Author: Staff

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Social Good

Nissi Ogulu To Launch ‘Jigsaw Tribe’ NFT Collection with Binance.

London-based Nigerian artist, Nissi Ogulu has announced she will collaborate with the world’s leading cryptocurrency infrastructure provider, Binance to produce an exclusive NFT collection that will be available on the Binance platform on May 30, 2022.

The collection titled, “Jigsaw Tribe” will launch on the Binance NFT marketplace as a digital art series exploring different aspects of African life and music with a collection of unique puzzle pieces representing each aspect. 

Nissi comes from an artistically talented family with her older brother, Burna Boy charting his way into his African Giant status as a musical artist while her sister, Ronami, is also making her name in the world of fashion and creative strategy.

The Ogulu family has a legacy connection to the arts as Nissi’s grandfather, Benson Idonije was an Afrobeat legend and Fela Kuti’s manager while her mother, Bose Ogulu has established herself as an entertainment business mogul who Nissi attributes as the powerhouse behind her and her siblings’ flair for creativity. 

Nissi found her niche in the world of fine art and expanded into the digital world with the formation of Creele Animation Studios, which creates black and African content with storytelling through animation, music, the metaverse and games.  

With ‘Jigsaw Tribe’, Nissi says she intends to “take people across the continent to discover hand-crafted musical instruments, in all their colourful glory, that may not be known to the rest of the world.” Nissi adds that the pieces also reflect the music tradition of Africa, with its amazing sounds, in a hyper-contemporary and animated artistic expression. 

“What excites me is the fact that African music and culture are finally getting the renown and success they so richly deserve as being integral to global music and creativity. So, the collection is my artistic take on bringing the continent’s vibrant music tradition and all-round creative brilliance to the world, this time in an animated way,” Nissi says.

The collection features a variety of NFTs with different pricing and rarity as well as added value utilities such as invitations to live events and art exhibitions, concessions on signed & printed digital art pieces and whitelisting privileges to future NFT drops. 

Between May 30th and June 20th, 2022, the exclusive artwork series will be sold in a premium auction on the Binance NFT Marketplace as the latest collaboration for Binance Charity’s NFT For Good Campaign. 

A percentage of proceeds from the Jigsaw Tribe collection will go towards The Reach, an Ogulu family initiative which provides 6000 meals a month for underprivileged people in Nigeria along with other ad hoc community initiatives.

This is part of Binance Charity’s NFT For Good initiative to enable world-renowned creators to convert their art and creativity into meaningful global action targeting social and humanitarian issues. 

Binance Executive VP and Head of Charity, Helen Hai says, “Binance Charity’s NFT for Good initiative connects creators, their art, and their cause. Jigsaw Tribe is yet another exciting example of this and it’s beautiful to see the series merging tradition and technology.”

Having spent many years working in Africa, Helen added that the region, the people, and their culture holds a special place in her heart and that Binance is thrilled to collaborate with Nissi in a homage to her heritage.

Traders wishing to participate in the charitable auction must open an account on Binance.com before bidding opens at 12:00pm CAT on May 30th and closes at 12:00pm CAT on 20th June 2022 with trades accepted in Binance’s BNB coin.

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Business

Nigeria Looks To Slovenia for Blockchain Partnership.

The Nigerian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami

On Thursday, the Nigerian Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami appealed to Slovenia to have partnerships with African countries. The Ministerś remarks were made at the 11th African day International Conference in Abuja organized by the Republic of Slovenia. 

Mr Pantami commended the giant strides made by Slovenia in the field of blockchain technology adding that the conference was well poised to facilitate partnerships between Slovenia and African countries that would be a win-win situation.

A recent study found Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana to be the most crypto-friendly city in Europe as the Government allows crypto payments in 72 shops and 33 sports venues. Ljubljana has more than 137 companies and 584 different locations that accept crypto assets and Slovenia’s biggest shopping centre is even named BTC in honour of Bitcoin.

