2022: A Year Of Grassroots Bitcoin Adoption For Africa

​​This is an sentiment editorial by Anita Posch, the laminitis of Bitcoin For Fairness who has traveled astir the satellite to larn however the globally unbanked tin payment from sovereign money.

In aboriginal 2020, during my archetypal sojourn successful Zimbabwe, my presumption that Bitcoin is needed the astir successful the Global South was confirmed. I recovered a federation successful distress astir money, due to the fact that of a kleptocratic ruling elite that had been defrauding and stealing from their radical by inflating the nationalist currency for decades. Despite this, corruption and subject enactment allowed these leaders to enactment astatine the apical for implicit 40 years.

The request was there, but what astir knowing of Bitcoin? I recovered a fewer existent believers and HODLers from the aboriginal days, but I didn’t find a azygous Bitcoin-only lawsuit oregon community. What existed were cryptocurrency trading groups connected WhatsApp and Facebook and a batch of scams. The archetypal questions astir Bitcoin ever were: “How tin I articulation Bitcoin?” (which is the connection that scammers are utilizing to lure successful their victims) and “How tin I commercialized it?” (which is the connection of abbreviated clip preference).

In 2021, I had the thought to bring Bitcoin cognition to the Global South with a absorption connected fostering communities connected the crushed and connecting them infrastructure-wise and people-wise with the Bitcoin network. Elizabeth Stark of Lightning Labs encouraged maine to use for a donation astatine the Human Rights Foundation, which became the archetypal donor supporting “Bitcoin for Fairness.”

With the proposal of Sharon Dow of Lightning Ventures and Jacob Strumwasser of Lightning Labs, I drafted a assistance proposal, which resulted successful sponsorships from LEDN, Okcoin, Paxful, Coinfinity, Breez and Trezor. I acceptable up a crowdfunding run connected Geyser which received implicit 500 donations from Bitcoiners each implicit the world. Brad Mills, Peter McCormack and f418_me each donated important amounts. I’m definite I’m forgetting different donors — atrocious astir that and convey you each and everyone for your support!

Our Impact

Through Bitcoin For Fairness, I visited 4 African countries to dispersed Bitcoin acquisition and connections this year. The astir clip I spent was successful Zimbabwe and Zambia, which I visited 2 times each. In April aft Bitcoin 2022 successful Miami, I gave up my flat successful Vienna and started my nomad life.

It led maine to South Africa successful May, wherever I worked with Bitcoin Ekasi. In June, I was astatine the Oslo Freedom Forum to link with quality rights activists and state fighters similar Meron Estefanos, Farida Nabourema and Leopoldo Lopez. COVID-19 stopped maine for a fewer weeks and aft the Baltic Honeybadger league successful Riga, I returned to Zimbabwe and Zambia. The past traveling I did successful 2022 led maine to the archetypal pan-African Bitcoin league successful Ghana.

Zambia

In March, I was speaking to 50 students astatine the University of Zambia — we hosted a Lightning Network workshop, I gave vigor and paper interviews and we started a Bitcoin acquisition radical connected WhatsApp, which has grown to 65 members. All of this was organized by Ndesa, Emmanuel and Japhet, 3 crypto-interested individuals who hadn’t known each different before. In May, they acceptable up the first Bitcoin For Fairness (BFF) meetup successful Lusaka.

In October, I visited for the 2nd time. I was speaking astatine the Forum On Internet Freedom In Africa 2022 (FIFA22) and astatine the University of Zambia to astir 30 students, and we installed wallets and sent sats. We organized a BFF meetup and donated a RaspiBlitz afloat node to 1 of the section Bitcoiners. Together, with the BFF team, we conducted a one-day Bitcoin store for journalists.

In December, the 5th BFF meetup took spot and the Bitcoin and Lightning node was up and running. The BFF extremity to initiate a section radical of Bitcoiners to behaviour regular meetups and bring Bitcoin infrastructure to Zambia has been afloat met. The section BFF radical has acceptable up their ain ZambiaBitcoinMeetups.com website, it meets astatine Scallywags a (restaurant accepting bitcoin) and 1 of the members started a Bitcoin podcast successful the section Bemba language connected our recently-launched BTC Podcasting platform.

Zimbabwe

We kicked the Zimbabwe travel disconnected with a Bitcoin speech successful aboriginal March which was attended by 60 participants successful the superior of Harare. One of them was Alexandria, who took a six-hour autobus thrust from Bulawayo, due to the fact that helium didn’t cognize immoderate different Bitcoiners. I encouraged Alexandria to commencement a Bitcoin-only WhatsApp radical and inquire the guests to join. Today, that radical has grown to 300 members and is connected Twitter, too. Alexandria and his Bitcoin Reach radical is afloat autarkic from BFF now. This has besides been a extremity of mine: aforesaid sovereignty and aforesaid enactment of the communities.

