggling with systematic infrastructure development, especially when it comes to financial services, something that has resulted in 57% of the continent’s population remaining unbanked.

RJ Katunda, co-founder of African project World Mobile, a Cardano-based mobile network, told Cointelegraph that over the years, Africans have gradually become accustomed to using innovative payment systems such as Kenya’s M-Pesa.

However, he pointed out that there are now newer blockchain-based alternatives beginning to emerge, setting the context for crypto and digital currencies that offer a more convenient and direct P2P channel for remittance payments, international commerce and savings. He added:

“With many economies growing rapidly, crypto and blockchain-based projects will continue to enter Africa, where their proposition is relevant and where they can form partnerships with local entities. While many individuals use cryptocurrency in Africa, legislation in many countries lags. As in other jurisdictions, cryptocurrencies don’t fit within current regulatory frameworks.”

In essence, Katunda believes that the core issue preventing widespread adoption of crypto-tech (especially from a financial standpoint) across the region is a lack of perceived central control from many governments, which creates difficulties for authorities to oversee and mitigate bad practices. “However, many governments have announced that they are working on regulatory frameworks to emerge in the near future,” he closed out by saying.

Africa Cannot Be Ignored Any Longer

Akin Jones, a partner at Gluwa Capital, an Africa-based investment fund focused exclusively on fintech lenders using blockchain technology, told Cointelegraph that Africa’s growing population and adoption of cryptocurrency mean that companies ignoring the continent are either not serious about the technology in the long term or have failed to realize the massive financial proposition currently in front of them.

In Jones’ view, Bitcoin could very well become legal tender across many African nations since most of these countries already find it quite hard to trade with each other because of constant currency fluctuations. Talking about North Africa in particular, he further opined that since the region serves as a bridge between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa, it would make a lot of sense for fintech firms to consider making inroads there, adding:

“Identity management, land ownership and insurance are three key areas that could be improved on across North Africa which could help change the perception in the region. CBDCs [central bank digital currencies] could also help ease the acceptance of cryptocurrency in this regard.”

Thus, it will be interesting to see how things shape out for the continent from here on out, especially since many of the nations within the region are known to suffer from an extremely high level of red tape. With many governments fast realizing the potential that crypto and blockchain possess, however, it would not be surprising to see countries making way for more foreign investment from established firms operating within this rapidly maturing sector.

 

Updated: 2-2-2022

Botswana To Regulate Crypto That Was Feared Becoming ‘Wild West’

* Law Will Regulate Cryptocurrencies And Digital Tokens Trading
* Country Joins Growing List Of Nations Legitimizing Crypto

Botswana’s lawmakers passed a bill to regulate trading in cryptocurrencies and digital tokens as part of efforts to tighten anti-money laundering measures, Finance Minister Peggy Serame said.

The Virtual Assets Bill was approved unanimously on Tuesday, with opposition lawmakers saying leaving the cryptocurrency industry unregulated could cause a “Wild West” of the financial sector and risk eroding the country’s anti-money laundering efforts.

The southern African nation was removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s list of countries subject to more oversight for shortcomings in combating money laundering and terrorist financing in October.

The legislation comes more than two months after the central bank warned of the risks of investing in cryptocurrencies that are unregulated. The new rules require anyone seeking to offer cryptocurrencies or digital tokens in Botswana to get a license from the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority and adhere to a list of conditions.

Botswana joins a plethora of nations such as the U.S., South Africa, Russia and China that are considering or implementing firmer regulations on cryptocurrencies.

The bill now awaits presidential assent, Serame said Wednesday.

Updated: 2-11-2022

Crypto Secures A Place In The African American Saga

With its special qualities that can turn users into owners and owners into users, crypto aligns with historic Black aspirations.

February is Black History Month, and it’s worth recounting that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology have already had a significant impact on the African-American community.

Peoples of color own cryptocurrencies at consistently higher levels than white people, surveys show, while anecdotal evidence suggests crypto has also unleashed a wave of innovation and entrepreneurial energy in the Black community — from New York City’s new mayor converting his first paycheck into crypto to basketball star Kevin Durant launching a new special-purpose acquisition company to focus on cryptocurrencies and blockchain.

And all this may just be scratching the surface. “Blockchain has the potential to be a beacon of light in the story of Black economic empowerment,” Marco Lindsey, associate director of diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, told Cointelegraph.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain enterprises with their special qualities that can turn users into owners and owners into users align with historic Black aspirations such as financial independence and security, University of Kansas professor and historian Nishani Frazier told Cointelegraph, adding:

“They can enable the Black community to lift itself up in the philosophical sense of Black empowerment.”

These “powerful possibilities,” as Frazier described them, are exciting — and not just in the United States. In the global context, crypto continues to be, at least in part, about disenfranchised peoples participating in mainstream economic life, often for the first time.

Banking The Unbanked

It’s sometimes forgotten, after all, that 1.7 billion people globally remain unbanked, underbanked or lack access to traditional financial systems, Cleve Mesidor, public policy advisor at the Blockchain Association, told Cointelegraph.

For this group, sometimes living in countries with high inflation and lacking confidence in their local fiat and central bank, cryptocurrency represents “economic empowerment and an opportunity for financial freedom.”

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology “allows greater access to populations typically left out of traditional markets,” agreed Lindsey. It enables “anyone with an internet connection and some capital to invest” to participate in a vital, emerging technology scene, including seed-stage investment opportunities.

It’s natural to celebrate these developments — especially during Black History Month — but by the same token, one can’t ignore the “flip side,” either, said Frazier.

“As much as I enjoy cryptocurrency as a Black person, I can not afford to live in a utopian bubble, and say, ‘Cryptocurrency: Hurray! Equality!’ It’s very complex.”

The technology can be opaque, even for those with technical backgrounds, and crypto remains an extremely volatile investment. Hackers and fraudsters populate the cryptoverse as well. The Black financial experience in America, too, is rife with exploitation.

Frazier recalled that years ago, insurance companies wouldn’t provide insurance to Black people, especially in the U.S. South.

Some larger companies eventually began to offer “penny insurance” — where a person might “pay a little at a time” for a policy — burial insurance, for example.

But “those companies were notorious for taking your money and disappearing,” recalled Frazier. “They preyed upon the Black community.” Her point is that even in these more enlightened times; crypto is still risky; people can still get hurt; and one can’t overlook the downside of things.

Others, like The New School economist Darrick Hamilton, have noted that Bitcoin (BTC) is a high-risk, high payoff alternative.

“In the end, it’s a casino,” he told Time Magazine.

Lindsey agreed about the risks and added that vigilance will be needed to maintain inclusion moving forward. An ongoing education process is required, including a focus on individuals and small businesses from underserved communities. Otherwise, “the industry runs the risk of replicating the inequities we see in more traditional sectors.”

“More Diverse Investors”

As noted, surveys reinforce the notion that crypto resonates with people who, for various reasons, have been excluded from the dominant economic system. A Harris poll last year found that 23% of African-Americans own cryptocurrency, for example, compared with only 11% of white Americans.

According to researchers from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago, “the average cryptocurrency trader is under 40 (mean age is 38) and does not have a college degree (55 percent). Two-fifths of crypto traders are not white (44 percent), and 41 percent are women. Over one-third (35 percent) have household incomes under $60,000 annually.”

