The governor of the issuing institute shared by the six CEMAC states (Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Chad, CAR, and Equatorial Guinea) has strongly discouraged people from investing in crypto-currencies during a press conference that marked the first extraordinary meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Central African States (Beac) for the year 2022 on November 18, 2022 in Ndjamena, the capital of Chad.
cryptocurrency
“Beac’s choice is to warn the public against investing in these risky speculative assets. Since the beginning of 2022, Bitcoin, for instance, has lost more than 70% of its value,” according to Abbas Mahamat Tolli (photo). He emphasised that cryptocurrency is still an unrecognised currency in the CEMAC market.
He insisted, “I would like to stress out that the only currency for all the countries of the CEMAC zone is the CFA franc. Thus, Abbas Mahamat Tolli upholds the position of the central bank in the face of RCA’s formalisation of a cryptocurrency on April 22, 2022.
The new rules governing the common financial market in the CEMAC countries, which include the floating of “digital assets” and “digital tokens,” were published a few weeks before the resignation of the former governor of the central bank of the CEMAC countries.
According to article 76 of this regulation, which was adopted on July 21, 2022 by the Ministerial Committee of the Monetary Union of Central Africa (UMAC) and made available to the public on July 14, 2022, “any intangible asset representing, in digital form, one or more rights issued, registered, stored, or transferred by means of a shared electronic recording device allowing to identify, directly or indirectly, constitutes a token.”
According to financial market participants involved in the development of this book, this concept encompasses not only cryptocurrency, but also video games, photos, and software.
Furthermore, “services on digital assets” are now among the activities permitted in the CEMAC financial market. Article 160 defines this as “the act of providing one or more of the following services or operations: storage of digital activities on behalf of a third party; purchase of digital assets against a legal tender currency or against other digital assets; operation of a digital asset trading platform; other services on digital assets such as the reception and transmission of orders on behalf of third parties, portfolio management.”
Furthermore, the inclusion of cryptoassets in the regulatory corpus of the sub-regional financial market does not bestow legal standing on cryptocurrencies in the CEMAC zone.
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert. As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh
To envision the future of crypto, I keep trying different analytical tools. This time around the concept of relevance is focality, by which I mean the part of the system at which consumers direct their attention. Focality could determine whether crypto ushers in an era of dystopian inequality, or whether most of its benefits accrue to broader society.
That all sounds quite abstract, so consider a simple example from the world of music. Famous artists such as the Beatles or Taylor Swift attract attention with their very names — in other words, they have become focal. Then there are performance spaces or bars that are known for putting on good music, such as the Blue Note or, in an earlier era, the Fillmore. In this case, the venue is focal.
cryptocurrency
So the question is this: When people patronise crypto institutions, will they attach significance to the “innovator” or to the “intermediary”? Or, to continue the analogy with the music industry, the artist or the venue.
One scenario is that ordinary people will simply find crypto too confusing to deal with directly. Rather than choosing their favorite crypto assets, DeFi investments and NFT providers, they will outsource their decisions to well-known intermediaries. Imagine entering into a crypto contract with a company you have an established relationship with, such as a social media company, your bank or perhaps your trade union. The intermediary would deliver a “crypto package”, tailored to the needs of a broad swathe of customers.
Significant parts of the crypto world would be relatively centralised. Those mainstream brokers would enjoy economies of scale, due to their reputations and ability to exploit network effects. They probably would offer lower-risk, well-established products.
Consumers might be better off — but the crypto world would be boring. Many of its advantages would be captured by these well-capitalised intermediaries. Furthermore, problems of censorship would reemerge, because these reputation-conscious intermediaries will not want to offer all possible crypto products. They might not give you ready access to a crypto-reformulated version of Twitter, for example, where writings are recorded on the blockchain and posters cannot be censored.
