Bitcoin and Africa

[Winner]

I am pretty sure that the transaction fee plus the amount of time it requires for Bitcoin to have a confirmation is the only thing that stops Bitcoin from surging within Africa. People within Africa have smart phones and Internet access and it wouldn't be that tough to get more people into Bitcoin because they already know how to use electronic items.

Bitcoin could be a better option to use instead of something like M-Pesa or the new mobile banking companies that are out there.

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[lilit]

I am pretty sure that the transaction fee plus the amount of time it requires for Bitcoin to have a confirmation is the only thing that stops Bitcoin from surging within Africa. People within Africa have smart phones and Internet access and it wouldn't be that tough to get more people into Bitcoin because they already know how to use electronic items.

Bitcoin could be a better option to use instead of something like M-Pesa or the new mobile banking companies that are out there.

Already repeatedly random questions about whether Bitcoin will help poorer countries and people. Homeland all Who lives the black continent I think Bitcoin will not be able to do anything because this is not a situation where you can earn money and help those people. The first priority for people who live in Africa needs knowledge, it is knowledge that can raise their standard of living.

[bennysax]

Yes Africa can embrace bitcoin. This is already happening as large numbers of the masses all over significant part of Africa are already investing heavily and transacting businesses in bitcoin. The acceptability of the coin is high thereby making it very possible for mass embrace.

[Jr.Sasha0209]

For all countries from africa, bitcoin is a great chance to get out of poverty, but I think when you're sitting in complete poverty, you're definitely not up to bitcoins, but only thinking how to make ends meet (

[devil jin]

Hope this will give me a clear understanding of the direction that Africa should take in embracing Bitcoin. If the answer is positive will inquire about how Africa can adopt cryptocurrency.

Possibly Bitcoin can be widely adapted within all the parts of Africa if and only if the resources that are needed to be uses in coming up into such adaptation will be provided. But I guess it will such a hard thing to do because people out there based on what I know was already contented on what they have even without the presence of large currencies even the influence of dollars. If so that it will be possible to convince the people to get engage with Bitcoin, it will be a great help for them since all people do really need to come up into innovation process.

[d5000]

One of the reasons Bitcoin isn't very popular in rural areas of Africa (and other not-very-well-developed areas of the world) is the lack of stable Internet connections.

If people had a way to pay with Bitcoin for goods and services without being online all the time, acceptance could increase. I think many of us here know the method to interchange paperwallets (like Casascius Coins), but the solution is not ideal, as you must trust the issuer.

In the Spanish forum I discussed a possible model for such "offline transactions" with other participants. I asked then in the Development forum if the model is viable and it seems so - it is even one of the proposals that led to BIP65 (CheckLockTimeVerify) - although it originally was thought to be used for another purpose.

In this model, both parties need to be online once before and once after the interchange, but it doesn't need to be very close to the time of the trade, e.g. one week before and one week after it is OK, so as long as both have sometimes access to Internet connection the model would work well.

It is difficult to describe the model in layman's terms but the general scheme is:

- The buyer sends the seller a special transaction. This transaction sends the money to the seller if he can provide a secret code. Otherwise, the buyer can spend the money after certain time (it can be freely chosen, e.g. 1 week).
- When the trade is carried out, the buyer gives the seller a file or a piece of paper with the secret. The seller will instantly be able to check that the secret is correct, with a simple electronic device (without Internet connection).
- The next time the seller gets internet connection, he shares the secret and transfers the coins to his address.
- If the trade is not carried out the buyer doesn't share the secret and so he can spend the coins again after the chosen timeframe.

See the link above for more details.

I think this offline transaction model could be of great interest for those that want to create Bitcoin / cryptocurrency businesses in Africa, because it would expand the market to areas outside the big urban centers (where Bitcoin is mostly already known).

[Eggzootechkoyn]

Bitcoin adoption and utilization of Third World Countries will be a good indication that bitcoin has really spread well across the globe. It's surely the beginning of how Africa's economic growth will be in the next few years and i am sure that bitcoin will boost that more.

[Wiper228]

Many African countries are so poor and underdeveloped that they do not even have the capacity to fully meet their basic needs. Although maybe cryptocurrencies just the same and will be able to change it!

[bohr]

Hope this will give me a clear understanding of the direction that Africa should take in embracing Bitcoin. If the answer is positive will inquire about how Africa can adopt cryptocurrency.

While countries in the African continent will benefit the most out of bitcoin the truth is that those that are the poorest will not have any access to bitcoin and its benefits and it seems they are going to be some of the last persosn to ever adopt bitcoin, when you think about who are the earlier adopters of a technology you will find that most of the time those are people that were well off financially to begin with since they could afford to lose the money they invest in something like bitcoin which they did not knew if it will become successful or not.

