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Business

NEAR Foundation opens its first African blockchain innovation hub in Kenya

A Swiss non-profit organization, NEAR, announced a partnership with the local blockchain community, Sankore yesterday, to launch a regional hub in Kenya dedicated to blockchain innovation, education, and talent development in Africa.

The hub, which consists of events, an academy, an incubation program, and the Sankore Bounty ecosystem, will offer an intersection of Africa’s most talented blockchain developers and the much-needed international support for their innovations. It will be led by Kevin Imani, the founder of Sankore, and supported by a core team of four members.

“We are thrilled to be working with NEAR to educate and nurture talented individuals to become world-class blockchain developers. Our dream is to lead the way in blockchain innovations in providing solutions to Africa’s biggest problems. The NEAR Protocol allows tomorrow’s brightest developers to build custom solutions with scalability, security, and transparency and this hub is the next step in turning our shared vision into reality.”

NEAR is also targeting lesser-known cities in Kenya, “where no other Layer 1 blockchain has an established presence as yet,” according to the company.

With 77 students registered in the NEAR Qualified Developer Workshops, seven students registered in the NEAR Certified Analysts Workshops, and six students now formally certified as developers, the hub’s education arm has already built solid partnerships with local colleges.

Sankore has previously earned local traction by funding forward-thinking projects such as Kilimo Shwari, an on-chain solution designed to protect Kenyan farmers from agricultural risks such as harsh weather and natural disasters such as the 2020 locust invasion. The insurance is built on smart contracts, which collect data about uncertainty and compensate farmers automatically.

. From July 2020 to June 2021, cryptocurrency use in Africa surged by 1200 percent, the fastest rate in the world.

“We are excited by the potential avenues throughout Africa for blockchain solutions, which come from innovation in development, education, and talent,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation.

The NEAR blockchain’s potential continues to pique people’s interest around the world. Unlike other networks, NEAR makes it simple for software developers to create new crypto applications, such as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), decentralized finance products, and new business models and consumer items.

The NEAR blockchain is also far faster than Ethereum, the most widely utilized blockchain in the world. It serves as a link between blockchains, allowing for the free flow of assets and communication between networks for everyone’s benefit.

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Business

World Remit blocks money transfers from Uganda

WorldRemit clients in Uganda received notice last week that transactions through the digital payments firm that provides international money transfer and remittance services will be suspended. The company operates in over 130 countries and 70 currencies.

The message read “From 6 June, WorldRemit will not be accepting any new money transfers or airtime top-ups from Uganda. From 6 July, WorldRemit will be fully closing money sending services in Uganda, and our relationship with you will come to an end.” This change affects money transfers and airtime top-ups sent from Uganda only. Transfers to Uganda are not impacted by this change.”

This implies that transactions made before June 6, 2022, will be handled normally, and users will continue to get SMS and email updates on the status of their transfers even beyond that date.

This comes as Uganda is included among the top 25 countries on the “Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing” high-risk list for 2022. On March 28, 2022, the list displayed which countries are not following the rules. Uganda also risks being banned by the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) if the Government does not combat money laundering by May 2022, according to Sydney Asubo, Executive Director of the Finance Intelligence Authority.

Another source says that World Remit is stopping money transfers due to its failure to comply with the recent Central Bank regulation against cryptocurrencies.

However, according to the New Vision, Kasaija Matia, the Minister of Finance declined to comment saying that he cannot comment about something he doesn’t know.

Customers who are unable to access their accounts through the web or app and need to change or cancel their transfers are urged to contact the company’s customer service. If there is any other issue with a customer’s transactions, they will be notified via their email.

Ugandan WorldRemit users can see their previous transactions and recipient information by entering into their accounts on the WorldRemit website. They will, however, be unable to access the WorldRemit app.

According to the organization, user data will continue to be kept securely in compliance with its data privacy policy. 

Uganda has joined the list of nations where transactions have been halted, along with Singapore and Russia.

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Business

3air to expand internet and banking access with blockchain.

