Topic: Limitations of Bitcoin Utilization in Africa (Read 553 times)

African countries are now starting to move more forward in developing their economy, including in the financial sector, the small value of their currency is one of the factors to try to adopt bitcoin as the Central African Republic is currently doing, in order to secure the country financial future, the president of Africa Central Africa has legalized bitcoin as a legal tender and this makes the Central African Republic the second country after El Salvador to fully adopt bitcoin.

Oluwa you have done a fantastic job. Africa over the years experienced an great influx of ponzi schemes that introduced, infused and expanded the get-rich-quick syndrome in Africans. Some Africans now want investments that would give them immediate returns, hence introducing Bitcoin as a form of investment is rejected by some Africans. Also, most people that have been victims of these ponzi schemes became very careful about other online financial transactions. They prefer to stick to the conventional fiat currency because they are scared that they might loose their money in online financial transactions. Government is not helping matters because most of them have placed restrictions on Bitcoin transactions, this has made the people to patronize illegal or unregistered cryptocurrency service providers thereby becoming preys to scammers. The solution is enlightenment because of they know features of Bitcoin, it would definitely be a major financial transaction option.

permit me to say that all this factors as listed by you were the stands that promoted African youth to sought for a better life in bitcoin adoption, even though the governments in those regions fail to see that but the people have already made thier own decisions to cling to bitcoin for sustainable and what prompted them were majorly some of the factors you listed, though this is my own opinion and approach regarding this, an average African finds it difficult to make a good living that guaranteed privacy, trust, anonymity, less transaction fees and unaffordable standard of living through inflation while bitcoin has come to solve all these and stay.

Absolutely correct, Africa is not a poor continent but the foreign exchange rate make their currencies look weak and that had affected the entire living capacity of the African people. The living capacity of an African family is less compared to the Europeans or Americans due to the exchange rate. As we can see Africans mostly depend on foreign goods and resources to live an healthy lifestyle.

If we look at the import rate of an average african country, we import more than we export which had affected our currency and made the quest for the US dollar more significant. Due to the high demand of the US dollar for foreign transaction of goods and services, this had made the African currencies to fall in demand because we have less export compared to the rate of importations that the sea ports handles every week.

An African man/woman will rather prefer foreign jewelries, shoes, clothes, cars, etc than the locally made ones that are available here. Although I don't blame anyone here because the government is never working effectively on making our locally produce to have more value. The Nigerian corrupted leaders will prefer the latest foreign cars than supporting the locally made cars to grow and have more values.

We love foreign products and value them more than we value our own lives. Don't be surprised, Africans may continue like this becoming poor in knowledge, resources and currency.

Africans are poor! Let's not try to camouflage the truth because if we look at it from the African currencies, standard of living, rate of unemployment, Education, Food etc. We can see that a second class working employee in Africa  and be considered as a third class employee in America. Standard of living in Africa is difficult which had been as a result of foreign exchanges.

i never said africa was "poor"
i was actually countering the 'just poverty' excuse.. by explaining the forex bias

heck even the parts you quoted were me explaining that on the bases of an african person and an american person having the same standard of living (house size, furnishings, diet..) meaning africans are not poor.
the markets STILL represent them unfairly due to how the forex rate is bias.

its not the continent that is weak. its the conversion rate to dollar that causes the issues.
caused not by africa. but by the US wall street.

if i compared 330million africans to 330million americans. and looked at how much land they each owned. the square footage of their homes. if they had a flatscreen TV and what food was in their kitchen. i could easily find them comparable in MANY african countries.

the issue i was raising was although lifestyles may be similar.. the exchange rate to dollar. by which btc is valued in. makes it 25x more expensive to buy an asic miner in africa, than in america. due to the exchange rate.. meaning someone in africa has to work 25x longer to afford an asic. because asics are valued/priced in at an american value/price

even the bitcoin transaction fee.. american bitcoin core developers are not bothered about bringing the fee down from an average of $0.40-$1.60 to say $0.02-$0.06..
(by the way yes they can implement new rules to reduce the fee)
but they are not bothered because they think that 40c-$1.60 is a roughly acceptable price rich americans are happy to pay.. totally forgetting that over 1 billion africans who's average income is only $0.40 an hour see the fee as being 1-4x their hourly rate.

Thanks for the input and additions.
Also if we can scrap out the Fvcked Political representatives, it'll go a long way for the next generation in Africa.
A lot are just scared of damnation and punishment, we'll never get what we want if we don't do what we haven't done before.
As said by Pooya87, Venezuela did it, so every country in Africa likewise can do it, gradually investment in coolants and other prerequisites mandatory for the set up of a Bitcoin mining farm.

Thanks for sharing with us this kind of information. Reading this kind of post makes me more eager to invest with crypto. It really help a lot for me in a very positive way.

Thank you!

I will give my point of view to some of what OP said:
- Price / Financial Limitations = yes, average 3rd world citizens in general are sitting between middle and poor class, affording to buy basics and some extras but definitely won't afford to buy or to risk the equivalent of BTC1 in their local money. The economy is collapsing even in the richest countries and the inflation is hitting everyone so...
- Banks and Poor Governmental support = there is some counties where the banking system is literally controlling the economy and we all know that they are very hostile to cryptocurrencies..
- Education = an excuse that could be accepted for someone without an Internet connection but most people with smartphones have heard about Bitcoin so not doing their search is their fault and media also.
- Mining of Bitcoin = imagine having the sun shining the whole time and not using it to get literally free electricity...
- Resistance to Change = unfortunately that's correct.