[rarg]

One of the reasons Bitcoin isn't very popular in rural areas of Africa (and other not-very-well-developed areas of the world) is the lack of stable Internet connections.

Well, I quite agree with this statement. Based on this wiki page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Africa#Current_situation most internet users are Marocco. While the least is Somalia. Poor infrastructure in Africa is the main obstacle when adopting Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.

[sachdientugoogle]

Africa is one of the worst places in the world to mine bitcoin. It’s hot, dusty, and suffers from poor infrastructure. Power blackouts are a daily occurrence in many parts of the continent, making Africa wholly unsuited to mining. In South Africa, utility companies regularly engage in “load shedding” – imposing national blackouts to ease the demand on the electricity grid

[Techie5879]

My vote will be on Probably. Because I don't think that there is much implementation of internet in Africa where people really need it and bitcoin relies on internet. The most remote sections of the society of Africa, that would need bitcoin, to earn their livelihood, would even then be too poor to afford usable internet speeds to be able to properly use bitcoin.
However, if the government there decides on subsidizing internet access, so people can use bitcoin, spread its popularity in a large scale, and adopt bitcoin, then I believe it would be beneficial for both the country's economy and for stabilizing the price of bitcoin.

[charlotte04]

Hope this will give me a clear understanding of the direction that Africa should take in embracing Bitcoin. If the answer is positive will inquire about how Africa can adopt cryptocurrency.

I doubt that the people there would even understand about Blockchain, but if there is a person that would explain it to them one by one maybe there will be a chance.

[stompix]

My vote will be on Probably. Because I don't think that there is much implementation of internet in Africa where people really need it and bitcoin relies on internet. The most remote sections of the society of Africa, that would need bitcoin, to earn their livelihood, would even then be too poor to afford usable internet speeds to be able to properly use bitcoin.
However, if the government there decides on subsidizing internet access, so people can use bitcoin, spread its popularity in a large scale, and adopt bitcoin, then I believe it would be beneficial for both the country's economy and for stabilizing the price of bitcoin.

You don't need fast internet speed to use bitcoin, even the slowest internet connection available will do.
You just broadcast a tiny transaction to the network, nothing more.
Even mining has no big requirements.

But...subsidies? From what?
Most countries in Africa can't feed a starving population, they lack running water and you think they will throw money on internet ?
There are even now regions in Eastern Europe that lack running water and internet access.
Africa has to wait for it, and it will be a lot of waiting...

Africa is one of the worst places in the world to mine bitcoin. It’s hot, dusty, and suffers from poor infrastructure.

Not all of it is like that. After all it's a damn continent with all the climates possible.
But the infrastructure is terrible in like 99% of the cases.

[Lasvista]

Hope this will give me a clear understanding of the direction that Africa should take in embracing Bitcoin. If the answer is positive will inquire about how Africa can adopt cryptocurrency.

Well the internet on the africa seems low and don't judge the people on africa though , and I'm doing some search regarding this topic and this is what I got. And actually you don't need to have fast broadband or an internet well you just need to have patience to learn.

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-42582343

[Wolfwar]

very often the God of the media is already the case the topic that Bitcoin can help poor countries, and those that are already developing quite actively. I think that this is not the task of crypto currency and Bitcoin, as well as other coins will develop different spheres of human life, but not to raise the economy from the knees.

[taeewo]

Many Nigerian youth already adopted this new technology, its left to their government to see the benefits of the cryptocurrency

[Minnie1928]

Hope this will give me a clear understanding of the direction that Africa should take in embracing Bitcoin. If the answer is positive will inquire about how Africa can adopt cryptocurrency.

It has the potentials to grow but not everywhere (not in all countries), that's for sure. A lot of African countries are poor and people don't even have things to eat or water to drink, the life conditions are the worst that they could ever be and I don't think those people have the time for bitcoin.

I fully agree with your comment. Africa is actually one of the poorer continents with the war and hunger constantly being in motion. Most of the other continents are not truly aware of the serious situation that Africa is in.
Most of the people in Africa really don't care about the Bitcoin, they even don't know what is Bitcoin and what is its purpose.
They even don't have the proper technology to do something with Bitcoin.
Many of the people in Africa need the true help and that help need to come in the form of the food supplies and health care and not in the form of the Bitcoin introduction!

[stantpro]

Africa has always struggled to emerge amidst forces against its
potentials.Considering the advent of decentralized digital currency;
bitcoin and others, Africa has embraced this technology with both hands
believing it would give the continent its needed financial leverage and opportunity
to get out of all forms of economic slavery.It may even embrace mining, trading and
owning its own decentralized crypto coins just to keep afloat.