In this episode of the state of crypto brainstorm, the Amun team (Hany Rashwan, Hansen Wang, and Lanre Ige) came together to discuss the impact crypto and blockchain technology could have across the continent of Africa. The external guest this week was Yele Bademosi — Director and Ambassador of Africa at Binance Labs. It is important to note that it is impossible to develop a coherent thesis for the whole of Africa — the world's most diverse and multi-faceted continent — so instead this episode will mostly focus on Nigeria, where both Yele and Lanre are from.
One narrative which has been consistent throughout the history of crypto has been the concept of "Banking the Unbanked" especially with reference to the continent of Africa. There has been the hope that crypto could in some way act as a way to allow for people to store their wealth in a censorship-resistant way — especially in cases where their was a generally lack of faith in their public institutions — or facilitate cross-border payments and remittances payments.
Especially since the rise in prominence of the next generation of stablecoins such as Dai or Celo — or even Facebook's Libra — the argument has been made that these kind of crypto products will help "Bank the Unbanked in Africa". However, a problem with this is that often many of those within the industry have touted crypto as offering solutions (and then created such solutions) without first properly understanding the problems.
There's no doubt that Africa — the world's youngest continent — has an almost unbounded potential to grow and countries like Nigeria have begun to show their potential as the new hubs for innovation and financial technology. However, I think it's important first to step back and properly understand, in crypto's case at least, what problems there are to solve for those within the crypto industry and the different modes of thinking we can adopt to create better solutions.
In this episode, Yele and the Amun team discuss Yele's thesis for crypto in Africa, touch on the various problems that crypto can actually help solve, and analyze what the main impediments to crypto adoption in Africa are. Stayed tuned.
Reading Materials:
Binance Podcast — Blockchain Continent is Happening in Africa (w. Yele)
United Nations — Africa Could Be the Next Frontier for Cryptocurrency
Africa Digital Asset Framework — An Open-source Map to the Pan-African Blockchain Ecosystem
Cointelegraph — Crypto in Africa: Opportunities and Challenges, Explained
Dether — The State of Crypto in Nigeria
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