In this digital age, it is no secret that internet access has a direct and significant impact on a nation’s economic growth.  

 Over 4 billion people actively use the internet today. Currently, about 43% of Africa is connected to the internet and this falls below the 60% mark that the Pew Research Center estimates as most favourable for economic growth. This tallies with the International Finance Corporation’s findings that an estimated $180 billion remains untouched in sub-Saharan Africa where developing nations struggle to offer fast, reliable and affordable internet to their citizens.

While a report by the World Bank estimates that it would take over $100 billion of investment and 10 years to achieve widespread broadband connectivity using traditional means, 3air is looking at cutting this time by up to 50% and at a fraction of the cost too.

3air is focused on providing high-speed connectivity and access to affordable, decentralized banking to quickly integrate people in developing African nations into the digital economy. 

The Dubai-based firm aims to close the digital divide faster at lower costs relying on its specialized team of experts in IT, blockchain, marketing, telecommunication and automation to benefit local populations while also creating utility for the 3air token. 

3air will leverage blockchain technology to provide a secure decentralized environment enabling access to bankless payments, sustainable bandwidth sharing, hardware ownership and digital identity management all with user data protection to improve health, work and education in Africa. 

Through a strategic partnership with Swiss telecom service provider, K3 Telecom, 3air is to develop a broadband connection powered by K3’s optic grade air connectivity that can provide internet speeds of up to 1Gbps and over 150 television channels.

A successful proof of concept study for the technology has been done in Sierra Leone along with a functional business plan showing 3air’s commitment to improving Africa’s internet connectivity through business technological joint efforts.

The 3air CEO, Sandi Bitenc is quoted saying “There is nothing even remotely comparable to what 3air has to offer. We have a working solution that will connect the unconnected in Africa and bring millions of users to the 3air platform. This will allow a nation hungry for change to jump over a whole generation of technology.”

Payments for the 3air services in this new ecosystem will be made using the 3air token that was launched on 11th April 2022. The token will also be used for rewards, referrals, bandwidth sharing, staking and community governance.

The 3air token is an Ethereum-based utility and governance token that was initially running on the Cardano blockchain but migrated to the SKALE blockchain in February after citing hiring issues that were slowing down the project. 

The SKALE network supports an ever-expanding set of chains making it quick and easy to set up cost-effective, high-performance chains that run smart contracts compatible with Ethereum. The network also offers fast transactions with near-zero latency and zero-end user gas fees.

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Business

Bitcoin Falls Below $35K for the First Time Since January

Bitcoin fell below $35,000 yesterday morning after declining almost 4% over the past 24 hours and nearly 9% over the last seven days. The market cap of the largest cryptocurrency tumbled to $658 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data. And as of this writing, it has further decreased to $637 billion.

The downward pressure started after the American Federal Reserve declared it would hike interest rates, thereby wiping bitcoin’s recent recovery.

According to a CoinShares report, institutional investors began withdrawing assets from bitcoin exchange-traded funds more than a week ago. The previous week’s bitcoin outflows totaled $133 million, the most since June 2021. Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value, was trading at around $2,549, down over 5% in the last day and nearly 8% in the last seven days.

According to CoinMarketCap data, other notable coins were also trailing. ApeCoin (APE) was down 8% in 24 hours (and 32% in seven days) to $11.69, Terra’s LUNA was down more than 15% in 24 hours to $61.68, and Avalanche (AVAX) was down more than 7% to $52.38 on the day.

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Business

Africa’s Gamic Guild Joins Binance Labs Incubator Program.

One of the leading crypto projects in Africa known as Gamic Guild has been accepted into the fourth instalment of the Binance Labs incubator program. Binance Labs is the venture capital arm of Binance that assists startups throughout their lifecycle. 

As the world’s largest crypto exchange by traded volume, Binance has a vested interest in cryptocurrency projects around the world. Because of this, Binance Labs has been set up to support and help blockchain startups grow and build impactful projects. 

