Africa Isnt Ready For Bitcoins

[DavidAgwa]

        Bitcoins is fast growing with a purpose of becoming the worldwide currency. Daily, thousands of people are joining this movement and within the next decade if not sooner bitcoins would have taken over, but what will this mean for Africa? For a continent quite far behind (I don’t want to go through all the reasons why) but let’s face it we just aren’t ready for this revolution and here are my reasons;
TECHNOLOGY
Smartphones to be particular, have increased to almost a double with figures of about 226 million over the past two years in Africa mainly due to the drop in prices from $230 in 2012 to $160 in 2015 according to a report published by GSMA on Africa’s mobile economy. This seems a good thing right? Well maybe, maybe not for a continent of 1.216 billion people this means only about 18% of Africans own a smartphone. Our hopes now rest entirely on how fast the rate of smartphones will increase to how fast the world is taking in Bitcoins.
POVERTY
I honestly didn’t want to include this but Bit coins is a system dependent on money that is buying one to trade for one, and yes poverty is a worldwide epidemic but its rate is much higher in Africa considering the bitcoin worth is rising every coming day taking huge giant strides further away from us only benefiting the rich.
LEADERS
African leaders.....well lets just say for a system against corruption, I don’t think at least not now.

[Maheshkumar_Hrangkhawl]

Smartphone penetration is quite good in many of the Africa countries, and a number of Bitcoin ventures originated from there. I can see a lot of potential for Bitcoin in Africa. The M-Pesa/Bitcoin collaboration was quite successful in Tanzania and Kenya. There were a few other startups which dealt in Bitcoin as well. But one thing which is going to affect the popularity of the Bitcoin is the high fees.

[slackcryptoz]

Smartphone penetration is quite good in many of the Africa countries, and a number of Bitcoin ventures originated from there. I can see a lot of potential for Bitcoin in Africa. The M-Pesa/Bitcoin collaboration was quite successful in Tanzania and Kenya. There were a few other startups which dealt in Bitcoin as well. But one thing which is going to affect the popularity of the Bitcoin is the high fees.

Yeah recently M-pesa was quite successful in making a big profit from Africa. It too have levied a big transaction fee, but due to the declined value of their own currency and for business transaction with ease people started giving preference to these service providers.

[unamis76]

Unfortunately Africa isn't ready for money at all, for some of the reasons OP listed, so they wouldn't be "eligible" (so to speak) to use Bitcoin to begin with. Here's to hoping this changes soon, not for Bitcoin, but for population living in absolute poverty and in remote areas without access to anything people in developed countries consider to be basic. As for the rest of Africa, it's just a matter of time. A few years back "1st world countries" didn't have access to internet, smartphones, etc and look where we're at...

[panju1]

The price of Bitcoin doesn't matter. Transaction fees do.
High transaction fees kill micropayments and that rules out Bitcoin from poor countries.

[Maheshkumar_Hrangkhawl]

Smartphone penetration is quite good in many of the Africa countries, and a number of Bitcoin ventures originated from there. I can see a lot of potential for Bitcoin in Africa. The M-Pesa/Bitcoin collaboration was quite successful in Tanzania and Kenya. There were a few other startups which dealt in Bitcoin as well. But one thing which is going to affect the popularity of the Bitcoin is the high fees.

Yeah recently M-pesa was quite successful in making a big profit from Africa. It too have levied a big transaction fee, but due to the declined value of their own currency and for business transaction with ease people started giving preference to these service providers.

I don't know what happened to that tie-up, but I have seen posts from African users claiming that it is no longer working well. What happened with M-Pesa was a big disappointment. Because Bitcoin usage would have been very beneficial to the Africans, especially for small-scale trade and remittance. I heard that it is quite hard there to open bank accounts.

[Sapin]

Even more than the smartphone propagation, that is the Internet one, as well as the electricity. I think not even 10% of people in Africa have access to it.

[Harlot]

Lets not make a big assumption on one continent that far, and I really don't think Bitcoin usage depends on where you are located but it depends on the level of need of such thing. Also poverty won't be an issue if you really need and want to take advantage of Bitcoin then you can do so, a good example for this is the Venezuelan miners in which in order to escape poverty they do mining in order for them to earn and spend Bitcoin as a main currency. So I think that anyone can be ready for Bitcoin.

[Eternu]

I think that it will pass a lot of time before African people start using bitcoin in larger scales. I mean, some parts of Africa does not have electricity yet, and computer and phones run on them. And not to mention wars, and poverty. People does not have whet to eat there, so i do not think they will buy phone or computer before they have full stomach.