“Cryptocurrencies are opening up investing opportunities for more diverse investors, which is a very good thing,” said NORC’s Angela Fontes, while Lindsey added, “African Americans are already early adopters in the sense that we invest in crypto at a rate twice that of our white peers.”

This user profile is a departure from that of the typical stocks-and-bonds investor, Campbell Harvey, a finance professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, told Roll Call. Crypto users tend to be younger and more likely to include Latinos or Black people.

“This idea of bypassing the traditional financial institutions is quite intriguing for a segment of the population that’s largely not welcome in our traditional centralized finance,” Harvey said.

Lindsey echoed this last point. “In the [U.S.] banking industry, African Americans for many years were not given access to business or home loans despite being just as financially solvent as many of their white counterparts,” while in other instances:

“African-American borrowers were charged significantly higher interest rates than whites. This caused many African Americans to lose trust in the traditional banking and investing system.”

According to Frazier, this movement toward crypto and blockchain is consistent with the “long arc of Black history with aspirations to be financially independent, financially secure” — and also the desire to be entrepreneurs.

Back in the late 1960s, she noted, the Congress of Racial Equality, among others, was agitating at the community level for the idea that laborers could also be owners of a home or a business — i.e., developing a second income and along with some financial security.

Thus, emerging technologies such as Web3, decentralized finance and decentralized autonomous organizations — that break down traditional barriers among workers, consumers and shareholders — resonate with many African Americans, including Frazier’s 80-year-old father, who for years fought for economic development in Cleveland, Ohio. “He gets it [crypto],” she told Cointelegraph.

“Our message has been, ‘Become early adopters and change the playing field by being producers, not consumers,’” added Mesidor, who also leads the National Policy Network of Women of Color in Blockchain.

White And Male — Still?

Still, inclusion is not found uniformly through the cryptocurrency world. The software development area remains — to a significant degree — the province of white males, for instance.

“Yes, it is a concern,” commented Lindsey. “It is extremely homogeneous, particularly at the leadership levels.” Tech leaders must be ready to hire managers who are prepared to work with affinity groups of color to develop new talent, and then train talent for those anticipated new roles, he said, further explaining:

“The predominately white male tech sector leans too heavily on nepotism to find new talent and often lacks creativity in imagining what a qualified candidate might look like.”

Many candidates of color have transferable skills and real-world experience that could greatly benefit an organization, Lindsey added, but “they are overlooked because they don’t fit the traditional mold.”

Meanwhile, Mesidor’s Women of Color in Blockchain group is pressing to develop not just crypto users but also software and hardware developers, as well as miners and stakers. Communities of color have also been encouraged to create crypto merchant accounts for e-commerce businesses and nonprofits to access a new consumer base. As Mesidor told Cointelegraph:

“They are leveraging Web3 and decentralized autonomous organizations and capitalizing on nonfungible tokens to protect intellectual property and monetize their work.”

Black entrepreneurs need more resources to build out what they’ve begun, said Mesidor, including access to capital for micro-enterprises and investment in skills training. These are “vital to ensure America stays competitive in the innovation economy.”

The African-American community has been actively engaged in the education challenge, according to Mesidor. “Over the last decade, it has been innovators of color in crypto that have launched education campaigns and built products and services to dismantle long-standing economic inequities in urban and rural areas here in America,” she continued.

“The efforts of Black and Latinx industry leaders is the reason why crypto adoption in communities of color leads the nation by double digits.”

Assuming Leadership Roles

In sum, those who have historically been shut out of centralized, legacy finance — who can’t get a loan, or buy a house, or start a business — and “who may not have even had official government-issued identification” now have access to “new instruments for payments, sending money (remittances) and the capacity to transact in the global marketplace for the first time,” Mesidor noted.

But more needs to happen before real change occurs. “The Black community will need to quickly recognize the value and opportunity that blockchain provides and get involved in the industry at all levels,” said Lindsey, while leaders in the crypto and blockchain space will have to ensure “that Black and brown communities have equal access to not only the technology but also access to leadership roles, market trends, data and analytics.”

Updated: 2-15-2022

How Instagram’s ‘Billionaire Gucci Master’ Sank Nigeria’s Super Cop

A money laundering case against influencer Hushpuppi also implicated Nigeria’s most famous law enforcement official, who’s now facing further allegations.

Instagram isn’t exactly known for its fidelity to reality. It’s a place people go to curate an image of their best self, or their aspirational one. But rarely do those images obscure a darker truth to the extent they did back in 2019, in a pair of posts by two public figures from Nigeria.

On Dec. 8, Ramon Abbas, better known as @hushpuppi, Ray Hushpuppi, or the Billionaire Gucci Master, posted a photo of himself lounging on the hood of his purple Rolls-Royce. His outfit, designed by the legendary Virgil Abloh, was a sky blue shirt-and-pants set with a white cloud that appeared to float across his forearms and midriff.

He’d parked the Rolls in the driveway of the Palazzo Versace Dubai, a resort-style hotel where he lived in a penthouse apartment.

For Abbas, then a 37-year-old influencer who’d gone from a childhood in a poor part of Lagos to an adulthood full of private jets and celebrity friends, this sort of extremely conspicuous consumption was his brand. “I don’t believe in competition,” read the post’s caption. “You’re not me and THATS IT #LouisVuitton #OffWhite #VirgilAbloh #RollsRoyce.”

That same week, 3,000 miles away, Nigeria Police Force Deputy Commissioner Abba Kyari, also known as @abbakyari75, struck a different pose. Kyari’s style was all business: seated at a desk stacked with files, wearing a blue dashiki and his ever-present AirPods. Flanked by two plainclothes deputies, he looked purposefully into the camera.

His caption was equally dry: “With my Senior Colleagues today.” Lining the walls behind him were shelves laden with dozens of his awards. In a decade-long string of busts, Kyari, then 44, had captured kidnappers, freed schoolchildren, and hunted assassins. “He was the star,” says Rommy Mom, who sits on Nigeria’s Police Service Commission, an independent body responsible for police oversight.

During a yearslong wave of violent crime and terrorism, the Nigerian press had nicknamed Kyari, the chief of the country’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT), the Super Cop.

Kyari’s glowing press ran counter to law enforcement’s checkered reputation in Nigeria. In particular, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS—which Kyari had previously headed for six years in Lagos—was known for a mix of savage brutality and day-to-day corruption.

A year later, in 2020, SARS’s tactics would be the subject of large street protests that culminated in the government agreeing to disband it. Even then, Kyari somehow seemed to float above it all.

“Here was someone who was viewed as really uncharacteristically competent at their job in an organization not known for competence,” says Matthew Page, who researches Nigerian corruption as an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London think tank. “That was the narrative around him—that he was actually getting the job done rather than being abusive or on the take.”

The Billionaire Gucci Master and the Super Cop could hardly have seemed more different. Hushpuppi had more than 2 million Instagram followers to Kyari’s 80,000, and he’d have looked about as at home in an office surrounded by paperwork as Super Cop would have on the hood of a purple Rolls. Yet behind each man’s carefully sculpted public image, their fates appear to have been deeply intertwined.