In a virtual keynote, the Nigeria Communications Minister focused on the importance of collaborations for citizens-centred technology in a paper titled, “Emerging Technologies and Collaborations on Citizens-Centred Technology Governance.” 

According to Mr Pantami, citizen-centred blockchain technology involves new ways of enabling citizens to prosper as “it aims at providing an environment where all citizens irrespective of class, caste and gender can develop to their full potential.” 

Mr Pantami highlighted the issuance of the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation and the subsequent establishment of a full-fledged bureau as some of the strategies adopted by the Federal Government to enhance citizens-centred technology.

Among others, Mr Pantami also mentioned strides taken with the approval of the Presidential Council for Digital Economy and eGovernment, the Nigeria Startup Bill (NSB) and the accessibility of government services online.

The Minister also stated that efforts were being made to broaden the scope of service rendition and delivery as the country’s recently launched digital eNaira continues to go through upgrades to add more features and improve transaction speeds. 

The African Day Conference is held annually and the theme for this year is: “Africa and Europe: Cooperation on Digital Transition and New Technologies” and was addressed by the Slovenian president and Foreign Minister. 

President Borut Pahor’s address emphasized that digitisation should be based on human rights, the rule of law and democratic society while Minister Anže Logar called for the development of cybersecurity. 

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Business

FlexID receives funding from Algorand to provide self-sovereign IDs to Africa’s unbanked

African countries have made great strides in promoting financial inclusion over the past decade, but it’s still early days. More than 60% of adults in sub-Saharan Africa are unbanked, according to World Bank estimates for 2021. 

Zimbabwe’s FlexID is working towards the financial inclusion goal by developing a blockchain-based identity system for people who are unable to access banking services owing to a lack of identification documents. Algorand, a blockchain technology established by Turing Award-winning cryptographer Silvio Mical, has funded FlexID’s initiative.

While there have been several highs and lows of bitcoin valuations recently that have gotten a lot of attention in the blockchain world, startups like FlexID are reminding us that technology can serve a variety of other purposes, including providing secure identity records.

In Zimbabwe, only 30% of the adult population had access to any financial services as of 2014. The number of bank accounts in the country was 1.5 million in 2016. FlexID is looking forward to bridging such gaps. 

There’s a general conception that increasing access to financial services in a country will lead to improvement in people’s economic welfare.  We have seen this already working in Zimbabwe after the Zimbabwean Government introduced a financial inclusion scheme from 2016 to 2020. The effort achieved some success: the percentage of the Zimbabwean adult population with access to financial services increased to 55% while the number of bank accounts rose to 8.5 million in 2020.

There is, however, still more work to be done in this area. When people have little or no faith in the financial system, are unaware that specific financial services that fit their needs exist, or lack official identity documents to access these services, achieving optimal financial inclusion can seem impossible.

Not only Zimbabwe but Africa and emerging markets as a whole are affected by these concerns. FlexID’s self-sovereign identification (SSI) platform is decentralized and allows users authority over their personal information, which is unusual in Africa, where other upstarts such as Smile Identity, YC-backed Identitypass, and Dojah provide centralized solutions.

FlexID plans to use the financing from Algorand to expand its decentralized identity network into emerging nations, where an estimated one billion individuals lack formal identification, according to the business. Victor Mapunga, a Zimbabwean entrepreneur, founded FlexID in 2018 as a response to his frustrations with the banking system.

FlexID provides customers with a blockchain wallet in which their verifiable credentials are stored. Algorand, which promotes itself as a solution to the blockchain trilemma of security, scalability, and decentralization, does the verification on-chain. FlexID will also work with Algorand’s other decentralized apps (dApps).