Another very different scenario: Users focus their attention on the crypto assets themselves, such as bitcoin, ether or dogecoin. That kind of user focus would mean many of the gains of crypto accrue to the early crypto asset holders. Intermediaries (for example, Coinbase) can earn a return, but the real brand name value would be held by the crypto asset itself.
Much of today’s crypto world looks like this, though it may not last as crypto broadens in applications and use. If you are long current crypto assets, you may be hoping for this kind of scenario to extend itself, because those assets will accumulate much of the value from higher crypto demand.
Yet another scenario: What if the attention of consumers was focused on the crypto innovators, who in this case would be analogous to better-known musical artists? One person may think, “I like the DeFi options at Uniswap,” while another may say, “I am going to use the prediction markets over at Hedgehog.” In this scenario there is relatively little intermediation and heavy competition for consumer attention. Thus most of the gains from competition accrue to the users.
Customers would use or own or invest in crypto in a variety of ways, just as they listen to music on LPs, CDs, MP3s and streaming services. And in the same way that people share their playlists, crypto users could issue their own tokens (currencies) if they wanted, or serve as their own banks in the sense of making their own lending decisions and executing them autonomously.
I don’t know if people are up to all this work (or is it fun?). But in my view this is the best-case scenario — and the most technologically ambitious. Interestingly, crypto’s radical ability to disintermediate, if extended to its logical conclusion, could bring about a radical equalisation of power that would lower the prices and values of the currently well-established crypto assets, companies and platforms.
So you can be bullish on crypto’s future without being bullish on current crypto prices. For a simple analogy, Spotify and YouTube have greatly expanded music’s reach, but overall the price of recorded music has fallen, and many performers earn much less than did their peers in the LP era. Or consider the agriculture sector, defined broadly: It has done very well over the last few centuries, but food prices have fallen rather than risen, due to higher output and greater competition.
One conclusion here is that to know where crypto is headed, sociology is as important as economics. Crypto will continue to be surprising because people see it not just as a way to make money, but as a way to make meaning of their lives.
Tyler Cowen is an American economist, columnist and blogger. He is a professor at George Mason University, where he holds the Holbert L. Harris chair in the economics department
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Yesterday, Bitcoin surged to $50,000, a more than 3-month high. The cryptocurrency continues to rebound since reaching similar heights in May but tumbling since. The unit climbed above the $50,000 level around 4:40 AM CAT on Monday, according to CNBC. The crypto was trading at around $50,095 at 8:45 AM CAT on Sunday.
Bitcoin hit an all-time high of over $64,000 in April, but sold off heavily in June and July, even dipping below $30,000. The primary reason, amongst others, for the drop off was increased regulatory scrutiny from Chinese authorities which has forced Bitcoin mining operations to cease in the Asian country, and move elsewhere.
Bitcoin
Since mid-July, Bitcoin has seen a steady rise, and in the last few days, two key announcements have positively affected the top digital coin, and the rest of the cryptocurrency space.
Last week, Coinbase said it would buy $500-million in crypto on its balance sheet and allocate 10% of the profits into a crypto assets portfolio, and on Monday, PayPal announced that it would launch a service to aid people in buying, holding and selling digital currencies in the UK.
Other digital coins were also trading higher. Ether saw an increase of 1.8% at $3,302.59 early Monday morning. Ethereum, the blockchain network powered by Ether, underwent significant upgrades earlier this month which helped lift its price.
“Lots of large players took advantage of those prices,” says Vijay Ayyar, head of business development at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, adding that bitcoin could move “to test all-time highs again.”
Ayyar’s firm believes that Bitcoin will continue to rise into the future.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Club Swan, a top-ranking innovative service that has brought a secure and reliable solution to the African crypto community, unfortunately, it’s becoming all too normal to fall foul of your bank when transacting to buy cryptocurrencies via fiat using bank transfers or your debit card. Banks accounts may get frozen, transactions delayed and issues may arise with the intent and destination of funds.
cryptocurrency
Club Swan is a top-ranking innovative service that has brought a secure and reliable solution to the African crypto community. This firm has played an integral role especially in South Africa who represent the majority of the demand for Bitcoins in the region. The company specializes in buying, selling cryptos and allowing customers to spend Bitcoin as fiat using their debit cards worldwide cutting out the need for a bank in order to buy, sell and spend crypto.