Off camera, Abbas fueled his lifestyle with a different kind of hustle, as an online scammer and money launderer. He was a partner in what are called business email compromise scams, in which hackers penetrate corporate accounts and collect on phony invoices.

He moved money for scams that targeted a law firm in New York, a bank in Malta, and a Premier League soccer club. He teamed up with a loose network of hackers and fraudsters—including, at least once, a state-sponsored group from North Korea—in schemes chasing as much as $100 million.

Eventually he landed in the crosshairs of the FBI. In June 2020, local police raided his Dubai penthouse and shipped him to the U.S., where last summer he pleaded guilty to money laundering related to scams that brought in close to $24 million. This July, he’ll face a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.

The announcement of Abbas’s plea contained a more explosive revelation, however. The U.S. government alleged that one of the influencer’s fellow conspirators was a man sworn to uphold the law: Abba Kyari.

Kyari was born in Gombe, a town in northeastern Nigeria. His dad, a teacher, raised 30 children in a polygamous family, and Kyari was the eldest. “I handled so many cases whenever my siblings had any problems with one another,” he later said in one Instagram post. “I started my detective work in my house.” After earning a university degree, he graduated from the police academy in 2002 and in eight years rose from street officer to commander of a SARS unit in Lagos.

He earned a reputation for risky and aggressive operations against some of the country’s most notorious criminals. By 2016 he’d been plucked to head the Intelligence Response Team, an elite unit created to combat a nationwide kidnapping crisis. He was Nigeria’s youngest high-ranking police official.

As a commander, his exploits were legion. He’d arrested the masterminds of the deadliest robbery in Nigeria’s history and captured the country’s deadliest kidnapper, nicknamed the Vampire. He’d nabbed bombers and arms dealers and taken on the terrorist organization Boko Haram.

“It’s very important to send a message to the criminals,” he said in a BBC documentary on his efforts to stem kidnapping. “Kyari and his people will follow you wherever you are, and they will never forget.”

Perhaps most famously, in March 2016, Kyari and his men took over the case of three girls snatched by a gang of kidnappers from a school in Lagos and held for six days. His team reportedly used intelligence from the kidnappers’ families to track them down and recover the girls unharmed.

The operation earned him a presidential medal of courage. “He has become known as the saving grace of the Nigeria Police,” declared the online news outlet the Eagle. By 2019, Kyari was widely rumored to be in line—and angling—for the job of inspector general, the top cop.

Beneath the accolades, however, was a disquieting undercurrent. “We had been concerned about the rogue activities of both SARS and the Intelligence Response Team under him,” says Okechukwu Nwanguma, executive director of the Rule of Law & Accountability Advocacy Centre, a police watchdog group.

Kyari’s teams, Nwanguma says, “were involved in all manner of criminal activities: obstruction, abduction, intimidation, torture, killings.”

Another human-rights advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, detailed years of interviews with arrestees who accused Kyari’s officers of abuses.

Under Kyari’s direction, both men allege, his teams routinely targeted businesspeople for arrest, extorted money from suspects and their families, and in some cases committed extrajudicial killings. In a decade of tracking Kyari, Nwanguma says, he was rarely able to collect enough evidence from intimidated victims to challenge the police.

But he estimates that there were hundreds of other cases of abuse: “They would just abduct somebody and say, ‘We are investigating somebody—we saw your name in his phone.’ And they take the person.”

The Scam Had Already Succeeded At This Point, But Why Not Try For More?

In one incident in 2015, SARS officers under Kyari were accused of torturing and killing an innocent car dealer in Edo State, in Southern Nigeria, and using the dead man’s ATM card to clean out his bank accounts.

Five officers were later convicted for the murder. In 2017 a lawyer for a kidnapper whom Kyari had arrested publicly suggested the officers had extorted money and jewelry from the defendant.

A year later the widow of a kidnapper who’d been killed in a gun battle with police accused Kyari’s crew of appropriating her late husband’s assets. In mid-2019 a judge ordered Kyari and his team to produce a suspect whose lawyer couldn’t find him and believed he’d died in custody.

All these accusations rolled off Kyari, who didn’t respond to calls and messages seeking comment for this story. He continued to rack up arrests. His Instagram post on Dec. 14, 2019, showed him accepting an award from a Nigerian bank security group in Lagos.

In a post from Dec. 17, he stood in front of a group of prisoners seated on the ground, identified in the caption as “72 Notorious Kidnappers/Armed Robbers/Car Snatchers.”

It was around this time, in mid-December, according to the U.S., that Hushpuppi joined a scam already in progress. This con was more old-school than the business email compromise schemes he was a part of. It was a high-level version of a basic advance fee scam:

Pay us a little up front, the scammer says, and we’ll guarantee you a huge windfall later. The upfront asks keep coming, and the windfall never arrives.

In this case, the day before his purple Rolls post, Abbas received a message from a Kenyan entrepreneur named Abdulrahman Juma. According to prosecutors, Juma offered to include Abbas in an advance fee scam with an eager mark: a businessperson hoping to build an international school in Qatar.

The businessperson, whose name and nationality remain sealed in federal court, needed a $15 million loan for the project and hired a financial adviser to help secure it. Unfortunately, the adviser’s assistance amounted to Googling sources of multimillion-dollar loans. That search led to Juma and his Nairobi company, Westload Financial Solutions Ltd.

Westload’s website promised “financial solutions specialize in financing projects from inception right through operations.” That the site was riddled with errors, including occasionally referring to the company as “West Financial,” failed to raise any red flags.

In November 2019 the businessperson traveled to meet Juma and a colleague at Westload’s offices, on the sixth floor of a modern glass office tower in Nairobi’s business district.

There, according to the U.S. government’s allegations, Juma signed a contract to arrange the $15 million loan in exchange for a $164,000 upfront “consultancy” payment (the advance fee). The next day the businessperson sent the upfront fee to a law firm of Juma’s choice. Neither Juma, Westload, nor the law firm responded to emails and calls seeking comment.

The scam had already succeeded at this point, but why not try for more? When the businessperson complained that the money hadn’t arrived in his account in Qatar, Juma said it was stuck and it would take an additional $150,000 to release—essentially, a second advance fee. Once again, the businessperson paid up, no doubt hoping it was the final key to the supposed loan.

At this point, according to the court documents, Juma engaged Abbas to help with yet another round of the con. Abbas would pose as a bank manager in the U.S. who could unstick the loan.

Via WhatsApp, Abbas messaged the businessperson from a New York City phone number, introducing himself as “Malik,” the “director of the bank responsible for crediting you the funds.” He said that because the Qatari government was under U.S. sanctions, the money would have to go through an American account (which was true enough), and he’d be happy to create one.

And so he did. First, Abbas arranged for a contact in Los Angeles to register a company with the same name as the businessperson’s Qatari company. Then he had a Wells Fargo account opened for the business. There was just one last obstacle, “Malik” now told the businessperson:

They’d also need an account in the U.K. to receive the money. He said he’d open an “investor’s account with our private banking service over there” for an advance fee of $330,000.