Algorand’s investment in FlexID comes at a time when African blockchain firms are attracting significant funding. According to a recent estimate, nearly 40 African blockchain firms raised $127 million in 2021. This year has already seen some eye-popping investments, such as Mara’s $23 million seed round from Coinbase and FTX, two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

Despite the fact that FlexID provides services in the identification area, the overarching industry in which its solution and the majority of blockchain platforms fall is fintech. Companies like FlexID are using crypto to reduce people’s reliance on cash and transfer fees, lower the hurdles to opening an account with crypto wallets, and address the continent’s paperwork problem.

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Business

Crypto Scammers Pose as Journalists, NFT Projects on Twitter

Since March, fraudsters have impersonated journalists, crypto apps, and a variety of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) projects on Twitter to steal users’ virtual currency, user names, and passwords. The Internet scammers have been using hijacked accounts on Twitter to promote dubious crypto platforms that enable them to access victims’ sensitive data, according to Bloomberg news.

Satnam Narang, a staff research engineer at Cyber Security firm, Tenable has emphasized that many of the targeted accounts are verified, an indication to investigators that scammers are either hacking for specific pages or paying for illicit access.

According to Narang, some scammers have masqueraded as members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club as well as the Azuki collection, the MoonBirds project and the Okay Bears NFT Community, which has more than 150,000 Twitter followers. Others have posed as legal affairs reporters from the Age, an Australian based news service, directing users to a suspicious link where scammers can claim a small amount of Ethereum. Some imposter accounts have persuaded users to download new applications that provide access to digital wallets where the scammers have extracted funds.

The research also adds that the intruders appear to have temporary control over a gaming industry freelance journalist. They have created profiles that appear similar to the ones that were created by the owners and each page is designed carefully to have trustworthy and legitimate websites. 

This tactic is an upgrade from the traditional technique where scammers have been mass spamming social media users. Narang added that the use of verified Twitter accounts adds a layer of legitimacy and the chance to seize on the money-making opportunity in cryptocurrency.

“They look indistinguishable from real sites and people just aren’t looking closely at the links,” He said.

One of the Bloomberg news reporters analyzed an app that purported to be Azuki, an NFT project with more than 300,000 followers and it was flagged as malware.

Losses incurred from the scams are difficult to quantify, however, the activity is the latest example of attackers leveraging cryptocurrency and NFT projects to generate funds.

“Scammers are so adept at pivoting into what people are interested in,” He added. “ This is a small sampling of what’s happening across this space.”

Categories
Social Good

BitOasis Launch Crypto Education for North Africa & Middle East.

In a partnership with MBC Group and MENA, the leading crypto asset trading platform, BitOasis, is to roll out a crypto educational and awareness campaign across the region. 

MBC GROUP is the largest and leading media company in the MENA region and this collaboration intends to leverage the Saudi Arabian media conglomerate’s portfolio of digital platforms and TV channels to spread the crypto message. 

Since it was established in 2015, the UAE-based BitOasis has grown to become the region’s largest and go-to crypto trading platform for first-time cryptocurrency buyers and professional traders alike recording over $4 Billion in trading volume from over 40 cryptocurrencies to date.

The Middle East, North Africa & Turkey region is one of the fastest-growing crypto markets in the world recording a 1500% growth between July 2020 and June 2021 according to the  Chainalysis 2021 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report. 

With the recent surge in the global crypto activity, UAE was also found to have the third-highest crypto intent figures in a survey that had 21% of respondents indicating they intended to invest in crypto within the next 12 months as 18% of Saudi residents are already trading in crypto.

BitOasis intends to reach and grow this audience through its trusted regional brand and a new educational program distributed across MENA’s largest media network. The company CEO and co-founder Ola Doudin commented on the growth potential in the regional crypto space saying, 

“In countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia crypto assets are steadily going mainstream due to early adoption by tech-savvy Millennial and Gen Z retail investors, but a massive majority across the region still do not have a good understanding of this emerging asset class.” 

Doudin shared how he believes his company has an obligation to address this information gap.  BitOasis is thus ramping up efforts to ensure consumers are aware and educated about investing in crypto across our region whilst offering the simplest and most accessible way to invest.