With crypto generally used as a hedge against inflation and currency devaluation in Africa, there are growing shifts in demand to use cryptocurrencies as a means for international transactions and business trade saving in international exchange fees. Recognizing these challenges Club Swan offers multiple currency accounts, the ability to exchange into multiple fiat currencies typically 4-8% cheaper than the high street banks, as well as the ability to transfer your cryptocurrency to other external wallets via their platform.
As an FCA regulated and responsible organization, the KYC process is concluded on all customers which in most circumstances is executed swiftly, in under 30 minutes giving customers the ability to buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Tether, BAT, Paxos, USD Coin and EOS using USD, GBP, EUR, CNY, and JPY accounts with over $1 billion transacted using the platform. The crypto concierge service offered by Club Swan allows businesses and busy individual access to concierge professionals 24/7 where all requests, large or small, are handled with care and efficiency. Whether it’s hiring a private jet for business travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, to relocation to a different city or country, the concierge service is there to provide assistance.
With the South African budget looming on 24th February, there is a growing focus on diversification of savings and investments into alternative assets like cryptocurrencies to mitigate the risk of potential Rand (ZAR) devaluation.
“From September 2020 till January 2021 we’ve seen a 310% increase in transactions for our South African customers,” says Martin Lamming, CCO Club Swan.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Morocco’s central bank, Bank-Al-Maghrib (BAM), has established an exploratory committee to investigate the merits of a central bank-run cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrencies have experienced widespread attention since the success of bitcoin. The virtual currency, run via blockchain technology, was initially roundly mocked but now stands at a total value of almost $1 trillion.
Stacked cryptocurrency coins
This year alone bitcoin has gained 81% in value, with a single bitcoin now priced at over half a million dirhams (roughly $53,000). With changing global opinions and attitudes toward bitcoin, Morocco’s BAM is having another look at the technology. Although bitcoin was officially banned for use in Morocco in 2017, the cryptocurrency continues to be popular in Morocco, with only Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya trading more bitcoins on the African continent.
The growing popularity of bitcoin will be a topic of investigation for BAM’s new committee as Morocco’s central bank can no longer ignore the growing prominence of cryptocurrencies used worldwide. While BAM continues to take cautious approach to the blockchain-driven currencies, it’s new committee will investigate whether the institution could issue its own cryptocurrency.
Such a “Central Bank Digital Currency” (CBDC) is being considered by several central banks, with China’s central bank already moving ahead with a “digital yuan” that could eventually challenge the dollar. Bam’s committee is tasked with investigating the evolution of cryptocurrencies after years of apprehension. As speculative nature of cryptocurrencies appears to continue to worry many at the risk-averse Bank-Al-Maghrib, the new committee will essentially proceed to “identify and analyze” the main advantages and drawbacks of a BAM-issued CDBC for the Moroccan economy.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Mastercard is preparing for the future of transactions by planning to support cryptocurrency transactions across its network. This comes at a time when these digital assets are becoming a more important part of the payments world, especially during Bitcoin’s recent surge in value. Mastercard is planning to support cryptocurrency transactions across its network.
Cryptos
In a blog post, Mastercard says, “We are preparing right now for the future of crypto and payments, announcing that this year Mastercard will start supporting select cryptocurrencies directly on our network. This is a big change that will require a lot of work. We will be very thoughtful about which assets we support based on our principles for digital currencies, which focus on consumer protection and compliance.”
The company goes on to say that its philosophy on cryptocurrencies is straightforward: It’s about choice.
“Mastercard isn’t here to recommend you start using cryptocurrencies. But we are here to enable customers, merchants and businesses to move digital value – traditional or crypto – however, they want. It should be your choice, it’s your money.”
