📌 Emerging Onchain This Week #13
This week, we bring you African crypto updates & data from countries including South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and the MENA region.
Welcome back crypto friend 👋.
Know others who are looking to know more about the African crypto space? Well…
- Chainanalysis’ Geography of Crypto Report puts the MENA region at 7.2% Global Transaction Volume
The upcoming report puts the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region as the 6th lagest crypto economy of any region studied in 2023. Estimated between July 2022 and June 2023 to be $389.8 billion in onchain value. This value makes up 7.2% of global transaction volume during this period.
In comparison, Sub-Saharan Africa’s value is said to be 2.3% of global transaction volume. Three countries in the MENA region, namely Turkey, Morocco and Iran, also rank 12th, 20th and 28th respectively in the top 30 countries in the 2023 index. The report will be available in October.
- Ukheshe’s Scan-to-Pay partners with Xion Global for South Africa
Ukheshe, a global financial services company that offers card issuing and digital wallets amongst other services, has partnered with Xion Global, the Singapore-based global payment network. The partnership will make crypto payment options available to mainstream users through the Scan to Pay app (which claims to be the largest QR payment ecosystem in South Africa).
Currently serving over 600,000 vendors, 14 banks, 94 payment service providers and fintech companies, Ukheshe aims to offer them faster settlements with increased financial autonomy. The rollout will be done in phases, starting first with USDT on Polygon transactions, later expanding to other chains and other perks such as loyalty programs, cashback rewards and discounts.
- Bybit partners with multiple entities to host Hackathons
Bybit and the Dubai Multi Commodity Centre (DMCC) announced the “Web3 Unleashed: Crypto Innovation Challenge” hackathon, said to be the biggest of its kind in the MENA region, with a prize pool of $100,000. Bybit has also partnered with the American University of Sharjah (AUS), to create an inter-college “CryptoAI BUILDER Challenge” for young people developing new AI and crypto models, with a prize pool of AED 80,000 (~$21,780.56 USD).
The DMCC event is scheduled for November 22nd, registration opened on September 26th 2023 and closes October 26th while the AUS event is scheduled for three days on 3rd - 5th November, registration for it opened on September 29th and closes October 8th. More details on both events can be found in the registration forms.
Product Launch
- Onboard’s Virtual Cards now Live
Nestcoin recently raised $1.9M for the scaling of Onboard, following this, Onboard has soft launched their latest offering, the new virtual USD cards. These are now available for everyday use via the Onboard app. For qualifying users, once the card has been set-up and funded, it can be used just like a regular VISA bank card for online commerce or OTC payments.
Currently, the virtual cards are only available for users in Nigeria, with more countries being looked into. One can fund their card in NGN (Nigerian Naira), Onboard wallet balance or other crypto wallets, while the spending can be done in USD. The cards themselves can be used in over 160 countries, in places that accept VISA cards.
- Borderless Africa launches Magma
During his talk at ETHSafari which took place on the 18th-24th of September in Kilifi, Yoseph Ayele of Borderless Africa officially announced the launch of Magma.
Magma, is a two-week in-person residency that offers hands-on support to Africa’s top founders building the continent’s economy onchain. African founders can now express their interest for the residency expected to take place sometime in February of 2024 in Kenya.
- Bermuda’s Monetary Authority approves Coinbase retail perpetual futures
Coinbase’s International Exchange has received regulatory approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) to enable perpetual futures for non-US retail customers. Coinbase included this as part of their plan to ‘make Web3 exploration safer, more secure and more accessible around the world’, in Phase II of their “Go Deep, Go Broad” strategy announcement.
Unlike traditional futures contracts, perpetual futures have no expiration date. In order to create a Coinbase Advanced trading account and therefore access this product, users will need to pass Coinbase’s standard assessment to determine eligibility.
- Su Zhu, Three Arrows Capital Co-founder, has been Apprehended
Su Zhu, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital (3AC), which collapsed in 2022, was in Singapore when he was apprehended at Changi Airport, where he was caught supposedly trying to leave the country.
He has been sentenced to 4 months in prison as per Teneo’s request, who are 3AC’s liquidators, under a committal order after he failed to comply with an earlier court order which compelled him to cooperate with the investigations. Teneo says it plans to get him to comply with the court order and press him for more information which could assist in the asset recovery process.
An analysis that reveals the sheer amount of transaction volume of crypto by the type of user.
This graph is an excerpt from Chainanalysis’ 2023 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report, coming in October.
Medium article ‘The Nigerian Crypto Market: For The Good of All?’ by HalliFin
An exclusive interview with Chris Ani & Yele Bademosi on the future of Onboard
Base on how they are ‘Embracing Optimism with Pessimism’
Episode 74 of the Public Key Podcast, ‘The Cyber Underground’
Ibiam Wayas’ “How Tech Giants are Sharing in Africa’s Digital Future with AI”, written for Cryptopolitan
Thank you for reading this edition of Emerging Onchain This Week.
To get new editions of the newsletter in your inbox as soon as it drops, don’t forget to subscribe 👇