Thank you Oluwa-btc with the knowledge, I live the fact that you elaborated more on the knowledge aspect and where you mentioned enlightenment, those are the basic aspect of cryptocurrency utilization in Africa. Nigeria who have the highest volume of cryptocurrency transaction in Africa and second to the highest after United state in total volume. What we need is to learn the technicality of the Bitcoin network e.g building the first cryptocurrency mining farm in Africa, we need to build more knowledge Africans with the right tools will top the rest of the world in cryptocurrency adoption and there some that have been j to cryptocurrency since 2015.

So, doesn't this make it weak?
If you can't compare it to a rich or successful thing then it's obvious it's not successful and it ain't rich for sure so what are you trying to say?
Acceptance of your own status and your own capabilities is the first requirement in order to improve something, once you're on the path of denial you're just going to keep going like this for another century. Some have learned a lesson, some, not!
So, can you please tell me what went wrong here?



I can tell you what, above half of the things OP mentioned about BTC but are omnipresent in everything related to the economy?
Fix those issues first because without them fixed no amounts of Bitcoins will be able to save those countries.


The GBP is not pegged to the USD, pegged means to have its value fixed compared to another one. Second, nearly all of Central Africa uses the CFA franc and has a fixed exchange rate to the euro, well, that didn't help either despite working in other countries. So, there is no case to rest, nothing, nada!

@ Rruchi man, I agree with you on this because some African leaders will never do things on their own or pass bills that will favour their citizens unless they see other big African countries doing so. A good example is the current president of Nigeria Buhari who publicly said sometime last year that Nigerians are complaining about the increase in the price of Premium Motor Spirit(PMS)  from #85 to #180  naira.
He asked the citizens to go to Ghana and see how much they sell PMS there that it is higher so directly he told the people that his administration increase the price of PMS because Ghana being their neighbouring country increased price too.

I do not believe *trading cryptocurrencies* is obscure in Africa at all - it depends on the country really. Those with high censorship of websites usually are the countries whose populations do not know much about cryptocurrencies (the majority of the people at least).

On the other hand, those with trade/diplomatic relations with the US tend to have populations where at least a decent portion of them are trading cryptocurrencies on exchanges - and have even heard of stuff such as non-custodial wallets and stuff.

Interesting isn't it? That has been my experience, pretty much.

My opinion is that adoption in Africa is no different from adoption in other parts of the world - the youth jump in, the ld obviously don't understand it and stay out of it. This leads me to think that adoption will increase globally over the years, as the old population slowly dies out.

A big big thanks for the pointers, yep.

I didn't want too go that way cause, they're might been seen as hullabaloo!
A whole lotta people said too many things about that.

As for the aspect of Corruption, Africa is one of the warmest places you can be , ain't place out there in the World without corruption.
Africans are ready to welcome stranger's very fast, you just do your thing. Yeah we have corrupt leaders,but in every piece of bad, there is good in em!

Thanks once more for your additions.

Its not cheap actually to do mining set up for bitcoin. Solar energy is good but its not also cheap and you need a bigger capacity for that too. It all boils down to money again. Equipment and electric consumption are two factors that should be think of. People there might be think of more cheaper way to acquire bitcoin instead such as joining here on forum and learn things, and who knows they could join prominent campaign offering a good amount of btc. Theres a way if really interested to dig in deeper and join.

You took the words right out of my mouth here Bro, OP claims Nigerian for one topped the list of countries that traded p2p, and yet all of those people did not know that they can buy satoshis of bitcoin and not 1 whole Bitcoin Yes, I might agree that Information about Bitcoin or Cryptocurrency, in general, has not really circulated all over but this can be the same for other countries too


I also bet to disagree here. In fact, it is because they know and understand what investing in Bitcoin is that is why they went the way they did ordering the CBN to ban other financial institutions from Crypto transactions because they want to continue to have that grip on the masses, you might think they are ^{"old and outdated"} but those clowns know what they are doing when it comes to depriving the masses.

You left out some challenges :

1. Lack of Internet infrastructure - Most of Africa does not have Internet access, because the private companies are not spending the money in the development of 3rd world countries. (When the Internet was running on Copper (ADSL)... cables were stolen for scrap metal ....now companies are installing Fiber and these same people are trying to steal the Fibre, because they think it is valuable) 

2. Corruption : Most companies wants to avoid doing business in Africa, because corruption levels are VERY bad. You have to pay several bribes to get things done. (Bribes to get tenders / bribes to get licenses / bribes to government officials / Paying for protection.... and the list goes on)

I know what I am talking about, because I worked on contract in Africa and I have experienced everything that I mentioned above. 

No wonder why this is so true because Africa is big land but with poor performance of their Governments they have caused whole lot of chaos. Not just in terms financial services but also development as whole. Imagine so big land and yet it's under developed, they could have bloomed it into higher dimension land. Crypto is like alien tech for them.

I don't think the government's limitation of bitcoin and crypto is because they know nothing or little about the benefits of it. IMO, they are well aware and have made their analysis on the subject and must have seen that it threatens the financial control they have on their citizens and further make less important our already struggling currency. Because these leader are sometimes power drunk and bent on subjecting citizens to control, they have gone ahead to limit and frustrate it's use.

Another reason is the fact that some african leaders are not pioneer thinkers, they always wait and want to follow in the steps of other European leaders. Some African leaders are under the heavy influence of other countries, which is not supposed to be so. They seldom make original decisions.

Agreed! I reckon it might also be a much needed transformation for miners to progress from being more centralized, large mining farms to smaller, independent and decentralized mining hubs. The biggest cause of this transformation would be the increasing energy prices which have began already in Europe and other parts of the world. I speculate it will not stop there and it will only become worse. We should not deny the reality that this will certainly affect the cryptomining business.



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