Mastercard expects this to create a lot more possibilities for shoppers and merchants, allowing them to transact in an entirely new form of payment. It may open merchants up to new customers who are already flocking to digital assets, and help sellers build loyalty with existing customers who want this additional option. And customers will be able to save, store and send money in new ways.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
A new study by the World Bank shows that it costs 4.98% on average to remit funds to South Asia which makes it the least expensive region while sub-Sahara Africa is the most expensive with an average cost of 8.47%. The quarterly study also finds that it is costlier to remit funds when using service providers such as banks that charge an average of 10.89%.
Stacked cryptocurrency coins
Mobile operators are the cheapest as their sending costs averaged 3% and below during the period under review. Still, the study, which predictably excludes cryptocurrencies, shows a marginal decrease in the Global Weighted Average (GWA) from 5.03% in Q2 to 5.0% in Q3 of 2020. The World Bank’s aptly named Remittance Prices Worldwide (RPW) report monitors remittance costs across all regions. Data from the report shows that the Global Average remitting cost dropped from 9.67% seen Q1 of 2009 to the latest 6.75%. This represents a 2.92% decline during this period.
Meanwhile, the global financial institution says that in addition to tracking the Global Average, “another average total cost is introduced to track the average price of digital remittances in RPW database.” In following this cost metric, the study finds that: In Q3 2020, the global average for digital remittances was recorded at 5.29 per cent while the global average for none- digital remittances was 7.24%.” Furthermore, the report data shows remitting costs gradually decreasing across all sending corridors since 2008.
Despite their absence in the World Bank’s RPW, cryptocurrencies seem to be cheaper and faster-remitting methods. To illustrate, on the Bitcoin Network, transacting costs for coins like bitcoin cash and dash remain insignificant when compared to the cost of sending funds via Money Transfer Organisation (MTO). For instance, during Q3 of 2020, the average fee when sending or paying $100 with bitcoin cash was less than one cent. The same was true for Dash as well as for Ripple’s XRP token. Yet, on the other hand, it may cost 10% or more to send funds between two Southern African countries. Remitting funds via bitcoin and ethereum is also faster and sometimes cheaper than traditional remitting corridors. As the data from Bitinfocharts shows, at the start of Q3 2020 on July 1, transaction fees on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks averaged $1.51 and $0.70 respectively. Since then, fees on the two networks have fluctuated wildly but still went on to average $5 or below for much of Q3. An average fee of $5 per transaction translates to 5% if the amount being sent is $100.
With transacting costs that are a tiny fraction of a per cent, cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash and XRP, which the World Bank and others refuse to recognise, appear to have achieved one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) already. Under the world body’s SDGs 10.c, the UN and others are committing to reducing to “less than 3 per cent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and to eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 per cent.” The UN is targeting to achieve this goal by 2030 yet more migrants are already using cryptocurrencies because they are a much cheaper and more convenient option.
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry
Good news for users of cryptos. There are plans by thirteen of the world’s largest banks, including UBS, Barclays, and Santander, to launch crypto versions of major global currencies in 2020, according to the Financial Times. The banks would be led by UBS and they have been working on crypto, nicknamed Utility Settlement Coin (USC) since 2015 to determine if blockchain can help optimize processes in wholesale banking.
Here Is What This Means
To make this a reality, the 13 banks, in addition to Nasdaq, have also invested £50 million ($63 million) in a new venture, Fnality, to run the USC project.
The USC will make it possible for users to get digital cash instruments to settle their transactions.
The system will be denominated in major global currencies including the US dollar, yen, euro, and sterling.
Each unit of the crypto denominated in a specific currency will be backed by the corresponding unit of traditional currency, so as to keep the price of the coin stable.
At the outset, the project will focus on creating niche applications. That is, Fnality will initially focus on creating the necessary market infrastructure that will make the crypto to work.