After a week of hesitation, the businessperson wired $230,000 of the total to a bank “Malik” provided. As it happened, the account belonged to a watch dealer in Florida, and the amount exactly covered a rose-gold and titanium Richard Mille RM 11-03 that Abbas had coveted.

“Malik” had the businessperson send the other $100,000 to a Capital One account held by another Abbas associate. Abbas used half of it to purchase bogus citizenship from St. Kitts and Nevis—a transaction that involved bribing a government official and faking a marriage certificate.

A week later the watch made its first appearance on Hushpuppi’s Instagram feed. In the image he was standing on the royal purple carpet of the Palazzo Versace Dubai, sporting a Gucci Mickey Mouse T-shirt, his Richard-Mille-clad arm held lightly across it.

“One of the best things I learnt that keeps me going,” he wrote, “is to ‘Never take criticism from people I’d never go to for an advice’ ” #Gucci #RichardMille #Versace #Rm1103.”

Updated: 2-16-2022

MTN Share Sale Shows Nigeria Can Lure Young Crypto Buyers

* Cryptos Are Now Preferred Investments For Young Nigerians
* MTN’s Offering Shows Youth Can Be Attracted By Digital Service

Nigeria’s main stock exchange plans to digitize the equity sales process so companies can attract younger buyers interested in cryptocurrencies and foreign assets rather than local public companies.

A successful offering of 575 million shares by MTN Group Ltd.’s Nigerian unit in December was “groundbreaking,” according to Temi Popoola, chief executive officer of the Lagos-based Nigeria Exchange Ltd. The South African wireless carrier offered a stock issue to investors “end to end” electronically for the first time, he said.

The sale was 1.2 times oversubscribed, with 85% of the investors aged under 40 years. This compares with 30% of overall equity investors, Popoola said in emailed response to questions.

“In an age where investors’ needs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and the burgeoning youth demography are depending more on technology to transact business, our goal is to spur the next wave of growth,” he said.

While young Nigerians have shied away from trading in local equities, they are actively buying and selling crypto, accounting for the largest volumes outside the U.S., according to Paxful, a Bitcoin marketplace. Africa’s most populous country also has the largest proportion of retail users conducting transactions under $10,000, according to Chainalysis.

Still, the bourse in Africa’s largest economy may struggle to match the returns offered by crypto currencies. The Nigerian Exchange 50 Index, a gauge for the nation’s biggest equities, gained 28% in the three years to 2021. Bitcoin jumped sixfold in the same period.

Digital Apps

MTN experimented with a digital application named PrimaryOffer administered by the Nigerian Exchange. The app enabled paperless subscription, allowing investors to access the offer on electronic devices and complete the process in less than five minutes. There was also a paper-based subscription.

“At NGX we understand the disruption new age technology-based investments have created in the financial industry,” Popoola said. “Digital transformation is the next phase of growth for the NGX.”

The bourse plans to automate other procedures such as access to company information, engagement of market operators and resolution of complaints, according to Popoola. It’s also looking to attract technology companies that want to raise further capital in a bid to increase opportunities for traders, he said.

Many Nigeria and Africa-focused tech startups have attained unicorn status — a $1 billion valuation for a private company — in recent years, including Flutterwave Inc, which boosted its valuation to more $3 billion after its latest $250 million funding round.

Attracting youth to the local bourse will “create and sustain a boost” in the market as they become controllers of the economy in the future, Poopola said. “They will be primary beneficiaries of the sustainable and long-term gains that come from investing.”

 

Updated: 3-16-2022

We Don’t Like Our Money’: The Story Of The CFA And Bitcoin In Africa

Nearly 150 million people use the franc of the Financial Community of Africa (CFA) on a daily basis, from Senegal in the extreme west to Gabon in the center of the continent.

Used in 14 countries, the CFA franc is pegged to the euro, printed in France and its monetary policy is controlled by Western powers. As Fodé Diop, a Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning developer hailing from Senegal details, “The IMF and the French government still control the currency.”

While the official peg to the euro is 1 euro to 655.96 CFA francs, its purchasing power has eroded over time. In 1994, the World Bank devalued the CFA franc against the French franc from 1:50 to 1:100. That year, West Africans woke up to realize the value of their life savings had been slashed in half.

Gloire, the founder of Kiveclair, a Bitcoin Beach-inspired refugee project in the Congo, told Cointelegraph that the CFA “makes whole countries dependent,” and “It is usually the poorest who suffer.” He explained the situation in 1994:

“The most striking example is that of 1994 when France and a privileged few decided to devalue the CFA Franc. There is no guarantee that such a thing will not happen again, especially since the global economy is threatened.”

Prior to the creation of Bitcoin, West Africans could store their money in euros, U.S. dollars or traditional stores of value: real estate and commodities. For everyday people, however, those options are not readily available.

Mama Bitcoin, the first retailer to accept cryptocurrency in Senegal, told Cointelegraph that the CFA is “disempowering.” She suggests that Bitcoin could provide a way out.

“Our money belongs to France, the CFA is made in France and is — for want of a better word, colonial money. Bitcoin, however, Bitcoin belongs to everyone.”

With the arrival of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, indeed, there is now a viable alternative. Gloire suggests that “Bitcoin can help the countries of the CFA Zone to free themselves from France to finally turn the dark page of colonization.”

In Senegal, Mouhammad Dieng, co-founder of SenBlock, a nonprofit organization for crypto promotion and adoption, told Cointelegraph that he doesn’t “like the CFA, because its monetary policy does not allow us to develop. Bitcoin is a less risky alternative to make the transition to an African digital currency.”

Interestingly enough, the hope to replace the CFA is not restricted to grassroots cryptocurrency advocates. Governments of West African countries have been vocal in their efforts to improve the CFA and develop some autonomy.

With the current monetary policy, CFA zone countries are obliged to send more money to France than other countries due to colonial ties — there is zero sovereignty over the currency.

A new currency called the ECO was flouted as a replacement for the CFA. However, it would still be pegged to the euro and biased to France. Concerning digital currencies — which Dieng mentions — the e-Naira, the digital version of neighboring Nigeria’s currency, has influenced the view of the CFA governments with regard to digital currencies and CBDCs. However, an e-ECO or e-CFA has not yet been planned.

Notwithstanding, the opportunity for a stronger currency in the CFA African territories is vast. The GDP of the CFA region is roughly $170 billion and covers 14 independent countries. It’s a huge region with tremendous untapped resources, particularly agriculture and minerals.

Pape Alioune, a software engineer who founded Shintsha, a cryptocurrency exchange that allows payments via mobile money, told Cointelegraph: “‘What country can develop without its own money or, better yet, a neutral money?”

The Senegalese–South African team behind Shintsha — which will soon rebrand to Mole App — has created an innovative way of addressing the low banking levels in Africa. The exchange hopes to onboard more and more Africans into Bitcoin and crypto through mobile money, an Africa-centric solution.

Mobile money, originally derived from a Kenyan invention called M-Pesa, allows sim cardholders to pay each other with credit. It is incredibly popular in Subsaharan Africa, from Senegal to Somalia to Malawi. Orange money is one of the most popular outlets, although Free Mobile and Wave also exist.

Alioune estimates that “more than 80% of the adult population uses mobile money in Senegal, and it’s similar in other countries that use the CFA.” Africans use the tech the same way Northern Europeans use contactless payments — it’s become a reflex, part of the daily routine.

