Africa Tour: Developing Crypto Relationships in Continent
by Marvin Dumont
Apollo Foundation is establishing relationships and contacts among cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiasts in Africa from April 4–20. The continent-wide tour aims to find potential partners, as well as, commercial and consumer use-cases for Apollo all-in-one privacy currency (APL).
Steve McCullah, director business development, is gauging local interest in APL and cryptos in general, and assessing local infrastructure and business climate.
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Africa has largely been ignored by top cryptocurrency and blockchain initiatives due to political and bureaucratic realities, regional conflict, and economic stagnation. Web 3.0 ventures focus on the Americas, Europe, Middle East, and Asia due to size of market, concentration of investor capital, and growth potential.
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However, the geopolitical and economic conditions that exist in South America are also found in Africa, which make the African continent ideal for wider use of programmable monies.
In South America, Venezuela and Argentina have high inflation rates, therefore consumers are turning to Bitcoin, Dash and other cryptos to preserve their purchasing power and avoid fiat-denominated bankruptcy.
Crypto-enabled smartphones are seeing sales success in the region. Because the Venezuelan bolivar has become worthless, the local economy is “dollarizing” (i.e. American dollars are widely used for transactions) and cryptos like Bitcoin and Dash are gaining adoption.
In Africa, a few countries have some of the highest inflation rates in the world. Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, and others have persistent inflation of at least 15% annually. The content has a population of nearly 1.3 billion, so there’s a big-enough market for first-movers. Moreover, innovation is taking place in tech-forward cities in Kenya and Malawi.
Most locals are unbanked. Many have turned to mobile-phone credits for use as digital money, in the same way that Americans use fiat cash to exchange goods. Africans transfer phone credits to each other as means for transferring value. Thus, they’ve become a medium of exchange in the absence of banks, and in absence of stable fiat.
When there’s a lack of sound economic policy and rational governance, you’ll find stronger demand for cryptos — so long as there’s reliable internet access. Apollo could find opportunities in the region given APL’s feature as private and unregulatable platform.
For tech-savvy Africans at least, there’s an emerging path to prosperity.
Apollo (APL) all-in-one privacy currency combines features of mainstream cryptocurrencies in a truly private and unregulatable platform. With two-second block speed, APL is one of the fastest cryptos on Earth. The privacy platform lets “Apollonauts” transact and send data anonymously via Encrypted Messaging, Private Ledger, Decentralized Exchange, IP Masking 2.0 and Coin Mixing. Learn more at www.apollocurrency.com