These initial applications will include meeting margin requirements in derivatives trades. A derivative is referred to as the security or financial instrument that depends or derives its value from an underlying asset or group of assets.
They are simply contracts between two or more parties. The value of such a contract is determined by changes or fluctuations in the asset where it derives its value from.
Currently, that process takes at least a day to be satisfied, but it would become almost instantaneous with the USC, according to Fnality CEO Rhomaios Ram cited by the Financial Times.
Beyond that, the USC could soon make it possible to clear and settle trades immediately. This could prove to be transformational, according to Hyder Jaffrey, head of strategic investments at UBS’ investment bank.
This May Suggest That More Banks Are Finding Blockchain and Cryptos Acceptable
Although this is not assured, USC suggests that banks are gradually finding confidence in blockchain and cryptos. However, these 13 banks will most likely still have to scale some legal and regulatory challenges in their efforts to adopt the technology and will need to prove that the scalability issues that hamstrung early experiments in crypto have been resolved.
The journey may be a tougher one though. This is because to develop an ecosystem that will be enough to convince the majority of banks and financial institutions (FIs) across the world to throw away existing processes for transaction settling will take time.
Indeed, the USC is a major step towards sealing a major approval for the technology but the end of the road is still far. The weight of the banks backing the USC should help the project secure traction — but this won’t guarantee success.
It appears blockchain technology is gradually gaining momentum. Facebook is seriously ready to launch its own crypto solution. The social media network has been busy pushing out efforts to enter financial services via a crypto solution. The solution will aim to provide payment options for its 2 billion users. A 2020 launch date is expected any moment from now.
A group of banks in Japan is also considering a 2020 calendar date for the launch of the group’s own cryptos. For sure, 2020 is going to be a year of blockchain technology. When these happen, blockchain tech may be signaling that it has become accepted into the mainstream system as a legitimate way of transacting, a hope that has since been hanging unfulfilled.
Combine all of these with USC, you get to find that cryptos are beginning to gain traction both within retail and institutional settings.
However, blockchain’s potential would still need to convince more of its believers. The head of Germany’s central bank said, for instance, that its trial of using blockchain to transfer and settle securities didn’t prove to be faster or cheaper than existing processes. Bank of America’s (BofA’s) tech and operations chief, Cathy Bessant, also echoed that she has yet to see a genuine use case that can scale to meet enterprise needs — despite the bank holding or having applied for the most blockchain-related patents among US FIs.
Should the USC finally work as desired, it would be an end to all these speculations and fear. Repeated over and over again without much concern, blockchain would finally come to stay.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
When Mr. Tola Fadugbagbe relocated back to Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city for the second time in his young life, there was nothing yet like cryptocurrency or bitcoins or tokens or Blockchain technology. He could only be fused into one of the over 17.5 million people living in the city. And it appeared he was merely making up the population because it seemed the city looked too overwhelming to fit in. It didn’t take long before several months of homelessness hit him hard in the face.
‘‘For several months, I stayed in an uncompleted building. Life was nothing but hell. I was running around struggling to get funds to complete my education to university level,’’ he tells Afrikan Heroes.
Then a job stint at a highly successful real estate development company. A break-away to start up a local block making factory, and a sudden bankruptcy and closure of the facility because clients who promised to pay took delivery of his blocks but never cared to pay back, Mr. Fadugbagbe says he is still banking on his integrity, determination, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology to take him farther than he has ever thought.
‘‘ One thing I always prove to people about myself wherever I go is integrity. Anywhere I am, people always get to know me as someone with integrity. That was why I stayed longer than expected at the real estate company,’’ he said.
Mr. Tola said he learned his lessons about running his first startup the hard way:
While I was working in the real estate company, I discovered that there was a problem that needed to be solved: the quality of concrete blocks being delivered to this site. You know, the blocks they usually supplied the real estate company were not strong enough. So I thought that if I ventured into this business, I could make some future from it. So after I left the real estate company, I set up a block making factory.