Doudin added how the collaboration with the MBC Group aligns with BitOasis’s long-term objective of building an efficient, secure and inclusive virtual asset ecosystem within the region. 

“Crypto education is front and center of our strategy, and MBC’s trusted and high-visibility platforms will allow us to localize our approach towards educating regional audiences about virtual assets,” Doudin said. 

Given the importance of cryptocurrencies in the rapid embrace and adoption of blockchain and web3 technologies, the MBC Group Director of Emerging Media pointed out that they see this collaboration as the next natural progression to usher in the new era. 

According to BitOasis VP of Marketing & Growth, Srinu Chowhan, the partnership with MBC will help BitOasis realize its goal of bridging the crypto knowledge gap. He adds that MBC’s media platforms will be critical to spreading BitOasis’ crypto awareness initiatives to help demystify blockchain and crypto-assets.

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Coins

Ways Crypto Can Benefit SMEs In Africa

SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) are rapidly expanding across Africa. According to a World Bank research, small and medium-sized enterprises account for over 90% of firms and more than 50% of employment worldwide, particularly among young people. As a result, they are recognized as Africa’s development engine.

In reality, due to rapid population increase, the public sector in African countries is unable to meet the daily demands of all citizens. In order to compensate for the shortcomings of the public sector, SMEs face a variety of obstacles, ranging from management to finance. Here are a few ways that cryptocurrency might help African SMEs meet their financial objectives.

  1. Financial transaction costs are decentralized and minimized.

Cryptocurrencies are advantageous for SMEs because of their decentralized nature, which allows users to manage their finances without any significant restrictions. Entrepreneurs’ chances of completely integrating into the commercial world are hampered by the old financial system, which is often restrictive and time-consuming.

For example, to obtain a bank loan, an entrepreneur must first open a bank account, for which the bank charges a yearly maintenance fee. Furthermore, the loans are sometimes obtained at exorbitant interest rates and such circumstances are detrimental to SME success. However, with cryptocurrency, there are no annual or monthly charges for account maintenance nor are interest rates included.

Additionally, decentralized finance is a method for financial inclusion that allows both banked and unbanked persons to access financial resources at lower costs.

  1. Cross-border transactions at a low cost

Unlike traditional banks, which charge fees on all transactions, cryptocurrency transactions are significantly less expensive. The cost of foreign transactions involving banks is significantly higher. As a result, SMEs with foreign partners frequently suffer significant losses anytime they conduct financial transactions. Using crypto transactions, on the other hand, SMEs are charged fewer transaction fees.

Crypto platforms such as Yellow Card’s Yellow Pay allow you to send money across national borders quickly, reliably, and securely with no restrictions on the amount of money you can send. This is advantageous to all African SMEs. 

  1. Safer and more secure means of exchange

With cryptocurrency, it is difficult for anyone to easily access and steal your funds due to the encrypted nature of the coins. Hackers can indeed invade your personal information and steal your crypto but it is more complicated than it seems because that requires your private key.

To avoid being hacked, it is preferable to use a trusted crypto exchange service that has more secure platforms compared to peer-to-peer transactions. With this, SMEs can be confident that their funds or profits are safe and secure. 

  1. Multiple payment options are available.

SMEs may operate on a local level, but they can use cryptocurrency to accelerate their growth. As a result, incorporating numerous payment options provides your organization with international significance early on, attracting plenty of new customers.

Accepting bitcoin as payment is an added benefit for SMEs in Africa, given the continent’s commercial potential in the crypto space.

  1. It’s a way of getting ready for the future.

With the possibility of cryptocurrencies overtaking the old financial system, it’s important to be prepared for the upcoming change.

Accepting cryptocurrencies brings value and influence to your business while also preparing you for future financial trends. Because of the significant growth observed in this domain between 2009 and now, most doubters in crypto are progressively being converted.

As bitcoin’s popularity grows and more users sign up, its value rises, and its users are better positioned to respond to changing consumer tastes.