Gamic Guild is a decentralized platform with a collection of NFT games allowing users to play and earn across different genres with the aim of revolutionizing gaming in Africa.

Gamic Guild is the leading and most in-demand gaming fraternity in Africa with an ecosystem designed to unite gamers as they benefit from blockchain-powered games.

Gamic Guild has partnered with several games and gamer communities to help achieve its vision for a society where families can earn passive income from gaming. In order to do this, the company is heavily involved in works to lower barriers of entry for Africans into the play-to-earn communities. 

Gamic: Introducing Africa’s Largest Play-to-Earn NFT Gaming Guild

According to data from the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA),  GameFi (blockchain games that offer economic incentives to players) recorded over 2000% user activity in the last 12 months but in Africa, Play-to-earn games are just not as popular due to an education deficit about them.  

Gamic Guild is well-positioned to close this gap in the African GameFi ecosystem thanks to its Play-to-Earn scholarships that enable players to start playing these games without necessarily breaking the bank. 

On a shortlist of 14 startups from the global crypto-sectors, Gamic Guild is the only African project to make the cut for the 2022 Binance Labs Incubation program. 

Binance Labs will assist Gamic Guild to create massive opportunities using the access to an extensive network of industry leaders to establish a strong market presence and launch market-fit products and services.

Gamic Guild says it can grow, build value and achieve its goals with the help of the unparalleled access to funds, marketing, legal and public relations advice that the Binance incubation program provides. 

Over the last three seasons of the program, Binance Labs has incubated multiple market-leading crypto platforms and protocols such as Polygon, Perpetual Protocol, SafePal and Dune Analytics.

The incubator program is a bi-annual event that Binance hopes to use to leverage its market expertise and widespread resources in the blockchain sector to assist startups from their early development stages all through to late-stage venture capital investment pursuits. 

Gamic intends to become a major hub for creatives to bring projects to life with a single point of access for investors, experts and talents. 

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Business

Nigeria’s Looty aims to recover African art in digital form

A young Nigerian man is attempting to reclaim Africa’s artwork from museums across the western world. 34-year-old Chidi claims that most of it was looted from African territories during the colonial era and should be brought back home. But rather than physically breaking into museums and carting away the works of art, he wants to repatriate them digitally.

“This is the first digital repatriation of stolen artwork,” said the Nigerian creative designer and founder of Looty, who declined to give his surname because he wants people to focus on his project and not him as a person.

“I had this idea that: Why don’t we take back the physical works of art into the digital world?”

Following the escalating discussions around non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which seek to provide public evidence of ownership of digital files, he came up with the idea for Looty.

While the legal rights granted by NFTs are not always clear, they are growing in popularity.

The first tweet by Twitter creator Jack Dorsey sold for $3 million (£2.4 million), and an arrest warrant for South Africa’s late anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was auctioned for $130,000.

The NFT discussions are taking place at the same time that more people are demanding the return of artwork taken from Africa by European colonizers.

“We were reviewing the artifacts’ provenance and ownership. What if I could return them and convert them to NFTs?” Chidi explained.

The process of repatriating the artwork begins with Looty investigating prospective items and then visiting museums to scan them using special mobile phone apps.

Afterwards, the images are downloaded onto laptops and the complicated process of converting them to 3D begins, using special apps and technology.

“To be honest, it is almost like we are re-sculpting the artwork again,” Chidi said. “One piece can take like a whole week to finish, maybe more.”

The Looty website will go live on May 13th, but development began in November 2021.

Chidi is the founder, but he works with two other Nigerians and a Somali.

Each member of the team has a different area of expertise, such as 3D design, NFT technology, and editing, but they’ve all visited museums in the UK and France to photograph artwork with their phones.

They’ve created around 25 different pieces thus far, including some of the famed Benin Bronzes that once adorned the royal palace of the kingdom of Benin in what is now Nigeria, and they’re planning on making many more.

Chidi acknowledges that the word “Looty” is associated with “looting,” a violent act, but insists that his choice of name for the project has a deeper significance.