When the factory was up and running, I was so happy that I was progressing. I was generous and selling on credit. But before I knew what was happening, people were withholding my money and they were telling me stories. As I’m talking to you now, these people are still owing me. I was back to square one after that nightmare: I could not even produce even though my equipment was on ground.
‘‘Till Date, It Has Been Marvelous Getting Involved in Cryptocurrency.’’
While reading about cryptocurrency and blockchain technology sometime in 2016 from two of his Facebook friends ‘who were not usually detailed about the terms and the philosophy behind the concept’, Mr. Tola got interested and began extensive studies and inquiries into what cryptocurrencies are, only to discover that cryptocurrencies suited his philosophy. Since then, he says it has been ‘‘marvelous getting involved in cryptocurrency.’’
Today, he is part of a local network in Lagos and Nigeria that hosts conferences, seminars, boot-camps, and workshops training people on what cryptocurrency is and how they can trade in it.
I believe that cryptocurrency is a big deal. Big corporations can’t stop talking about cryptocurrency. They can’t stop implementing cryptocurrency in one way or the other. Look at the CEO of JP. Morgan, Jamie Dimon, who once told his workers that if they ever got involved in bitcoin they would be fired. He called Bitcoin a fraud, a scam and an evil. Few weeks later he bought bitcoins on Poloniex. Right now, J.P Morgan is using fragments of JPM Coin, the native coin of JP Morgan Bank. I mean JP Morgan is a US banking giant that move trillions of dollars across the globe daily. Right now they want to use their own token to scale payment protocols and remittances,’’ he says.
Mr. Fadugbagbe is not far from the truth. Earlier in February 2019, J.P. Morgan became the first major U.S. bank to create its own cryptocurrency with the launch of “JPM Coin.” The digital token was designed to settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business, specifically for international payments and securities transactions that migrate to the blockchain.
Mr. Fadugbagbe remembers one incident about how cryptocurrency has been more than a helpful innovation in the payment system.
‘‘Someone in the US sent bitcoins to me today. I sent Naira equivalent to the person’s beneficiary in Nigeria. If they are to rely on Western Union, the fees, the delay and all that would be too much,’’ he said.
‘‘I believe that cryptocurrency has come to stay. You know, there are some people in Diaspora that find it difficult to send money back home. Now, crytopcurrency has made it a lot more easier for them because they could just create crypto accounts over there and using those accounts, they can now send bitcoins to me, and I, in turn pay off their beneficiaries in Nigeria the Naira equivalent of the bitcoins sent to me. These things happen within a space of few minutes.
He says that unlike fiat currency that government can only print more, borrow more and yet remain heavily in debt, cryptocurrency always has an edge.
‘‘You can’t inflate it. Instead you can only reduce it. This means that, with time, crypto can always gain value. The only downside of it that it that it is highly volatile. That is why people should be cautious about the type of crytocurrrency they get involved in. In fact, the crypto market is highly competitive right now. So if you lay your hands on a token doing similar things to other similar tokens in the similar same crypto market, and if the token is not highly innovative, then it would not scale,’’ he says.
‘‘Whether You Like It or Not, Everybody Will Get Involved In Cryptocurrency’’
Mr. Fadugbagbe said the only thing remaining for cryptocurrency to become widely accepted is for governments to give their nod to it. For that, he sees a huge opportunity for early investors.
”So if you look at the future of cryptocurrency, you can’t but be part of it at this early stage. Many people see Bitcoins, ethereum and cryptocurrency as the dark part of the internet because some governments are yet to approve it. Whether we like it or not government plays a major part in controlling the mindset of the citizens. Just take a look at the stories of MTN and DSTV before they became big players in their industries. We all know are they were first rejected by governments,” he says.
Why Africa is Lagging Behind In Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology?
