đ Emerging Onchain This Week #9
This week, we bring you African crypto updates & data from countries including Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria
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- Kenyan motorbike company defaults on $5mill Goldfinch loan
The decentralised real-world-asset (RWA) credit protocol, Goldfinch had loaned $5million to Tugende Kenya a motorbike financing platform in Kenya. The loan was due to mature this December. However, it emerged that Tugende Kenya had loaned $1.9million of the loan to its sister company, Tugende Uganda, violating the terms of the loan from Goldfinch. Further, Tugendeâs poor financial position and inability to raise has led Goldfinch to have to restructure the loan and engage its legal counsel.
The loan represents ~4% of the protocolâs TVL, with Africa proving to be a key region for the company. With backers including a16z crypto, Blocktower and Coinbase Ventures, Goldfinch is a major player when it comes to DeFi lending, especially in emerging markets.
-Binance declared illegal by Nigeria
Nigeriaâs SEC shared a circular stating that Binance or any other âplatform through which the Company solicits investors is ⊠illegalâ. This comes less than a month after Binance announced Bundle (a very popular exchange in Nigeria) was pivoting to focus on payment services.
Back in June, Nigeriaâs SEC had issued a circular declaring âBinance Nigeria Limitedâ illegal but it was later determined that this entity was not linked to or associated with Binance. This latest circular represents an interesting move from Nigeria which has seemingly become more crypto-friendly with the passage of taxation on digital assets and the Nigeria Blockchain Policy.
-Worldcoin suspended by Kenya's government
Kenyaâs Communications Authority (CA), issued a statement ordering Worldcoin to cease its Kenyan activities until further notice due to concerns about the usage and storage of personal data. This comes following thousands of Kenyans having their irisâ scanned (as part of the signup flow) in exchange for $49 worth of Worldcoin tokens.
In Kenya, Worldcoinsâs wallet has become the most downloaded app on the Play Store with some pointing to the financial reward for signing up being the key reason for its success. The Sam Altman-founded company, which aims to create a proof-of-identity network centered around your iris scan, has also faced backlash in the UK, France and US.
-Emtech raises $4million and launches CBDC innovation kit
Emtech is a central bank infrastructure provider that has worked with 6 central banks including Nigeriaâs, Bahamasâ and Ghanaâs (who launched its Regulatory and Innovation Sandbox in partnership with Emtech). The CBDC innovation kit aims to enable fintech and finance companies to experiment with business models and solutions using a digital token (BYDC) that imitates CBDC infrastructure.
The CBDC kitsâ token BYDC is built on the Hedera L1 protocol and comes at a time when over 20 African countries are researching or piloting CBDC with Nigeriaâ eNaira and Zimbabweâs Digital Dollar already live in Africa. Emtech also announced its $4mill raise led by Matrix Partners India with investors including LoftyInc Capital, Level Up Ventures & Collide Capital.
Product Launches
- Mara launches its layer 2 testnet, Mara Chain
The Ethereum-compatible L2, Mara Chain is an Optimism fork and will use Mara tokens for transaction fees and thus removing the dependency on Ethereum gas fees. Its launch comes not long after the launch of Send which enables merchants and individuals to easily send money to anyone with a Mara Wallet. With Mara wallet users can already save, swap and withdraw fiat and digital currencies.
Last May Mara raised a $23million seed round (one of the largest in African tech) from investors including Coinbase Ventures, Distributed Global and DAO Jones, with an initial plan to launch a layer-one blockchain and wallet.
- Africa free routing launches Bitcoin Lightning network in Kenya
Africa free routing is a non-profit group that empowers businesses and individuals in Africa to accept Bitcoin as a reliable form of payment. It recently announced the launch of a new node in Kenya
The Lightning network is Bitcoin's Layer 2 protocol for fast and cheap payments.
- Eversend launches in Cameroon
Eversend is an all-in-one multi-currency app that provides cross-border payments, virtual cards and banking for businesses and individuals as well as payment APIs. Already serving Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, Eversend has historically been very pro-crypto with its stablecoin on/offramps and the ability to send and receive crypto via its app. Users on the platform can also send money to and from the UK or Europe.
With stablecoins playing a key role in the African crypto space and USDT currently being the most popular stablecoin on the continent, the above graph shares an interesting insight into USDC seemingly losing the competition.
You can find an excellent analysis of what is happening and why here.
Knowledge list
Here are a few resources we are reading to catch up with the emerging trends affecting the Crypto space and Africa more broadly:
Africa Money & DeFi summit to take place in Ghana 3rd-4th October
A legal review of Ugandaâs and Mauritiusâ position on crypto
Blockchain to help protect ancient artefacts from being looted
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