Africa Hold The Potential To Become One Of The Biggest Markets For Cryptocurrencies

Mobile Based Cryptocurrency Platform Setting New Milestones In Sub-Saharan Africa

Cryptocurrency in Africa are rapidly booming which can provide huge benefits to the African economy in current fiscal. This started back in 2017 causing cryptocurrencies in Africa to be traded at a premium of 40% compared to the global average. The traditionally “underbanked” areas of South East Asia and Africa have a large count of people devoid of official financial footprint.But even such people are opening up to cryptocurrency applications in their smart devices for fostering one-click financial transactions.

Coins.ph application has already found 2 million Filipino users some of whom never owned a bank account. This application has set up collaborations with an array of stores having cash pickup and deposit points scattered around the region. Traditional banking is challenged on a regular basis by cryptocurrency-based systems in underbanked regions, the biggest reason being their low cost transfer and greater opportunity of speculative crypto investment.

Compared to the rest of the world, massive disruption has been experienced in Sub-Saharan Africa. As per World Bank, only 34% of the adult population in Sub-Saharan Africa was valid holders of bank account in 2014. But 12% were holders of mobile-based money accounts at the same time when the global average was 2%. Accounting for 10% of the world’s cumulative mobile subscriber base, Sub-Saharan Africa is slowly taking the shape of the fastest growing mobile subscribing region within the coming years. The African government has adopted a hands-off approach in dealing with cryptocurrency regulations. The demand for alternative currencies and a barter system have increased coupled with economic mismanagement and inflation.

Zimbabwe recently picked up South African rand and US dollar after the collapse of its indigenous currency. South Sudan and Nigeria have also experienced similar conditions paving for wider acceptance of Bitcoin amongst masses.

The massive growth of cryptocurrencies in Africa has been registered by banks, payment systems and even individual cryptocurrencies. Luno for example has been trying to penetrate the African market through rapid uptake and mobile-friendliness which are expected to align it with its goal of gaining a consumer base of 1 billion users within 2025.

Coinbase, the largest exchange of North America has a present user base of 13 million users. The under-banked population of the world was also being intricately looked after by individual cryptocurrencies like Stellar Lumens. It wishes to enter into collaboration with Flutterwave for diving deep into the M-Pesa system which is increasingly being used be 20 million customers scattered across Sub-Saharan Africa. It is also looking after the introduction of a unique distributed exchange system which is expected to be of great aid in overcoming problems associated with low liquidity which might pose as a threat in the path of its rapid adoption in Indonesian stores.

News originating from China, USA and South Korea has been largely dominating the cryptocurrency scene off late. But the real-time number of early bird adopters is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.

KryptoMoney.com publishes latest news and updates about Bitcoin, Blockchain Technology , Cryptocurrencies and upcoming ICO’s.

Rohit Kukreja is a Commerce graduate with Financial Markets expertise involving Stocks, Forex, Futures & Options Market and now Bitcoins & Cryptocurrency Markets. Blockchain Enthusiast but not a techie, Rohit is an active member of various Blockchain & Crypto communities all over India.