📌 Emerging Onchain This Week #11
This week we bring you African crypto updates & data from countries including Kenya, Nigeria, the Central African Republic & BRICS.
Happy new month crypto friend 👋
-350k Kenyans signed up with Worldcoin
The Kenyan Office of the Director of Computer and Cyber Crime stated in a parliament hearing that of the 34 countries where Wordcoin has solicited sign-ups, Kenya has 25% of all sign-ups with over 350 thousand people scanning their irises for no more than 25 Worldcoin tokens (~Ksh. 7,786/ USD 50). They achieved this feat by acquiring agents and/or local representatives in the country in various companies.
Worldcoin is a cryptocurrency that uses the collected iris scans to create a global identity system. During the signup period, there were over 30 stations in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. All their activities have since been suspended and appropriate action is said to be underway.
-Two out of Sixteen African startups selected for Startup Battlefield use Blockchain
Of the 200 startups competing for the $100k equity-free prize, 16 are African, with two of the startups in question leveraging the use of blockchain as their core technology. 2020 founded Nigerian startup Akowe uses it to ensure secure & tamper-proof issued & verified academic records. 2019 founded Ghanaian startup Appcyclers uses it to track the movement of e-waste to ensure environmentally friendly disposal.
TechCrunch’s startup battlefield is a startup competition that gives all participants the opportunity to pitch at the Pitch Showcase Stage at TC Disrupt, receive training, and access to masterclasses, communities and investor meet and greets.
-Blockchain Kenya Challenges Digital Asset Tax
Blockchain Kenya has filed a petition to challenge the Digital Asset Tax on its legality; this asset tax was set to take effect on Sept 1st. The community will be appearing before the court on September 28th to address their appeal.
Kenya’s Digital Asset Tax of 3% was introduced by the Finance Bill 2023 and is to be imposed on the gross value of any transfer/exchange of Digital Assets, this includes crypto, NFTs, loyalty points, e-tickets and potentially any other digital assets holding value.
-BRICS ‘Ready to Explore Fair Financial Architecture’
The BRICS summit was held on August 22nd - 24th in South Africa, where six new members - namely Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - were announced to be joining the original five by January 2024.
BRICS Chair & South African President Cyril Ramaphosa' said in a media briefing that BRICS are ready to explore opportunities for improving the stability, reliability & fairness of the global financial architecture. There were previous talks on the use of CBDCs and/or crypto which now seem to no longer be priority.
Product Launches
-The Central African Republic Officially launches Land & Resources Tokenisation
A month since adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, the President of the Central African Republic (CAR) Faustin-Archange Touadéra stated the nation’s intention to tokenise its mineral resources, they have since put plans into motion. The Sango blockchain initiative now encompasses the tokenisation of the CAR’s land and natural resources.
The launch of this line product allows users who lock a specific amount of the Sango coin to gain specific benefits such as access to citizenship, e-residency and the ownership of land.
- Patricia officially launches token
A few weeks after the announcement of the launch of its new app Patricia Plus and its Patricia token, more information has been shared about the token. Following the Bitfinex model, Patricia’s token is a debt management token pegged against and backed by USDT.
Patricia had previously shared that all BTC, USD and Naira deposits have automatically been converted to their token, with the ability to withdraw by converting the token into USDT dependent on individual user portfolios and platform liquidity.
-Grayscale wins SEC ETF Court case
Although Grayscale’s Bitcoin ETF is yet to receive a verdict, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neomi Rao, ordered the SEC to vacate its own order denying said application. The court attests that the SEC had no valid reason to reject the application, with Judge Rao stating the decision fails to adhere to fundamental administrative law principles that require federal agencies to treat like cases alike.
The court demands that Grayscale’s spot BTC ETF at least receive similar regulatory treatment received by the two SEC approved BTC futures ETFs as they are deemed sufficiently similar.
-X Obtains License for Crypto
Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, filed a license request in Rhode Island through Twitter Payments LLC, X’s payment branch. The license was officially approved, making X one of the 136 entities with the license including Crypto.com, PayPal, MoneyGram and Venmo to name a few.
A currency transmitter license is a legal requirement for companies wishing to conduct activities related to crypto on behalf of their users. This permits X to store, transfer, and exchange digital currencies, as well as offer a comprehensive range of services related to crypto assets.
-SWIFT announces Blockchain Feasibility Tests results
In partnership with blockchain oracle network Chainlink and a number of other financial institutions, Swift has announced and shared a full report on the fact that their infrastructure can indeed be used in the facilitation of tokenised asset transfers across multiple public and private blockchains. According to another press release, these interoperability tests began in June 2023.
This could bring about wide range tokenisation for various applications. They go on to state their commitment to bringing tokenisation to the mainstream consumer & further developing their blockchain capabilities. Is this the #OnchainSummer we need?
According to Lab4Crypto, the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) market cap currently shows a -81.04% undervaluation. They see the recent dismissal of the Uniswap Labs class action as a potential green light signal for the DeFi ecosystem to approach its fair value. This specific metric is said to use logarithmic regression analysis to identify the fair value of the DeFi market.
Knowledge List
A few resources we have been consuming & events we are looking forward to in order to stay up-to-date with the emerging trends affecting the Crypto space and Africa more broadly:
Visa produced 2023 whitepaper, ‘The Future of Money Movement’ by This Week in Fintech & Jenny Johnston
Web3Bridge’s Web3 Lagos Conference 2023 workshop
Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong’s thread & video on 10 exciting ideas to explore
Celebrating 10 years of BRICS Business Council with the Annual 22/23 Report
India looks to Expand their UPI System into Africa
ETHAccra hackathon on 7th - 9th September
ETHSafari in Kenya on 18th - 23rd September
TechCabal’s Africa Tech Ecosystem event ‘Moonshot’ on 11th - 12th October in Nigeria
Thank you for reading this edition of Emerging Onchain This Week.
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