Captain John Hart Dunne, a British serviceman, arrived from Peking (now Beijing) in 1860 with a strange dog, which he offered to Queen Victoria as a gift for her “royal collection of dogs.”

The famous dog, nicknamed Looty for its origins, was supposedly kidnapped after the British sacked a royal residence in Peking and sat for paintings and sketches by renowned painters.

Looty was one of the earliest Pekinese dogs in the United Kingdom, and he stayed in Windsor Castle until his death in 1872.

Rumors circulated in the media in 2018 that the Chinese government was involved in a wave of art heists in the West that targeted Chinese art and artifacts.

Even after one of the stolen works of art reappeared on display at a Shanghai airport, the Chinese Government refuted these charges.

“Before the British were looting artifacts in Africa, they had already made a fortune from the things they stole from China. In choosing the name ‘Looty’, I am referencing that, but also referencing the dog that was given to Queen Victoria,” Chidi said.

“Even though we are called Looty, we are doing it in a non-violent way and also a legal way.”

Chidi has two goals in mind for Looty. The first is repatriation, which involves reclaiming stolen artwork and connecting it with local African museums, arts organizations, and Africans in general, whom he refers to as “the original owners of these artifacts.”

The second is compensation, which he feels would benefit African artists who have had their possibilities for inspiration taken by British looters.

“If you live in maybe Benin and you want to be inspired by the artwork that comes from your ethnic group, first you need to apply for a visa, then buy the ticket for a plane, get to England, and book hotels. You then go and view the artwork. There are not many people who are going to be able to do that,” Chidi said.

Chidi hopes that viewing the artwork on Looty would not only inspire African artists at home but that the artwork’s sale will also provide funding for local artists to further their skills.

Only cryptocurrency can be used to purchase NFTs of artwork on the website.

“The token is basically a digital contract. On purchase of any pieces of artwork on Looty, 20% of that will go to the Looty Fund. From that  Fund, we are going to start giving grants to artists from the continent. We will donate money and equipment for artists to use,” he said.

While Chidi thinks that all of the activity will eventually result in the repatriation of every single piece of art plundered from Africa by colonialists, he still fantasizes about a different future.

“I want to build our own metaverse where these pieces will live and can live,” he said.

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Opinions

WhatsApp Founders regret Facebook Acquisition

Elon Musk has used recent interviews and his Twitter account to voice frustrations over the state of social media currently. He, however, isn’t alone on this crusade as a number of growing startups and entrepreneurs are looking to challenge the system.

In an ironic twist, many of these startups were founded based on experiences with the tech supergiant and the social media industry’s biggest player, Facebook, and how it has grown into its conglomerate company known as Meta. 

This is the story of the experience of Neeraj Arora who was the Chief Business Officer of WhatsApp in 2014 but on 5th May 2022, took to his Twitter account to express how he regretted having helped negotiate WhatsApp’s $22 billion sale to Facebook. In Arora’s account, this is where things went wrong for the company founded in 2009 by Jan Koum and Brian Acton.

Arora joined the WhatsApp team in 2011 as the Chief Business Officer and shortly after, in 2012/13, they were approached by Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook about an acquisition. 

Having declined Facebook’s initial offer, WhatsApp opted to keep growing and it was not long till Facebook came knocking again in 2014 with an offer that this time was made to look like a partnership.

The deal included full support for Whatsapp’s end-to-end encryption, no ads (ever), complete independence on product decisions, and a board seat for WhatsApp co-founder, Jan Koum, all complete with their own office in Mountain View overlooking the prestigious Silicon Valley among others. 

For anyone who has had to deal with the question, “What is your Whatsapp number?”- especially in the earlier days, the importance of WhatsApp as a communication mode can not be overlooked especially where international communication is involved.

WhatsApp provided a convenient way to stay connected without having to pay those hefty fees for long-distance SMS or calling fees and the company made money by charging users $1 to download the app.

