Bitcoin Infrastructure in Africa

[Kamaumburu]

Bitcoin Infrastructure in Africa: Going by basic infrastructure requirements for mining or trading in bitcoins/cryptocurrencies, is Africa ready?

[grabberfish]

That's a vague question. Africa is a huge continent with many nations of varying development stages. Some nations, such as South Africa and Morocco have fairly reasonable Internet penetration. I'm just reading that Burkina Faso has 80% of the population using the Internet. At the other end of the scale we have countries such as Chad, Somalia and Eritrea who are well down on that scale.

Internet access is still growing around the world, although pretty much every government (regime) wants to censor Internet access in some shape or form (yes, even you "Land of the Free" primates are guilty of this) because education and knowledge enables people to see through the propaganda spread by all governments. This is a losing battle the governments engage in. We are an inquisitive species and attempting to stop the march on a desire to evolve (logically through education and knowledge) is akin to Cnut ordering the tides to retreat.

Power generation systems are currently undergoing a quantum leap, not least of all due to pioneers such as Elon Musk. I read recently that he plans to make the Tesla Superchargers 100% off-grid (Florida prohibits living off-grid - welcome to the Land of the Free) and this means nearly free electricity can be brought to so many impoverished parts of the world. Bring cheap/free energy and you remove the need for human labour. Allow people more free time to learn and grow mentally and good things happen. Especially when you allow women control over their own bodies and reproductive cycles.

Is Africa ready, you ask? Africa is, yes. But we all need to help bring Africa into the modern age and stop funding dictators in exchange for pillaging their nation's mineral wealth.

[Possum577]

Africa likely has the highest concentration of countries where the volatility of Bitcoin's exchange price to fiat looks stable compared to the volatility of the local currency. This could be another critical, yet unintended, benefit of bringing BItcoin to Africa. The biggest hurdle I see is the ability to have reliable access to the internet and affordable devices with which to access the Blockchain. Anyone have insight on those items specifically?

[nazsant]

agree with grabberfish. The point is that geographic location matters (I mean, depending on which region will it all take place)

[Denishayes89]

There is a huge potential for Bitcoin in Africa. Many Africans could move straight to a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, or a bank of the future, such as Luno. Much of the existing financial infrastructure is inefficient: banks and branches are expensive, currency transfers can often be expensive and slow and most of the developing world is still unbanked.

[Denishayes89]

Also
Bitcoin should be the “fly to safety” currency for all. However, one needs to remain careful and needs to start to understand that paper money as we know it is about to disappear. Therefore, one needs to have and carry a mix of cryptocurrencies and should always play one against another when times changes.

[mjglqw]

There is a huge potential for Bitcoin in Africa. Many Africans could move straight to a cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, or a bank of the future, such as Luno. Much of the existing financial infrastructure is inefficient: banks and branches are expensive, currency transfers can often be expensive and slow and most of the developing world is still unbanked.

Well, you are right. But probably not today due to the scaling issues of bitcoin

[katepagava]

I suppuse that it all about location. The geografic really metters in suck question