While there is a sense of optimism in West Africa with regards to the future of cryptocurrency and more routes to purchasing crypto, “Education remains the most significant hurdle to overcome.” That’s according to Nourou, the founder of Bitcoin Senegal who is on a mission to facilitate Bitcoin adoption in his home country.

For Nourou, given that literacy rates in his home nation are just 50%, he speaks with business owners, entrepreneurs and educated members of the community. “Most people in West Africa have at least heard of Bitcoin. It’s a question of getting through to the right people and spreading awareness,” he told Cointelegraph.

Nourou agrees with Gloire in that it’s not just about Bitcoin, it’s “absolutely necessary to educate people about money.” Gloire adds that while learning about money is key, people must “understand that it is possible to decide one‘s destiny without asking permission.”

He brings up the example of smartphones which are “penetrating Africa at a good pace,” to illustrate that Africa can pick up new technologies and run with them. As much as 46% of the Subsaharan population in Africa has a smartphone and, as evidenced, mobile money is booming.

“The biggest challenge is to teach young people that a simple telephone and an internet connection are effective weapons to protect themselves from the CFA by adopting Bitcoin.”

For Idrissa Seck, a Bitcoin enthusiast and bank payment agent, understanding money is the key to unlocking an understanding of Bitcoin. “In order to understand and ultimately fall in love with Bitcoin, you have to understand money and the current financial system,” he told Cointelegraph.

Dieng repeats, “education, education, education,” adding that you must spend “at least 50 hours learning before investing in crypto.”

With regard to the future of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the CFA zone, Gloire takes inspiration from the “Salvadorian experience,” which is “going quite well.” The first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, El Salvador’s hotly awaited Bitcoin bonds are imminent. For Gloire:

“Several other countries could certainly include Bitcoin among the means of raising funds without going through institutions with rarely positive interests for the abundance of populations.”

Africa has all the ingredients to make meaningful use of cryptocurrencies, according to Mama Bitcoin. It’s on a path to greater freedoms. It comes back to the notion that “Bitcoin belongs to everyone.”

Nourou of Bitcoin Senegal sums up Bitcoin and Africa’s relationship best. When asked if the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakomoto could be an African, he replies:

“What do you mean? Satoshi is African.”

 

Updated: 3-21-2022

Crypto Users In Africa Grew By 2,500% In 2021

A recent report by KuCoin reveals that the number of crypto transactions has increased by 2,670% in some African countries.

Cryptocurrency adoption in Africa is on the march, despite socioeconomic factors and headwinds. A positive report by cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin shows that crypto transactions increased by up to 2,670% in 2022.

An astonishing growth trend, the steep influx relates to the low values that have been observed during previous periods. The number of crypto transactions in Africa constitutes roughly 2.8% of global volumes.

Johnny Lyu, CEO of KuCoin, told Cointelegraph that “the adoption of digital assets in Africa will continue to grow exponentially,” adding that “African countries have the highest crypto adoption rate in the world, outperforming even the biggest regions such as the United States, Europe and Asia.”

Nourou, founder of Bitcoin Senegal, is convinced that the thousand percent growth rates for Bitcoin (BTC) adoption “will continue in coming years.”

“Take a look at the way in which cars, mobile phones and consumer electronics took off on the continent. Africa is a continent where lightning-fast progression and adoption is common.”

In particular, the report cites that “more than 88.5% of cryptocurrency transactions made by Africans are cross-border transfers.” Low fees mean that “users pay less than 0.01% of the overall amount of the transaction transferred in cryptocurrencies.”

From high inflation levels and swelling smartphone penetration — effectively allowing anyone to become their own bank — Africa also has a young and digitally native population that is accustomed to digital currencies. Africa is a robust testing ground for the problems which cryptocurrencies attempt to solve.

Lyu Did Add A Note Of Caution To The Staggering Growth Levels:

“That rate of growth can depend on both local policy-makers and separate officials’ stances on cryptocurrencies. Still, I believe that a promising future for digital money in Africa is inevitable.”

In Central and West Africa, for example, BTC adoption is growing against a backdrop of mistrust and discomfort using the local currency, the CFA. Cointelegraph has previously analyzed the state of crypto adoption in Africa, noting that “economic opportunities presented by the region are immense.”

For Lyu, Africa is in an interesting position given that the combination of “growing inflation, high unemployment rates, poor access to bank services and enormous fees for international payments,” creates an environment conducive to crypto adoption. Ultimately:

“Financial problems the region is experiencing are forcing people to look for new instruments and technologies that can give them some of the economic freedom they currently lack.”

In the long-term, Africa hosts a wealth of advantages “which cannot but contribute to the widespread use of digital assets among locals.” The median age in Africa is very low — at just 19 years old — and over 40% of the population is urban.

“Another positive phenomenon is the growing technological awareness of the local population, with many young people exploring programming and internet technologies.”

 

Updated: 4-25-2022

The Central African Republic Reportedly Passes A Bill To Regulate Crypto Use

The new crypto law would reportedly allow citizens to pay their taxes in crypto and allow the use of crypto as a form of payment for businesses.

The Central African Republic (CAR) has become the center of a hot buzz in the crypto world amid various reports of it adopting Bitcoin (BTC) quite similar to El Salvador. However, contrary to popular headlines, the African nation has not adopted BTC as a legal tender; instead, it has reportedly legalized the use of cryptocurrencies in the financial markets.

The cryptocurrency bill was introduced by Justin Gourna Zacko, the minister of Digital Economy, Post and Telecommunications on Thursday and was unanimously approved by the lawmakers in the parliament despite a protest from the opposition, reported RFI.

The crypto law aims to establish a favorable environment for the inclusive growth of the crypto sector in the region. Minister Zacko also highlighted the growing difficulties in sending money from the African nation and believed the adoption of crypto would help in resolving that issue.

The new law would reportedly allow traders and businesses to make crypto payments and also make way for tax payments in crypto through authorized entities.

The new crypto law has also made provisions for offenders who break the laws. According to one report, offenders could be jailed for up to 20 years and fined between 100,000,000 to 1,000,000,000 Financial Community of Africa (CFA) francs.

Gloire, the founder of Kiveclair, a Bitcoin Beach-inspired refugee project in the Congo explained the details of the new law and told Cointelegraph:

“The real implication for people is that they can now have access to currencies other than the FCFA (this is the local currency) while being protected by law, and transfer money at a lower cost. Above all, they can carry out financial transactions without banks (while being protected by law). “

A total of 14 countries use the CFA franc pegged to the euro, printed in France and its monetary policy is controlled by Western powers. While the official peg was set at 1 euro to 655.96 CFA francs, the fiat has been depleting in value for quite some time.

Thus, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are growing in popularity among countries troubled by the national economic crisis.

Updated: 4-27-2022

Central African Republic Adopts Bitcoin As Legal Tender

A statement from the president’s office on Wednesday confirms the passage and signing of the necessary legislation.

Confirming rumors that had been around for a few days, the Central African Republic has become the second nation in the world to adopt bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender.