At the time Facebook (said they) supported the WhatsApp mission and vision so as they talked through the acquisition, a few things were made clear by the WhatsApp team from the start: no mining of user data, no ads (ever) and no cross-platform tracking.

In February 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $22 billion in cash and stocks but around 2017 and 2018, things started looking different from the original plan.

September 2017 saw WhatsApp co-founder, Brian Acton leave Facebook over concerns about how the company intended to monetize WhatsApp. He went on to pledge $50 million to fund the process of making private communication available to everyone with the Signal Foundation. 

Later still, in 2018, Facebook was rocked with scandal as it was discovered that the company breached data protection laws and allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest the data of up to 87 million people without their consent worldwide. 

In doing this Facebook failed to keep users’ personal information secure and in September 2018 Brian Acton sent a scandalous tweet that sent social media spheres into a frenzy as he called for Facebook to be deleted.

Brian Acton tweets #deletefacebook

Currently, WhatsApp is Facebook’s second-largest platform (even bigger than Instagram or FB Messenger) with over 2 billion users worldwide but according to Arora and other earlier developers, it’s a shadow of the product they poured their hearts into and wanted to build for the world.

Arora called out tech companies saying they need to admit when they have done wrong emphasizing that he is not the only one who regrets having had WhatsApp join Facebook especially when it did. 

“Nobody knew in the beginning that Facebook would become a Frankenstein monster that devoured user data and spat out dirty money. We didn’t either,” Arora said in his Twitter thread. 

He closed off by pointing out that in order for the Tech ecosystem to evolve, we need to talk about how perverse business models cause well-intentioned products, services, and ideas to go wrong.
Neeraj Arora has since gone on to become the co-founder of another social media app called HalloApp which boasts about connecting real people in real life in real privacy with no ads.

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Business

Binance hosts Nigerian Idol Street Edition on Nigerian university campuses

Earlier in the year, Binance announced its sponsorship of the Nigerian Idol, “the street edition”, as a way of continuing its mission to drive mainstream crypto adoption in Africa. Nigerian Idol is the Nigerian version of the popular American TV series, American Idol. This sponsorship deal has made Binance the exclusive cryptocurrency &blockchain sponsor for the show. It will be hosted across universities as it strengthens its connection with offline audiences across the continent. 

The entertainment competitions will happen at Lagos State University, Rivers State University of Technology, Institute of Management Technology, and Igbenidion University. 

Similar to the Nigerian Idol show, the street edition features musical performances with judges scoring competitors based on their inventiveness, vocal strength, and stage abilities. Students also participate in games in which they might win free Binance products and gifts. Lots of games, networking, and crypto education are all part of the campaign.

“We are excited to do this with Nigerian Idol. Entertainment has a great power to bring people of varying cultures, ethnicities, and behaviours together and as a global brand that solidly drives growth in different facets, launching a Binance ‘Street Edition’ is helping us connect, inform and educate people about crypto and its benefits. Ultimately, the goal is to drive mainstream adoption and this, we are doing in our own way.” said Emmanuel Ebanehita, Marketing Lead for Africa, Binance.

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Business

Kenya unveils Africa’s first emissions reduction platform on Blockchain.

Kenyan biomass company, Tamuwa is opening Africa’s first verifiable emissions reduction platform that will run on Blockchain technology with the aim of cutting the production of climate-warming gases in the region. 

The platform is to be known as CYNK and will use the Hedera Hashgraph public decentralised ledger for the measurement, verification and sale of high-quality verifiable emissions reductions (VERs).

These verifiable emission reductions are basically records detailing a reduction or removal of emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere. These are usually sold as carbon credits to polluters aiming to offset their own emissions.

** One VER is equivalent to 1 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.

Tamuwa is a subsidiary of the Singapore-based Tamu Group that has established itself as a leading renewable biomass fuels producer in the East Africa region, specializing in technology which upcycles agri-waste into high-quality renewable biomass fuels.