I person really mislaid number of the fig of Bitcoin meetups that person happened successful Zimbabwe since my speech successful March, which is simply a bully thing. The meetups successful Gweru and Bulawayo were sponsored by BFF. “Run With Bitcoin” Paco was our guest, too.

We gave distant Trezor devices and I conducted a store to assistance radical acceptable the devices up. Because of my work, a Zimbabwean husbandman owning a star powerfulness works came unneurotic with idiosyncratic from the planetary community, who donated six ASIC miners. The machines person been mining bitcoin from star powerfulness since June 2022.

In September, I visited a distant country successful the Eastern Highlands and sent a Lightning outgo from my Voltage node to Bitcoin Ekasi successful South Africa.

This tweet had been shared a batch and Trevor Ncube, a highly-acclaimed writer successful the Southern African region, invited maine to beryllium a guest connected his fashionable YouTube Show “In Conversation with Trevor.” The amusement included my wallet setup video successful the occurrence and I onboarded Trevor to Lightning and Bitcoin. Being the trailblazer that helium is, helium invited maine to marque his podcast “Value4Value” acceptable for a bitcoin standard. Now, his amusement is the first Zimbabwean podcast receiving bitcoin payments via Alby.

After my quality connected “In Conversation With Trevor,” Newsday Zimbabwe published an article titled “Bitcoin Should Be The Currency Of Choice,” writing, “Anita Posch has urged Zimbabwean businesses and individuals to usage bitcoin arsenic a mean of speech due to the fact that of its debased charges erstwhile transacting arsenic good arsenic its being little prone to abuse.”

Newsday Zimbabwe has more than 640,000 followers connected Twitter and is 1 of the bigger newspapers successful Zimbabwe.

South Africa

In May, I went to South Africa to enactment with Bitcoin Ekasi, the circular Bitcoin system successful Mossel Bay. First I spent immoderate clip successful Cape Town and met Bitcoin builders similar Carel van Wyk, who was already moving connected a solution to what aboriginal became Pick n Pay’s acceptance of Lightning payments.

Since November, you person been capable to wage for your groceries astatine 1 of the biggest supermarket chains successful South Africa. This is simply a immense measurement for the aboriginal occurrence of the circular Bitcoin system successful the township. Now, radical tin gain and walk bitcoin without the request to speech to the South African rand.

We besides brought a RaspiBlitz and Trezor devices to Bitcoin Ekasi. The elder manager determination named Luthando learned however to tally the node and I did a hardware wallet store with him and the inferior coaches. Now, the store owners successful the township tin unafraid their bitcoin savings offline.

A German tv web that was funny successful doing a documentary astir Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies sent a squad of theirs to travel BFF and the Ekasi squad successful the township. Here, you tin ticker the documentary successful German.

Last but not least, I served arsenic the matchmaker betwixt Bitcoin Ekasi’s caller teacher, named Ms. Nomsa, and a BFF volunteer, who helped her get knowledgeable astir Bitcoin. I besides connected Paxful with the community, which led to a Paxful and Built With Bitcoin acquisition halfway being placed connected site.

Ghana

As soon arsenic I heard the announcement of the first Pan-Africa Bitcoin conference, I knew I wanted to beryllium a portion of it. Organized by Farida Bemba Nabourema, a Togolese quality rights and Bitcoin activist, it came to beryllium the top Bitcoin league I person been to truthful far. The absorption connected Bitcoin arsenic a instrumentality for Africans to empower and escaped themselves financially from assemblage and authoritarian structures resonated with the enactment of BFF.

Prior to the conference, I helped Marcel Lorraine, the laminitis of Bitcoin Dada, a women-focused Bitcoin acquisition radical raising funds, to sojourn the league and I besides met Noelyne Sumba and Mary Imasuen who organized a BFF sponsored meetup successful Nigeria earlier this year.

With Marcel Lorraine from Kenya and Noelyne Sumba from Nigeria

After the conference, we organized a BFF meetup unneurotic with the section Bitcoin Cowries assemblage successful One Corner Garden, a edifice accepting bitcoin, wherever we installed wallets, gave distant a Trezor instrumentality and spoke astir however to gain bitcoin.

Built Educational Content And Infrastructure For Communities

The Bitcoin Flyer

On apical of each of the above, I published the BFF Bitcoin flyer unneurotic with the C4 Cryptocurrency Certification Consortium. The flyer is an casual and cheap-to-produce Bitcoin FAQ to springiness distant astatine meetups oregon conferences. With the assistance of volunteers, we translated the flyer to 12 languages, including Swahili, Luganda and soon, Akan Twi and Eritrean. We promote volunteers to construe the open-sourced folder into their section languages.