Conclusively, as an entrepreneur, the time to start using cryptocurrencies to boost your business is now. Though cryptocurrencies are highly volatile in nature, the impact they could have on an SME’s growth is worth considering. 

Note to SMEs: Start using crypto and have better control over your finances.

Categories
Business

Portugal’s Parliament Says No to Bitcoin Tax, For Now

Portugal’s Parliament rejected a proposal to tax Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies yesterday.

The left-wing parties, Bloco de Esquerda, and Livre advocated taxing digital assets during yesterday evening’s budget discussion, but the plan was rejected.

The proposal requested that the Government explore taxing cryptocurrency revenues over €5,000 ($5,340.45).

Portugal has long been regarded as a bitcoin tax haven, and since 2018, revenues from individual cryptocurrency sales have been tax-free. In order to stimulate innovation, the country created tax policies that were favorable to cryptocurrencies.

Furthermore, digital trading assets are not considered investment income in the European country. As a result, crypto companies and events flock to Lisbon, despite the fact that firms that accept cryptocurrency must pay income tax on their earnings.

That, though, may come to an end as Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina has indicated that crypto assets in the country will be subject to capital gains taxes in the near future.

Additionally, Portugal’s Government may soon impose a Value-Added Tax (VAT), Stamp Duty, or Property taxes on digital assets after Antonio Mendonça Mendes, the Country’s Deputy Minister for Finance and Tax affairs, said during the same session that taxing crypto was a “complex reality” and that capital gains may not be enough.

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Business

Centbee Announces African remittances at Dubai BSV Convention.

Digital payments platform, Centbee has announced a new feature called Centbee Remit that allows users to send cash from their Bitcoin wallet to friends and family’s wallets, bank accounts or even for cash pickup. 

The announcement was made at the BSV Global Blockchain Convention in a session dedicated to shining a light on areas of payments and fintech, the creative economy and Web3 as well as how enterprise-level blockchain is re-inventing industries.

The 3-day event that started on 24th May at the Grand Hyatt in Dubai showcases the capabilities and wide range of applications possible on the BSV Blockchain and focuses heavily on the scaling options for the public blockchain ecosystem. 

The BSV (Bitcoin Satoshi Vision) blockchain is a variant of Bitcoin which arose in 2018 and uses bigger blocks (up to 2GB compared to the original 1MB) to increase the currency’s transaction limits allowing faster and cheaper transactions for scaling. 

On day 2 of the convention, Centbee announced it had opened up remittances to Africa to enable users in the diaspora to send money home cheaply. With other countries set to follow soon, the functionality currently allows users in the United Kingdom to send money to West Africa. 

Founded in 2017, Centbee is a payment company providing cross-border remittances and digital wallets to enable financially excluded customers to buy a wide range of important digital goods and send money to family and friends quickly and cheaply.

Centbee now allows users to send money using a Bitcoin wallet from anywhere in the world to Centbee termination points in African countries like Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and a whole number of others. 

Users have the options to choose between mobile money beneficiaries through its African corridor or bank account beneficiary or even cash pickup beneficiary.

Centbee Co-Founder and CEO Lorien Gamaroff said. “So I’m very proud to announce that right now, in Centbee wallet, you are able to actually do a cross-border remit from anywhere in the world, so we’ve opened up remittances to Africa.” 

According to Gamaroff, this development makes Centbee a “super app” since the wallet not only offers remittances but can also store value which Centbee customers can use to pay for all the things they need. 

Centbee is building an ecosystem of merchants and customers, providing the ‘on-ramps’ to the bitcoin super-highway based on the belief that Bitcoin SV will be the fastest, cheapest and best way to pay for goods and services at any retailer anywhere in the world.

The Centbee ecosystem leverages blockchain’s security and immutability features to give its users an intuitive wallet from which they can send and receive Bitcoin SV while providing an interface to allow them to receive payments that can be settled in local currencies, removing the risk of Bitcoin SV price volatility.

