The banking sector of Africa is worth $86 million at the time of writing, and bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are expected to disrupt the industry like no other technologies can.
Africa Could Be Completely Changed Thanks to Bitcoin
Mike Brock – CEO of TBD at Block, a financial company run by Jack Dorsey – says one of the big ways that bitcoin can help Africa is that it can be used to ultimately move money around regardless of the present state of the economy. He stated:
It doesn’t matter to me if the price goes down or up because I can still use bitcoin as a vehicle to move money around the world instantaneously. I can exchange dollars for bitcoin and then bitcoin for Brazilian rial. There is a market for bitcoin in every corner of the world today.
Ray Youssef – the CEO of Paxful – seconded this idea, commenting:
If someone wants to move money to the country next door, normally, you’d have to fill up a suitcase full of cash and move it over the border.
The banking industry of Africa has long been on its knees for several reasons, the inflation (or deflation) of national currencies being a big one. In addition, many governments in Africa are also riddled with corruption, thus causing several residents of the continent to be denied access to standard financial tools like bank accounts. With bitcoin, they don’t need to worry about this and can still gain access to all the tools and services they need to survive. Youssef mentioned:
The entire banking system in Africa is completely and utterly broken, even amongst the mobile money providers, the telcos. Two thousand payment networks and only two percent of them talk to each other. That number continues to grow. It’s not getting better, it’s getting worse.
While there are other products and enterprises out there – such as Western Union and MoneyGram – that offer money conversion services, many of them charge heavy fees or require that transacting parties to lose large chunks of their money. Alex Gladstein – chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation – was quick to say:
We’re going to move to a model where we can make payments without IOUs, or credit, or promises, or fiat. It’s literally like sending a piece of gold or a $20 bill instantly somewhere else. If you can get access to the internet, you can settle bitcoin payments, and the government can’t do anything about it.
Dorsey’s Comments on Crypto
While touring Accra – the capital city of Ghana in Africa – Dorsey said:
The Nigerian government went to various bank corps to stop protesters from receiving money which bitcoin made up for, so our whole reason for being as a company is solving the same problem that bitcoin will ultimately solve for everyone in the world.