BTC Podcasting

Together with Michael Bumann from Alby, I developed a caller podcast hosting level called BTC Podcasting, wherever Bitcoiners tin host their podcasts for escaped and, astatine the aforesaid time, gain bitcoin from their listeners without the request to tally their ain Lightning nodes. BFF wants to promote communities to commencement their ain podcasts. Given that the outgo for net bandwidth is precise precocious and the velocity besides doesn’t let video streaming successful galore African regions, we learned that audio is simply a overmuch amended mean done which to scope people.

Documentary: How Bitcoin Enforces Human Rights

One of the astir compelling reasons for maine to commencement moving with and for Bitcoin was the humanitarian and societal aspects. The anticipation to instrumentality it to authoritarians and instrumentality the powerfulness retired of their hands and enactment it backmost into the hands of the radical was compelling.

During the past six years since I started successful the Bitcoin space, it became wide to maine that lone Bitcoin delivers just entree for anyone to instrumentality economical enactment and that it is indispensable for enforcing quality rights. This is the crushed wherefore I called my NPO inaugural “Bitcoin For Fairness” and wherefore I wrote an effort for Bitcoin Magazine astir “How Bitcoin Enforces Human Rights.”

I besides produced a podcast and a video documentary astir it, truthful that radical tin stock these thoughts easy with their peers. The value of the Bitcoin task whitethorn not beryllium underestimated. It’s our lone changeable to regain integer and fiscal privateness and to person an alternate strategy for the short-sighted, debt-based and consumption-driven fiat economy. If we messiness up, determination volition beryllium nary akin state task successful the adjacent future.

Learnings

Blockchain exertion and crypto are large successful African countries. But the differences betwixt Bitcoin and altcoins are wide not understood. Altcoins and their selling departments person done a large occupation of letting radical judge that they are the amended Bitcoin, telling them that the archetypal is dilatory and not scalable. Even the radical who are organizing events and sharing crypto cognition haven’t heard of the Lightning Network oregon sidechains similar Rootstock oregon Liquid yet.

In astir countries, crypto and stablecoins are king. Only successful Nigeria is the stock of Bitcoin usage higher than that of altcoins, arsenic I was told by Ray Youssef, the CEO of Paxful. In Zimbabwe, a trader who exchanged a measurement of $6 cardinal successful 2021 told me that astir radical are utilizing USDT, and lone a fistful of convinced Bitcoiners are HODLing.

There are hundreds of escaped guides, tutorials and videos astir Bitcoin, but wherever to start? Five retired of 50 radical astatine my archetypal speech successful Lusaka were funny successful Bitcoin only. They are isolated and acold distant from wherever the experienced users and developers are — it’s hard to drawback up. They can’t spend to be Lightning hackdays oregon different Bitcoin-focused conferences, which are mostly successful the U.S. oregon Europe. Traveling to different African countries is costly and cumbersome.

There is simply a request for much boots connected the crushed to stock cognition and tools. Nobody I had met astatine my talks was utilizing a hardware wallet. The devices are precise costly for the mean idiosyncratic and hard to get. I talented a BitBox02 to a person successful Zimbabwe 2 years agone and helium told maine that helium hadn’t acceptable it up yet.

There is simply a request for much section Bitcoin infrastructure and the Africa Free Routing project is simply a large start, due to the fact that the 2 nodes I was capable to bring are not enough. One large illustration of a solution built for Africa by an African is Machankura, a custodial Lightning wallet, which allows you to nonstop and person bitcoin connected a diagnostic telephone without net connection. It’s utilizing the aforesaid exertion that mobile wealth providers successful Africa person been utilizing for years called USSD. We utilized it successful Zambia.

Going Forward

Building successful the carnivore marketplace was not an casual task, but acknowledgment to the BFF volunteers and donors, we did so. Our extremity for 2023 is to absorption adjacent much connected acquisition astir aforesaid custody and privacy.

One happening we learned is that aft each of the crypto scammers who person been hitting the African continent, gathering spot by being connected the crushed is essential. But it’s not enough, determination has to beryllium a anticipation to enactment connected and connection further cognition to the communities and particularly the individuals who are driving their groups.

That’s wherefore I’m going to physique a assemblage tract with online courses and acquisition astir non-KYC bitcoin, privateness tools and, of course, aforesaid custody successful 2023. At the aforesaid time, BFF’s extremity is to find much volunteering translators for the Bitcoin flyer and to travel Bitcoiners to make their assemblage podcasts and commencement earning bitcoin.

This is simply a impermanent station by Anita Posch. Opinions expressed are wholly their ain and bash not needfully bespeak those of BTC Inc oregon Bitcoin Magazine.