Africa is the second biggest continent in the world, with around 1,5 billions people and still growing. The continent has got a big history with many events that had an impact on the way it has been developed into the continent of nowadays. Colonialism, civil wars, the difficult terrain, natural barriers have led towards certain areas with a lack of infrastructure. For this reason, the citizens that live in these areas suffer from a lack of proper accessibility towards financial services. This continental wide problem has led towards more than 50% of the population being unbanked. Thanks to this lack of infrastructure, the continent of Africa has become an excellent place for cryptocurrencies. The crypto only demands the use of a smartphone and online connectivity towards the blockchain network. This crypto adoption has changed the global impact of this new technology.
Crypto and governments
Bitcoin is the leading and most used cryptocurrency in Africa. As most of the world countries and governments are not supporting cryptocurrencies, the usage of crypto is still growing in Africa. Unless the fact that some countries, for example Kenya in 2015 have reclaimed that the country doesn’t engage in crypto trading, the Ripple coin or the most used Bitcoin is gaining value compared to the Kenyan Shilling that is losing value.
Crypto impacts due to inflation
Nigeria is a country that has the biggest population of entire Africa with over 200 million people. The country was just as many other countries hit hard due to the Covid-pandemic. This led to a rise in food prices over 20% while meantime the inflation went down. Kenya, which has a population over 53 million citizens had a similar inflation ratio, though a little bit less compared to 2019. These events will stimulate the rise of online transactions partly by crypto like the Atom cosmos coin.
Les obstacles
The few obstacles that crypto has with doing payments across the border makes it a perfect solution for investors that need to send money with a high speed from one side of the planet towards the entire other side of this world. Thanks to the easy use and access of crypto, which only requires a mobile phone, app and network connection the crypto will become more popular in the future. Africans are already used to online payments thanks to the adoption of M-Pesa that was developed in Kenya.
Crypto and future
Analysts expect that due to the simple usage and cost-efficient sides of cryptocurrency when sending money and receiving it, it will lead to a non-stopping growth of this digital currency in Africa. The stablecoins, which is a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to an asset class. For example a fiat like the U.S. dollar or gold. These stablecoins offer people in Africa a new solution for saving money when coping with the unstable currencies of their own country without being worried about the devaluation of their investment. Thanks to the multiple advantages over traditional financial systems, the currently small cryptocurrency market in Africa will gain more and more popularity towards the future.