Categories
Social Good

Blockchain-based Humanity Protocol to fight poverty with community service.

While blockchain is showing great potential to address problems in different economic sectors in Africa, there is still an uphill battle to onboard and involve the millions who are poverty-stricken and struggle to meet their basic needs. This is where the Humanity Protocol comes in. 

The Humanity Protocol was founded in 2019 to address the needs of African communities by providing a blockchain-powered platform that pays its members in cryptocurrency for doing simple community tasks. 

The program was initiated by Marcus Dukes who is a 25-year veteran of the financial services industry. Dukes’ work had him providing strategic advice to small and medium-sized companies with a focus on helping startups get funding and this led him to two realizations.

The first was that with over $100 billion spent annually on startups in the US alone, the western world was creating many technologies some of which were never deployed yet they could be brought to Africa and help jumpstart multiple innovations and businesses.

Dukes’ second realization was that blockchain technology could help the continent surpass outdated financial platforms that were not working for Africans. This led him to come to Africa to see how to arrange the puzzle pieces for the bigger picture to come together.

The vision was to work with a technology which was accessible to everyone on the planet but it was evident that if people needed to first have money to engage in blockchain networks, then about 2 billion people around the globe would be automatically excluded. 

This led to a concept known as Personal Natural Resources (PNR) which is a way to create a blockchain network accessible to all. PNR refers to any skill, time, data, network or ambassadorship in any field that everyone on the planet can access and/or offer and Dukes is looking to help people monetize these. 

On the belief that poor people’s time is the most undervalued and underutilized asset on the planet, Dukes was looking for ways to help people monetize their PNR. The objective became to create a system to unlock and monetize the billions of available hours as the basis for a new trillion-dollar decentralized economy. 

The project took flight in Nigeria with a small group of people performing basic community tasks and getting paid in crypto. Here the six main tasks are recruiting, creating content, sharing content, coaching people about blockchain, verifying identity and grading other people’s tasks. 

Payments are all in crypto with members receiving payments that they can either sell, invest or donate with those who choose to invest getting an additional crypto coin to incentivize saving. For someone who wants to sell, the company buys your token(s) and gives fiat currency. 

The company launched the Humanity Equity token (HMN.EQ on the Red Matter Capital platform and HMN.BEQ on Pancakeswap) as an alternative payment measure for members looking to avoid the high gas fees faced on Ethereum. 

The humanity token has a maximum supply of 61,309,023 tokens with more than half set aside to be earned by community members for performing tasks. This week, the company launched 300,000 special Golden HMN.BEQ tokens that come along with a Humanity NFT

Holders of the Humanity token are entitled to investment classes offered on the platform as well as classes on how to earn additional Humanity tokens.

The platform currently has over 100,000 members with plans to grow this number to 1 million by the end of 2022 as the network expands to Ghana, Uganda and Kenya among other countries in Africa.

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Business

Binance temporarily suspends withdrawals and deposits in Uganda

One of the world’s leading crypto exchange platforms, Binance has temporarily ceased operations in Uganda following the issuance of the circular by the Central Bank of Uganda warning against converting cryptocurrencies into mobile money and vice versa on 30th April. Binance has sent emails to their customers informing them that their UGX payment partners are suspending operations until further notice so customers should withdraw their UGX funds as soon as possible, before May 30th.

The email reads;

However, crypto enthusiasts have shared on Twitter that this has no effect on crypto trading using Binance and that there is no need for customers to panic at all because they can still withdraw using Peer to Peer (P2P) exchange. This is also included in the email that Binance shared.

Others have added that the same thing happened in Nigeria and Binance introduced P2P exchange to solve the issue.

Binance entered the Ugandan market in 2018 and Changpeng Zhao, CEO, and Founder of Binance emphasized that the main mission for penetrating into Uganda was to encourage the world of fiat to crypto trading with the service currently supporting the Ugandan Shilling as well as other major alt-assets. It looks like the organization is dedicated to achieving its goal.