Jack Dorsey Meets with Crypto Leaders in Africa

Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of social media giant Twitter and payment processor Square (and one of the most vocal pro-crypto names in the global tech space), is currently touring Africa. Towards the end of last week, Dorsey touched down in Nigeria, where he toured the city of Lagos and had meetings with several members of the tech and media spaces. 

Mini bitcoin Ghana meetup with @atsudavoh @sy_boahen pic.twitter.com/vJ5a0P2q8e

— jack (@jack) November 11, 2019

He left Nigeria easily on Monday, and headed to Ghana. So far, he has also had meetings with several influential people in the cryptocurrency community of the country, including Atsu Davoh, the chief executive of African payment processor BitSika Africa. 

Dorsey had claimed that he was going on this trip to “Help understand the challenges of starting a company in Africa and figure out how I can help.” If anyone can give some useful insights on setting up successful businesses, the man who has two multi-billion dollar companies is definitely someone to listen to. 

Spotlight on Africa’s Cryptocurrency Scene 

The cryptocurrency space in Africa is definitely on the rise. On October 28, peer-to-peer crypto exchange Paxful announced that cryptocurrency trades in South Africa exploded over the past year, with a staggering 2,800 increase over the levels recorded in October 2018. As it added, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Pretoria are the cities that are spearheading this surge. 

The blog post also claimed that there had been a 64 percent in the number of trades in Africa over October 2018, adding that there are now 3 million wallets in the continent, with over 50,000 transactions being processed every day.

Also, the search popularity of the term “Bitcoin” over the past year clearly shows that half of the top 10 countries which are interested in the world are African. The searches are expected to be from people looking to learn more about the currency, although it is also indicative of growing interest in it (and in cryptocurrencies in general) across Africa.

Companies Starting to Move in 

Several other reports have shown that millennials across the continent (especially in countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana) have shown particular interest in the space, and some of the biggest cryptocurrency companies have started to turn their eyes to the continent as well. 

On October 24, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced that it had added the Naira (the official currency of Nigeria) to its list of accepted trading pairs, after partnering with Flutterwave, one of the most popular payment processors in the country. 

Thanks to the partnership BUSD/NGN, BNB/NGN, and BTC/NGN trading pairs have now been added to the exchange’s stablecoin market and at press time, are available for trading. Speaking on the integration, Binance chief executive Changpeng “CZ” Zhao claimed that it was time for the global cryptocurrency community to look at Africa more closely, as the crypto and financial markets in the continent are ripe for rapid development.