Mr. Fadugbagbe says Africa is lagging behind because of the continent’s low rate of adoption of the innovation. He says anything revolutionary will be adopted quickly in any continent or any country when the government welcomes it wholeheartedly. Although he says African governments are usually ‘‘just slow in adopting something as disruptive as cryptocurrencies,’’ he has hope that Africa would get there someday.
”This is one of the reasons why we’ve been hosting seminars, workshop, bootcamps. We still need to engage the government.We just have to keep talking about this. We hope that one day, we would get the attention of the government to approve the necessary framework for cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Just take, for instance: if you can now travel to all West African countries using Bitcoins. It would really mean that more people would get interested in bitcoins. If the government also says you can now pay your tax with bitcoins, many people would be eager to pay tax,” he says.
Mr. Fadugbagbe also finds a big problem with the way international communities see cryptocurrencies coming out of Africa.
”International communities believe that an average Nigerian or African is a scammer,’’ he says. ‘‘ Once cryptocurrencies are coming out from Africa or Nigeria, the international community doesn’t usually trust them, even when the intention is good,’’he says.
How Startups Can Leverage Crypto To Boost Their Businesses
Mr. Tola says smart startups can leverage cryptocurrencies to boost their business even without any formal partnerships with any blockchain organizations or blockchain platforms. To do this, he says African startups may consider accepting cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins, bitcoin ethereum or any other viable coins. Doing this not only boosts startups’ businesses but also gives their businesses free advert.
”Free advert because cryptocurrencies guys everywhere in the world will begin to refer your business. Take for instance, the impact of having a barbershop somewhere in Nigeria where you can now have hair cut and pay with bitcoins. In trying to convince your folks about the existence of such barbershop, you may begin to refer to such words as ‘‘look at the barbershop here. Look at its office phone number.’ The same way, you may refer to a hotel in Cameroon where you can now check into, pay with bitcoin and get discount. Or somewhere in Zambia where you can vacation to and pay with cryptocurrency. This will give startup owners free adverts. Just imagine a consumer in Nigeria, Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda talking about your business.”
”This is why celebrities keep progressing because we keep talking about them. Who knows? But Reginal Daniels has so much been in the news and may be landing brand ambassador deals even. So this will give startups free adverts, thereby generating more leads for their businesses.”
‘’Governments Can Use Blockchain Technology To Keep Records Of The Number Of Books Received By Each Student’’
Mr. Fadugbagbe tells prospective blockchain technology investors in Africa to start submitting proposals to the government because there is a huge opportunity in that regard.
‘‘Africa needs blockchain tech the most. We can use blockchain to curtail the inefficiencies in the system. In most education ministries in Africa, for instance, books are distributed from time to time. Government can use blockchain tech to keep records of the number of these books received by each student. For every book the students receive, they can thrown in a token from their backends, using a smartphone. This is the smartest way to get feedback from Africa’s cluttered data management system. So let’s begin by sending in proposals,’’ he said.
Mr. Fadugbagbe says blockchain technology makes for more accountability and efficiency in the system, and unlike humans, data stored in blockchains cannot be tampered with.
‘‘You look at blockchain as a record that cannot be edited,” he said. ‘‘For instance, a list of items or names, or a football team. When humans are involved, they can add or remove the names at will, but with blockchain technology, the list cannot be padded. So once added, the information cannot be altered.”
For a business model that was worth over $700 billion as of January 2018, the global cryptocurrency market is booming and is not relenting. Mr. Tola Fadugbagbe does not see this ending too. No longer homeless and frustrated by bad debt, at least not in the category he once fitted in at his former startup, he has since moved on.
‘‘Right now,’’ he says, ‘‘I am living in a good and comfortable apartment. I have been reinvesting into large scale agriculture — a cocoa farm and and poultry — from the proceeds of my blockchain business. My aim is to grow them into the biggest phase they could ever be in. I like my life so simple because of what I have experienced in the past. I’m not going back to that nightmare.’’
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organizations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution, and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.
