Topic: Africa - promised land of Bitcoin? - page 2. (Read 3165 times)

Africa is and will continue to be a great place for crytp to develop.

Although computer use may be lower than in other areas, those who have internet service will gravitate to Bitcoin and certain alts.

Be prepared to profit.

My $.02.

Africa might be a good place for bitcoins since they are already have an advanced money-transmitting industry in at least one or two countries, But I doubt the public demand for it there would be high enough.

It will be great if Bitcoin gets really popular in rich African countries such as Gabon and RSA. However, at the moment the strongholds seems to be East Africa (esp. Kenya and Tanzania, due to Kipochi).

There already is a South African fiat to Bitcoin online exchange.

Maybe bitcoins will  recieve mass adoption in s.africa and other newly developed countries

Here is one of the companies.   

http://www.mobilepaymentstoday.com/article/216119/M-PESA-meets-Bitcoin-with-new-service-in-Kenya

Lets Talk Bitcoin podcast played an interview with the creator of this service, and he went into a lot of the details they're working out with the government.

There is another company doing the exact same thing that I ran across on Facebook awhile back.  They hadn't heard of Kipochi, but now they know.

Google for more info.

-B-

I have a buddy who has been to Africa several times. He wants to move there, and he will make it, I believe. His wife is loving the idea.

I didn't realize that Africa was this extremely into Bitcoin, "There is a money exchange place in downtown Nairobi where you can exchange bitcoins for fiat." Now that I know, I might go with him, and he might go sooner.

I just got back from Kenya a few weeks ago. While I was there I noticed the heavy use of mpesa. My wife uses it several times a week to pay bills or send her parents money. One time while out, she wanted to get something to drink, but we discovered that neither one of us had any money. I was expecting to just home, but she says "no problem", walks into one of many phone card stores with an mpesa sign (several on every block), talks to the gal, does something with her phone, the gal hands her 500 shillings and now we have some money.

There is a problem with mpesa though. Many transactions (not all) are heavily taxed. The government is starting to see mpesa as a gravy train and since it is centralized, there is nothing to stop them from raising taxes more and more. I think this may eventually push the population towards Bitcoin.

I rode with her one day to her job in Nairobi early in the morning. The bus was mainly young professionals going to work and I noticed that almost every one of them was using an android type smart phone. My wife has both a regular phone and an android phone. The productivity increase of having a cell phone more than pays for itself.

There is a money exchange place in downtown Nairobi where you can exchange bitcoins for fiat.

Excellent point. Bitcoin can benefit common people in the under-developed world much more than those in the developed nations.

There would be benefits in PR. It would make for better media stories than the Silk Road did. Also, it would create a market for Bitcoin-related services and a proving-ground for Bitcoin-related technologies.

Those are the countries that need Bitcoin least, where it is likely to be least important, because they already have a good financial infrastructure.

yes. 

also, the smartphones we throw away now are likely being recycled in developing countries.  Mozilla has s $25usd smartphone in the works.

don't look at smartphones now:  look at what will happen to smartphones in the emerging markets 1-5 years from now. 

I agree, although I would love to be the one who brings Bitcoin to Africa, I think it is far more likely to take off in Central America. I traveled to Guatemala and noticed that even the mountain coffee farmers knew how to use phones and purcahse reloads - culturally, central america is better than most places in Africa.

In terms of economics, it can help both areas, many central american countries and african countries have horrible inflation rates. If you consider north africa the past few years after the Arab spring, most people lost their valued assets. Even egypt has something along the lines of ~11-15% real inflation.

Sraosha, it is nice to hear from someone who actually lives in Africa.  Many Westerners have a very romanticized view of Africa, so hopefully you can give us some good information.



Is the truth racist?  These are things that are happening now or that have happened recently in Africa.  I realize that Africa is a huge continent filled with a wide variety of people in a wide variety of situations.  However, taken as a whole, Africa is undeniably dysfunctional.

There haven't been any Western witch burnings in the last 200 years.  Cannibalism?  While there have been isolated incidents of cannibalism (mostly by criminally insane people) there has never been a time in Western history where one group of people hunted down and ate another group in order to gain magical powers.

Westerners have committed genocide but it was almost always against non-Western people, which means that Westerners do not have to worry about being subject to it, and thus are not subject to the societal disruption that it brings.  This brings me to another point: how come Africa is always the one being invaded?  How come they don't get into ships and invade South America?  It is because they can't.

Furthermore, this discussion has been going on for a couple of days now.  Only now does an African (you) chime in.  How come this discussion hasn't been dominated by Africans from the beginning?  The answer to my question is that there are very few Africans on this forum.  Are they all on an African bitcoin forum instead?  Or are there just not that many Africans into bitcoin?

I'm just asking people to work with the facts that we have instead of fantasizing.  Hopefully you can bring us more information.

It is interesting that you point out that I do not know much about Africa (which is true, I don't know much about Africa) but you didn't point out the extreme ignorance of the people who think that bitcoin will do well in Africa.  They are living in a fantasy world, and it is their fantasies that are harmful to Africans.

Think about it for a moment.  Who is more likely to attempt to colonize Africa?  Someone like me who doesn't think much of Africa, or someone like LostDutchman who says things like "Do not deny the continent.  Africa is The Mother and Father of Humankind."  To people like him Africa is an opportunity, something to fantasize about, something to reshape (destroy) when it doesn't meet expectations.  As the saying goes "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".

Think of Liberia.  Because of optimism Americans invaded and send freed slaves to colonize the place.  The freed slaves then enslaved the locals.

Well, bitcoin only leaves in internet and Africa and internet connection...

Wow... I thought that M-Pesa was limited to Kenya. This is really good news!

Why these racist statements? Can you pls change over to the respective Ku Klux Klan reddit!

All those cruelties you mention have been committed by Western (white) people to huge extents the past 200 years. Burning witches, genocides (e.g. read the history of the Kongo, the Maomao rebellion, war against native Americans, Australian Aborignes, etc.).
The links you quote: Would you think the Daily Mail and the BBC might have an interest to portrait Africans as savages during this second wave of (re)colonization that Africa is currently experienceing?

Dude, think first and travel a bit more. This helps to get rid of some serious prejudices.

I counter that. I live in Africa (Tanzania) and everybody is using M-Pesa here, which is in many regards more close to Bitcoin, in how you use it, than you might think. Check it out:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

It is used widely in Kenia as well and if M-Pesa would be a bank (it isn't though), it would be the biggest in Kenia.

So, in my opinion Africans are quite inventive - e.g. when it comes to recycling waste into new things - and most now also have smart phones in the big cities.
If they will adapt a new technology is not entirely predictable of course, same as in other countries. Who would have anticipated Cyprus for instance.

And those of us smart enough to relaise that Africa is an untapped resource from which both Africans and those with whom Africans affiliate can profit will never know want.

Bitcoin can bring true change to Africa.

My $.02.

Right now, it is quite popular among the Kenyans because of the low fees. Soon it'll get more popular across the whole continent.