Emerging Onchain This Week #14
This week, we bring you African crypto updates & data from countries including Mauritius, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
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Kenyan legislative committee calls for Worldcoin shutdown in the country
A Kenyan parliamentary committee has recommended the complete shutdown of the Worldcoin crypto project in Kenya. The committee expressed concerns about the project's authenticity, legality, and activities in security, financial services, and data protection. This development disrupts Worldcoin's plans to resume operations in Kenya and comes amid global regulatory scrutiny of the project.
They urged the Communication Authority to disable Worldcoin's presence, including IP blacklisting, until proper regulations are established for virtual assets. The report also called for criminal investigations into the operations of Tools for Humanity Corp. and its Kenyan partners, citing violations of Kenyan regulations and acts of espionage.
Mauritius & Ghana both exploring the creation of their own CBDC
Mauritius has entered the ‘experimentation phase’ of its plans to launch a CBDC with a pilot expected in the next few months. The Governor of the Bank of Mauritius also shared that a consultation paper was released to the public for comments.
Similarly, the Bank of Ghana has launched a hackathon focused on identifying potential innovations using the CBDC, the eCedi. Suggested use cases include for merchant transactions, agriculture and remittances. Launched in partnership with EMTECH (a central bank infra provider), the hackathon will last 12 weeks and comes following reports of pilots being conducted earlier in the year.
South African bank to digitise deeds using blockchain technology
One of South Africa’s largest banks, First National Bank (FNB), is considering digitising title deeds according to its CEO. This comes after South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, shared that over 1 million houses (or an estimated $12.7 billion USD worth of assets) were stuck in the backlog of processing title deeds.
Interestingly, FNB still takes an anti-cryptocurrency stance, with its CEO stating that “On crypto assets, we are not participating in any of that at this stage … [and this won’t change until] that asset class reaches a certain level of maturity”
Product Launch
HoneyCoin launches in Europe
The crypto-powered payments platform for businesses and consumers has expanded into Europe through a partnership with MYKOBO. Through the partnership users across all 27 EU states can deposit, withdraw and send digital euros to countries around the world using HoneyCoin.
Earlier this year HoneyCoin also announced its partnership with MoneyGram which enabled USDC cash-in/out services across 140 countries.
Flutterwave integrates Circle’s USDC through a partnership with Hedera network
Prominent payments company Flutterwave, announced at the Africa Money & DeFi Summit West Africa, their joining of forces with Hedera to incorporate Circle’s USDC on the Hedera network. This partnership is set to enhance Hedera's network adoption and benefit Flutterwave's African payment services.
Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola, shared the expansion plans and visions for seamless cross-border transactions, which will be facilitated by partnerships and existing infrastructure in the UK and India. This partnership follows in a similar vein as a previous collaboration with Stellar in 2021 to simplify remittances between Africa and Europe by integrating USDC on the Stellar network.
Yellowcard announces the addition of USDC on Solana
Yellow Card has added support for USDC on the Solana blockchain, aiming to make stablecoins more accessible and convenient for African users. They believe the Solana network is instrumental in addressing the scalability and cost-effectiveness of blockchain networks.
Africa has experienced a remarkable 1200% increase in cryptocurrency adoption between 2021-2022, with a focus on stablecoins. Innovative solutions are set to play a pivotal role in reshaping the financial landscape, fostering economic stability, and enhancing financial inclusion across the continent.
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:
A Lender Lesson article on “Raising wholesale debt capital to scale your lending business” by Ivan Mbowa
The “State of Web3 in Africa” EMURGO report of 2023
Stellar & PwC framework for assessing crypto projects in emerging markets.
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