[Kprawn]

I will never agree on a lot that CW said in his last video, but one thing where I agree with him, is :

~ For Bitcoin to go mainstream, it has to improve their wallets interface and also enable people to use Bitcoin on normal phones. This WILL open

   up the financial systems to the poor and the unbanked.

They guy might be a asshole, but he has a point. India & Africa needs simple and easy technology, backed by good security and running on every

phone on this planet. 

[YuginKadoya]

Unfortunately Africa isn't ready for money at all, for some of the reasons OP listed, so they wouldn't be "eligible" (so to speak) to use Bitcoin to begin with. Here's to hoping this changes soon, not for Bitcoin, but for population living in absolute poverty and in remote areas without access to anything people in developed countries consider to be basic. As for the rest of Africa, it's just a matter of time. A few years back "1st world countries" didn't have access to internet, smartphones, etc and look where we're at...

Why does Africa isn't ready for money? I think all of us are just thinking about the status of Africa in a 1 perspective look and let's just all be straight we are thinking that Africa is all about some ethnic tribe living and there are no internet or they are all living in a village with no electricity or something but if you are living in Africa I think you had a point with what you are saying, but not all African are all like that and I say that there are 5 richest kings in Africa that I think living a gorgeous lives and with that in mind do you still think they are not capable of getting internet or having their own bitcoin!

[coinmore_org]

Changes are to come. All in good time.
When Africa is ready, it too will have Bitcoin.

[Golftech]

The price of Bitcoin doesn't matter. Transaction fees do.
High transaction fees kill micropayments and that rules out Bitcoin from poor countries.

Its really affecting third world countries to adopt btc just imagine .0012 btc for every transactions its already worth for a living considering the value of it to local fiat i guess if theres a big players that will push this theresa lots of opportunities for this country to succeed.

[Windpower]

I definitely agree with you. Africa as a whole just isn't ready for Bitcoin. They barely have internet, so Bitcoin is definitely out of the picture for most of the African people. However, there are some people that are very smart and have already invested into Bitcoin. Not many, but there are definitely some. Saying that, there are also some smart Africans out there who have smartphones and some kind of internet access. We have all heard about those Nigerian princes who contact people on craigslist and ask to send items to Africa, while acting like an American guy. But there are others who instead of trying to scam people, do different jobs and actually earn that money. Again, there are not many of these people, but there are some.

[qiman]

I do not believe Africa is not ready for Bitcoin or Altcoins because now mobile technology in Africa is growing very fast and so many new infrastructure projects are happening. Africans are very bright and when they see opportunity, they jump in it. If Bitcoin technology can bring many new jobs in Africa, this will change the perception others have of the emerging economies in African Countries. I have big hope that Africa can embrace Bitcoin and the Blockchain very effectively over the next five or ten years.

[grermezter]

Africa is very much ready for bitcoins the reason most of us are not rich through bitcoins is that we normally use it for our day to day activities and not save them, we had no idea that it was going to skyrocket through the roofs as time goes by.

[Mandoy]

Africa is a large continent and has 54 countries inside it. The number of countries within Africa is the same with United States of America. As a whole African countries is a very poor country but it doesnt mean that all people in that large continent are poor. There are also some few average and elite families that has access to internet. Though Africa as a whole cannot be a good ground for bitcoin due to poverty but even a small population that uses bitcoin is already a good sign that bitcoin has a future in Africa. I can relate to the experience of African people I may be very poor once and cannot even access the internet but with willingness internet became my friend in internet shops and with my income from online jobs from bitcoin paying sites I have now a smartphone and has the capacity to pay my monthly internet bill.

Truly bitcoin can help a country to decrease unemployment but it will only happen if a person has willingness to learn and do the work.

[hyet24]

TC is right and also I ask a few friends and family.  They never heard of bitcoin and one of my friend doesn't trust it.  Imagine just go to mall and ask same question.  If bitcoin is popular half of my family and friends would hear about it and have some trust.  Bitcoin isn't even ready for mainstream.

[iqlimasyadiqa]

The price of Bitcoin doesn't matter. Transaction fees do.
High transaction fees kill micropayments and that rules out Bitcoin from poor countries.

The current transaction fee is very large. And when transactions are made in a country like Africa then small-scale enterprises will only be silent and bitcoins will not be included in the economic schemes they run. This is the fact that there are still many poor countries that are not ready to use bitcoin.

[Scorpion]

They might not be ready for it now, but a wave is coming for them and they will leap into the technological world and many people will regret they ignored Africa for so long in terms of they're going to provide so many opportunities for growth in the fields of renewable energy and modern technology.