* According to a statement from President Faustin Archange Touadera’s office, the National Assembly passed, and he signed, a bill drafted by the minister of digital economy, Gourna Zacko, and the minister of finance and budget, Calixte Nganongo.

* The legislation established a legal and regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, and made bitcoin legal tender alongside the existing CFA franc.

* “There’s a common narrative that sub-Saharan African countries are often one step behind when it comes to adapting to new technology,” Finance Minister Herve Ndoba said last week, as quoted in Bloomberg. “This time, we can actually say that our country is one step ahead.”

* The Central African Republic has a population of 4.83 million, around 11% of which have access to the internet. Less than a year ago, El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender.

Updated: 5-4-2022

Bitcoin Adoption By Central African Republic A Concern, IMF Says

* IMF Staff Working With Authorities To Address Challenges
* Nation’s Government Adopted Bitcoin As Legal Tender Last Week

The Central African Republic’s adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender presents a series of challenges for the country and the region, the International Monetary Fund said.

The government announced last week that the nation, one of the world’s poorest, would become the second to adopt the cryptocurrency after El Salvador. The decision drew criticism from opposition parties and was made without consulting the regional central bank, which manages a common currency used by six countries including the Central African Republic.

“The adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in C.A.R. raises major legal, transparency, and economic policy challenges,” the fund said in an emailed response to questions. “IMF staff are assisting the regional and Central African Republic’s authorities in addressing the concerns posed by the new law.”

The government said that adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender will spur CAR’s economic recovery and growth, while also helping stabilize the country, which has been wracked by a decade-long civil war.

The $2.3 billion economy, which the African Development Bank forecasts will expand 5.1% this year, ranks 188 out of 189 in the United Nations Development Programme’s Human Development Index. The nation has low life expectancy and extreme poverty, with just 557,000 of its 4.8 million people having access to the Internet.

 

Updated: 5-9-2022

Central African Banks Scold The CAR For Bitcoin Adoption

The Central African Republic adopting crypto puts monetary stability in “peril,” according to a letter from the Governor of the Bank of Central African States.

The governor of the Bank of Central African States, or Banque des États de l’Afrique Centrale (BEAC), has issued a scathing letter to the Central African Republic (CAR) regarding the country’s adoption of cryptocurrencies.

In a letter addressed to the CAR Finance Minister Hervé Ndoba, governor of the BEAC Abbas Mahamat Tolli describes the “substantial negative impact” that the CAR adopting crypto will have on the monetary union of Central Africa.

The CAR passed a bill announcing its intention to adopt cryptocurrencies in April. It is no surprise that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already called the decision concerning. But now, the BEAC is adding fuel to the fire.

The BEAC also adds that the adoption of cryptocurrency in the CAR and the potential move away from the CFA currency is “problematic.”

The CFA currency has two near-identical forms used across former French colonies in Central and West Africa. It is pegged to the euro, which many Bitcoiners and locals dislike.

Gloire, the founder of Kiveclair, a Bitcoin Beach-inspired refugee project in neighboring Congo, told Cointelegraph that the CFA “makes whole countries dependent.” Mama Bitcoin, the first person in Senegal to accept Bitcoin as payment, told Cointelegraph that “the CFA is made in France and is — for want of a better word, colonial money.”

Naturally, the governor of the BEAC is keen to cling to the CFA. He understands the threat that the CAR adopting Bitcoin (BTC) and cryptocurrencies poses. The letter states:

“This law suggests that its main objective is to establish a Central African currency beyond the control of the BEAC that could compete with or displace the legal currency in force in the CEMAC and jeopardize monetary stability.”

The Economic Community of Central African States, or La Communauté économique et monétaire de l’Afrique centrale (CEMAC) promotes regional economic cooperation in Central Africa. Supporting the BEAC is the “primary objective” of the CEMAC, of which Governor Tolli is the head.

Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation and a regular Cointelegraph contributor, shared that “establishing a Central African currency ‘beyond the control’ of the BEAC” is precisely the strategy the CAR is taking:

The letter argues that the law’s main objective appears to be establishing a Central African currency “beyond the control” of the BEAC and that the move can be analyzed as a challenge to the French colonial currency system.

Bingo

— Alex Gladstein ⚡ (@gladstein) May 8, 2022

The CAR is the second country to adopt Bitcoin worldwide, following El Salvador’s increasingly successful strategy to adopt the largest cryptocurrency. El Salvador has also drawn criticism from large institutions and governments from the United States to the IMF.

In Central Africa, the governor’s letter concludes with a plea to “restore strict compliance” with the rulings of the monetary union of Central Africa. Nonetheless, at the time of writing, the crypto law remains firmly in place.

Updated: 5-10-2022

Regional Central Bank Slams Central African Republic For Adopting Bitcoin

* The Central African Republic Announced Bitcoin As Legal Tender
* Central Bank Said Decision Disregards Regional Currency Accord

The Central African Republic adopted Bitcoin in disregard of a decades-old agreement on a common currency with five of its neighbors, a regional monetary authority said.

The CAR’s announcement of the cryptocurrency as legal tender last month was made without consulting the Bank of Central African States. It goes against a “fundamental rule” that all six states of the Central African Monetary Union should use the CFA franc, Governor Abbas Mahamat Tolli said in a letter dated April 29 and seen by Bloomberg.

“The adoption of an official currency other than the CFA franc is problematic in light of measures put in place to manage monetary issuances and monetary policy,” Tolli wrote in the letter addressed to the CAR’s Finance Minister Herve Ndoba. The member state’s new cryptocurrency law “can be read as calling into question the monetary cooperation of central African states.”

Ndoba didn’t immediately respond to calls seeking comment on Tuesday.

The African nation became the second to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender after El Salvador, despite concerns around using cryptocurrencies and its low internet connectivity. The government said Bitcoin will spur economic growth and help to stabilize the war-wracked country.

The central bank’s condemnation adds to criticism from the International Monetary Fund, which said the CAR’s decision raised major legal and transparency concerns.

Tolli asked Ndoba, who heads of the monetary union’s administrative board, to call an emergency meeting on May 5 and 6 to discuss the matter with other board members and ministers. A communications officer for the regional banking regulator said Tuesday that the meeting hadn’t taken place.

Updated: 5-11-2022

Coinbase-Backed MARA To Help Central African Republic On Bitcoin

* MARA Opens In Nigeria, Kenya With $23 Million In Funding
* Central African Republic Is One Of The World’s Poorest Nations

MARA, a cryptocurrency company backed by Coinbase Global Inc., said it will advise the president of the Central African Republic after the nation became the second globally after El Salvador to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

Newly established MARA also announced its entry into Nigeria and Kenya, and that that it had secured $23 million in funding from companies including Coinbase, Alameda Research LLC and Distributed Global LLC.

“MARA will become the official crypto partner of the Central African Republic and an adviser to the president on crypto strategy and planning,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.

Central African Republic, which ranks second last on a United Nations human development index of 189 countries, in April announced adoption of the cryptocurrency, drawing criticism from the International Monetary Fund and a regional central bank. Only 11% of the country’s 5 million people have internet access, a prerequisite for the use of cryptocurrency, according to DataReportal.

The company is recommending that the government increase internet penetration and get more citizens national IDs, Chi Nnadi, MARA’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. “Those are the foundational things they need to accomplish,” he said.