Given that 70% of all energy in Kenya is derived from burning wood, Tamuwa is on a mission to reduce deforestation in the country. To help with this, the verifiable emission reductions will provide an alternative income source for Tamuwa and other firms engaged in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Access to more funds will allow renewable sustainable biomass fuel producers like Tamuwa to scale up and subsequently help substitute out more firewood, saving more trees and reducing costs.

The Rainforest Alliance Country Director for Kenya and Tanzania, Michael Orang’i applauded the move saying, “This ultimately will provide greater returns for the more than 800,000 smallholder farmers and their families supporting today’s tea industry in Kenya.”

The project will take flight as the first in Africa to receive a grant from the HBAR Foundation’s Sustainable Impact Fund that currently exceeds $100 million in value. The Foundation includes representatives from Boeing Co., Standard Bank Group and other companies. 

This cash fund of over $100 million was established in March and prioritizes support for projects creating solutions on Hedera that help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

While traditional carbon certification processes and related markets currently exclude many local projects, the CYNK platform will leverage the Hedera Hashgraph blockchain to boost transparency and efficiency while reducing the cost of Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) to ease the flow of finances.

CYNK will offer direct connectivity to enable project developers involved in carbon-saving initiatives to reach fair and transparent markets. According to the Vice President of the HBAR Foundation, Wes Geisenberger the process is fully auditable thanks to the use of the carbon-negative Hedera Hashgraph.

Tamuwa is aiming to be the leading source of high-quality verifiable emissions reductions and plans to generate five million tokenised VERs over the next five years and is in talks to onboard a number of further projects that include nature-based solutions, regenerative agriculture and blue carbon.

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Business

LBank partners with Kenyan Adanian Labs for Crypto Accelerator.

Crypto trading platform, LBank and Kenyan-based AI entrepreneurial incubator, Adanian Labs have partnered to increase the flow of information and learning surrounding blockchain and cryptocurrencies in Africa with a Crypto Accelerator Program.

Adanian Labs is an AI-powered, Blockchain driven incubator that nurtures the next generation of socially impactful startups into successful and scalable data-driven commercial businesses. 

Based out of Hong Kong, LBank is a cryptocurrency exchange that is focused on creating partnerships with cryptocurrency developers and teams across the continent to build an Africa-wide ecosystem. The exchange is owned and operated by a Chinese company known as Superchains Network Technology Co. Ltd.

As part of the Crypto Accelerator Program, the partnership will have the two companies involved in monthly interactive sessions designated as ‘LBank and Adanian Crypto Days’ across Africa.

According to Allen Wei, the CEO of LBank, the partnership will allow both LBank and Adanian Labs to engage in community building, education, and resource sharing in order to meet the growing demand for blockchain and cryptocurrency across Africa.

“The new partnership will accelerate Africa’s digital revolution by increasing blockchain developers who will drive the ecosystem. With this partnership, crypto and blockchain technology can play an increasingly significant role in helping African nations leapfrog in development,” he added.

LBank COO, Shantnoo Saxsena believes that the continent is finally under the spotlight for all the right reasons as more investors begin to pay attention to Africa’s untapped potential thanks to blockchain and cryptocurrency developments.

John Kamara, the CEO, and Co-Founder calls for the submission of applications for the Crypto Accelerator Program where successful applicants will be aligned with a technical team within the company to build and work together on whatever solution they have brought forward. The application portal is expected to open following the launch of the accelerator later on Friday 6th May 2022. 

Kamara points out that the partnership will offer the vehicle for higher learning, community building, and resource sharing to help Africa fully realize the role it will play in the 4th Industrial revolution.

“We’ve put together a team to help establish and support the startups including project management and support focused solely on ensuring startups achieve their tasks and goals,”  Kamara added.

In the past weeks, Adanian Labs has been holding interactive forums called “Camel Sessions” around the topic ‘Making a difference in a digital era’ and the accelerator is the latest piece added to the puzzle on how to bring together different groups in the ecosystem to share knowledge, opinions and perspectives within the crypto community.