Finally someone that doesn't entirely speculate about "the african country"
[...]any bitcoin initiative there would be repressed by the state with maximum penalties and why bitcoin is still non existent there and it will be so until the current model of authoritarian government will persist, just because bitcoin frees individuals from the money powers, which in Ethiopia is the state.
That looks pretty pessimistic (and I hope it has nothing to do with the fact that the OP disappeared from the thread, he didn't look like a newbie trying to accumulate posts). Well, Bitcoin has made some progress in another country with an similarly authoritarian government that is China. It was often said in mainstream media that Ethiopia is following the Chinese model in many ways. Maybe there could be some cooperation between the Chinese Bitcoin pioneers and Ethiopian Bitcoiners to discuss strategies how to avoid repression.
I hope so too and wish him well. :-)
I think that Ethiopia has way less any historical experience nor any concept of free market than China. They are now into an ideology of state-led economy called "developmentalism" (or develop-mentalism) which is just a cover for the not so original marxist ideology of the party which is ruling since the 1991 revolution against the previous marxist regime.
Clearly the fact that the economy is booming from then just encourages more of the same state expansion, which will be their ruin, as always happened everywhere.
Not to mention the pitiful state of the internet access there thanks to the state monopoly of telecom + censorship + total internet blackout (like the one currently ongoing), etc.
Do you know if there are mesh networks in Ethiopia? (at least, in the major cities?) Or is there a restriction respect to it? I know it would not be a satisfactory solution but at least it may make usable Bitcoin in some places without relying on the (untrustworthy) Internet service.
They are currently under a "State of emergency", that is a suspension of constitutional rights, the government imprison journalists, dissidents by the tens of thousands, opposition leaders (even parliamentarians), etc. It is said that 1 out of 5 people in the whole population are informers of secret services kinda how it was in East Germany and so on. In such conditions I would not even open my mouth, much less start a mesh network (which might likely be illegal due to the state monopoly on telecommunications).
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