The country, which has been plagued by years of conflict, hopes the use of Bitcoin as an official currency will attract investors, according to Albert Mokpeme, spokesman for President Faustin-Archange Touadera.

 

Updated: 5-13-2022

Bitcoin’s First African Adopter Faces Backlash From Central Bank

* Central African Republic’s Move Backfires On Regional Banks
* The African Nation Adopted Bitcoin As Legal Tender Last Month

A regional central bank is clamping down on Bitcoin transactions after the Central African Republic adopted the cryptocurrency as legal tender without consulting its monetary authority.

The Bank of Central African States, which already doesn’t recognize cryptocurrencies, is now preventing all lenders from partnering with payment platforms that transact in digital currencies or from recognizing them as an asset.

Lenders must also monitor any indirect attempt by their customers to make cryptocurrency transactions so authorities can take action, according to a May 6 note to banks sent to journalists on Friday.

“It is necessary to take preventive measures to ensure financial stability and protect client deposits within the region,” Central Bank Governor Abbas Mahamat Tolli said in the note.

The regulator is toughening its stance after accusing the Central African Republic of breaking a decades-old agreement to share a common currency with five of its neighbors when it adopted Bitcoin last month. Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic all use one of two variations of the CFA Franc.

The $2.3 billion economy became the second to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender after El Salvador, which lost about $40 million on its Bitcoin holdings since September as of Thursday.

While the African government said Bitcoin would spur economic growth and help to stabilize the war-torn country, the central bank has condemned the measure, adding to criticism from the International Monetary Fund, which said the decision raised major legal and transparency concerns.

 

Updated: 5-24-2022

Central African Republic To Launch Official Crypto Hub ‘Sango’

The Central African Republic prepares to launch its first major crypto hub shortly after the National Assembly adopted Bitcoin as legal tender.

Shortly after approving Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender in the Central African Republic (CAR), the local government is moving to provide the digital currency infrastructure.

CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera took to Twitter on Tuesday to announce the upcoming launch of the country’s first major crypto initiative dubbed “Sango.”

The creation of the CAR’s crypto hub comes soon after the National Assembly unanimously adopted Bitcoin as legal tender, Touadera noted.

Following the unanimously adoption by the National Assembly of the #BTC legal tender status, we are pleased to showcase the first concrete initiative! It goes beyond politics&administration & has the potential to reshape #CAR’s financial system! #bitcoinhttps://t.co/1oxLHOen6q

— Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@FA_Touadera) May 24, 2022

The CAR’s presidency previously introduced the Sango project as the legal cryptocurrency investment platform on the government’s official Facebook page on Tuesday. The Sango platform is positioned as CAR’s “first crypto initiative” and is called the name of CAR’s second official language after French.

According to the official Sango website mentioned in the statement, the Sango platform was initiated by the National Assembly and is supported by the CAR government and the president.

“The construction of the first legal crypto hub in the heart of Africa will improve crypto experience by taking Bitcoin adoption to the next level, potentially bringing the most unconventional space in the world,” the presidencial statement reads.

Touadera pointed out that the adoption of Bitcoin provides “unimaginable possibilities” for the country’s development and transformation, stating:

“The crypto hub, Bitcoin […] and crypto are the tools that will redesign the future of our country. Sango can usher in a new economic era with enormous potential, which neither Africa nor the rest of the world have imagined.”

The president also said that his greatest wish is that the Sango project makes crypto accessible to all, creating an international case of how crypto benefits become vectors of economic performance of the country. “The formal economy is no longer an option,” the president reportedly noted, adding that new platforms like Sango aim to tackle bureaucracy and promote competition.

CAR has become the first country in Africa to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender and the second country in the world to do so after El Salvador.

Amid the growing crypto adoption on the continent, a number of countries in Africa have been moving to adopt digital assets. In April, several African countries like Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo disclosed plans to adopt the TON blockchain as the cryptocurrency and blockchain to drive future national economic progress.

Updated: 5-25-2022

Bitcoin Adopter’s African Crypto Hub Plan Has World Bank Vexed

* World Bank $35 Million Loan Unrelated To CAR’s Crypto Project
* CAR Second After El Salvador To Adopt Bitcoin As Legal Tender

The World Bank is concerned about a plan by the Central African Republic to set up a crypto hub after it became the world’s second country to adopt Bitcoin, citing lack of transparency and the effect the move may have on financial inclusion.

The African nation, which relies on donors for more than half of its budget, in April enacted a law making Bitcoin legal tender in the country. It now plans a “Crypto Economic Zone,” according to a post on President Faustin-Archange Touadera’s verified Twitter handle. The post included a presentation of the plan, which mentioned a $35 million grant pledged by the World Bank to digitize the nation’s public sector.

The adoption of Bitcoin in the nation — with an internet penetration of about 11% — has been clouded in mystery. Its introduction was abrupt and non-consultative. The Bank of Central African States, which sets monetary policy for six countries in the region, said it wasn’t aware and pushed back against the plan.

“It is important that the relevant regional institutions, such as the central bank and the banking authorities, are fully consulted and remain in the driver’s seat,” the World Bank said in an emailed response. “It will be physically impossible,” for the World Bank to fund the crypto project, it said.

The $35 million funding that the World Bank approved May 5 is meant for improving CAR’s existing public financial management system through digitization of processes such as payments of salaries and tax collections — not the crypto project dubbed Sango, the lender said.

“The World Bank is not supporting “Sango – The First Crypto Initiative Project”,” the lender said. The digital governance loan “is unrelated to any crypto-currency initiative.”

Bitcoin’s volatility — it’s down 30% this year — may also be bad news for CAR, which the World Bank says is “one of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world.” The nation, rich in gold and diamond reserves, has been plagued by years of violence.

Following the unanimously adoption by the National Assembly of the #BTC legal tender status, we are pleased to showcase the first concrete initiative! It goes beyond politics&administration & has the potential to reshape #CAR’s financial system! #bitcoinhttps://t.co/1oxLHOen6q

— Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@FA_Touadera) May 24, 2022

A CAR presidency spokesman declined to comment on the program when contacted by phone on Wednesday.

Bitcoin’s First African Adopter Faces Backlash From Central Bank

CAR is among central African countries including Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo that use one of two versions of the CFA franc. The region’s monetary rules require consultation on change in currency policies.

The crypto project could “reshape CAR’s financial system,” according to President Touadera’s Tweet on Tuesday.

With an economy worth about $2.3 billion, CAR is seeking ways to develop its resources. The government expects its plan to help crowd-fund infrastructure projects. It will also create a digital national bank, according to the presentation.

“We have concerns regarding transparency as well as the potential implications for financial inclusion, the financial sector and public finance at large, in addition to environmental shortcomings,” the World Bank said.

Updated: 5-26-2022

World Bank Won’t Support Central African Republic’s Sango Crypto Hub

The World Bank has said “it will be physically impossible” for the lender to fund the planned Sango crypto hub and voiced concerns regarding the country’s adoption of Bitcoin.

The World Bank has signaled its concerns over the Central African Republic (CAR) adopting Bitcoin (BTC) as a legal currency and says it won’t support the newly announced “Sango” crypto hub.

At the end of April, CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadéra established a regulatory framework for cryptocurrency in the country and adopted Bitcoin as a legal tender. On May 24, he announced a plan to launch the country’s first crypto hub called “Sango.”

Sango is described as the country’s first “crypto initiative” — a legal hub for crypto-related businesses encompassing economic policies including no corporate or income tax and the creation of a virtual and physical “crypto island.”

An official document outlining the Sango project states that the country “received approval for a $35 million development fund from The World Bank for the digitization of the public sector.”

However, a spokesperson for the institution told Bloomberg via email the recently approved grant “is unrelated to any cryptocurrency initiative” and that “the World Bank is not supporting ‘Sango — The First Crypto Initiative Project.’”

The $35 million grant from the World Bank announced May 5 was meant for the updating and digitization of the existing public financial management system, for instance, by improving digital bank payments.

In the statement, The World Bank added “it will be physically impossible” for the institution to fund the Sango project and expressed disapproval of the CAR’s adoption of Bitcoin:

“We have concerns regarding transparency as well as the potential implications for financial inclusion, the financial sector and public finance at large, in addition to environmental shortcomings.”

CAR’s Bitcoin adoption has also caught the ire of the governor of the Bank of Central African States (BEAC) Abbas Mahamat Tolli, who wrote a scathing letter to CAR Finance Minister Hervé Ndoba shortly after news of the adoption.

In the letter, Tolli wrote the new law “suggests that its main objective is to establish a Central African currency beyond the control of the BEAC that could compete with or displace the legal currency” which, he believes, would “jeopardize monetary stability.”

The World Bank Echoed The Sentiment Saying:

“It is important that the relevant regional institutions, such as the central bank and the banking authorities, are fully consulted and remain in the driver’s seat.”

There is a growing dislike of the CFA franc — the official fiat currency of the CAR pegged to the euro in the country. Meanwhile, crypto adoption rates have skyrocketed in Africa, according to a March report from crypto exchange KuCoin, which shows that crypto transactions have increased by over 2,500% in 2021.

It’s unclear what the adoption rate of crypto is within CAR, specifically. The country only has an internet penetration rate of just over 7% of the total population, meaning only around 350,000 individuals are even online, according to data from DataReportal, dated January 2022.

Updated: 6-3-2022

Central African Republic To Tokenize The Nation’s Natural Resources

The impoverished country has launched an ambitious crypto project that includes using Bitcoin as legal tender, attracting investment and creating its own metaverse.

The Central African Republic (CAR) has announced plans to proceed with its ambitious Sango Project by tokenizing access to the country’s abundant natural resources. President Faustin-Archange Touadéra posted a photograph of a statement on his official Twitter account Thursday detailing the next steps in the project.

The statement, signed by Minister of State and cabinet chief of staff Obed Namsio, read, in part:

“We are giving everyone access to the riches of our land. In other words, we are transforming them into equally valuable and important digital assets through an unprecedented new administrative and economic movement.”

It went on to say that Touadéra has asked the parliament to prepare a new strategy to create investment opportunities in the country’s economy.

The next step for us, the Central African Republic is the democratization & tokenization of resources, a new chapter with tremendous possibilities.

This #vision & strategy will open unique #opportunities for #investors #worldwide. #CAR #RCA pic.twitter.com/v7mzlsUeTw

— Faustin-Archange Touadéra (@FA_Touadera) June 2, 2022

The CAR, which in April became the second country in the world to adopt Bitcoin (BTC) as legal tender, introduced Project Sango last month. On the project’s website, it is claimed that the World Bank approved a $35 million development fund for a Sango crypto hub in the country — even though the World Bank has stated that it will not support the initiative.

Creation of a legal framework for resource tokenization is a key element of the Sango Project, along with establishing e-residency for investors, crowdfunding infrastructure and the founding Sango—the so-called Crypto Island metaverse. The CAR has reserves of gold, oil, iron, diamonds, copper, uranium, rhodium, limestone, cobalt, manganese and other minerals.

The benefits of launching Bitcoin as legal tender in the CAR have been called into doubt due to the fragility of the state and the low level of development in the country. Only a small minority of residents have access to the internet or electricity.

Updated: 8-8-2022

Nigeria Becomes The Most Crypto-Obsessed Nation After April Crash

The Google trends data for the popular search terms in 15 countries showed that “Ethereum” searches outscored “Bitcoin” in 14 of them.

The crypto market crash in April saw most cryptocurrencies lose more than 60% of their valuation from the top, leading to an overall downturn in trading activity, investor interest and venture capital investment.

A recent study has highlighted nations’ growing curiosity and interest in crypto after the April crash.

The research was based on Google Trends data of popular crypto search terms that often reflect increased interest in the crypto market. The search history of each nation was then compiled to give an overall search score. The countries at the top of the list appear to be most eager to buy the dip.

The CoinGecko research highlighted a significant rise in curiosity among Nigerians after the crypto market downturn in April.

The Nigerian population searched the term “cryptocurrency,” “invest in crypto” and “buy crypto” the most among the 15 countries that were part of the research and had a total search score of 370.

Google trend charts show the data for “invest in crypto” searches in Nigeria compared to the world.

The search density for the term has seen similar interest rates after the April downfall in Nigeria, while the worldwide search density has seen a constant decline in comparison.

Nigeria’s growing interest in crypto is fueled by inadequate financial services in the country, something that has been a key reason for crypto adoption across Africa.

As Cointelegraph reported in April, nearly 17.36 million, or 52% of Nigerian crypto investors, have allocated over half of their assets to cryptocurrencies. Nigerians started using crypto as a viable alternative to store and transfer assets.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) came in second with a search score of 270, which didn’t come as a surprise to many, given the country’s recent push for crypto adoption. Singapore ranked third with a search score of 260, while the United States was ranked 12th with a search score of 157.

The search score data also highlighted some of the top cryptocurrencies that people in these 15 countries searched. Interestingly, Ethereum searches outscored Bitcoin in 14 of the 15 countries, with Singapore leading the chart with a score of 59.

The rise in interest toward ETH over BTC could also be attributed to the upcoming Merge to the proof-of-stake (PoS) network slated for the third week of September.

Updated: 8-10-2022

The Most Curious Nation About Crypto Is Nigeria, Study Shows

Africa’s most-populous nation showed more interest in cryptocurrencies than any other country since the digital assets began to decline in April, according to a study by price tracker CoinGecko.

Nigeria scored 371 in the study that looked at Google Trends data for six searches such as “buy crypto” or “invest in crypto” that were then combined to give each English-speaking nation a total search ranking. The West African country was followed by the United Arab Emirates and Singapore.

“This study provides interesting insight into which countries remain most interested in cryptocurrency in spite of market pullbacks,” CoinGecko’s co-founder Bobby Ong said in an emailed statement.

“The countries at the top of this list appear to be keenest to buy the dip, and highlight their long-term outlook for cryptocurrencies.”

The Nigerian stock exchange said in June it planned to start a blockchain-enabled platform next year to deepen trade and lure young investors to the market. That came after its central bank in early 2021 ordered commercial lenders to stop transactions or operations in cryptocurrencies, citing a threat to the financial system.

 

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