📌 Emerging Onchain This Week #18
In the last EOTW of 2023 we bring you updates and data from across Africa! (see you again in mid Jan)
Welcome back crypto friend & seasons greetings! 🎄
Know others who are looking to know more about the African crypto space? Well…
- Yellow Card launches as first Participating Financial Institution (PFI) on tbDEX
TBD, a company focused on open source decentralized technologies, has introduced tbDEX, an open source liquidity and trust protocol designed to enable frictionless commerce and financial access globally. The protocol bridges traditional and decentralized payment systems; it aims to establish mutual trust between counterparties on a permissionless network, allowing compliant transactions.
Yellow Card is the first Participating Financial Institution (PFI) on tbDEX, offering liquidity across 20 African countries. tbDEX facilitates the exchange of value by creating a standardised trust protocol for various assets like bitcoin, stablecoins, and fiat. It employs Verifiable Credentials (VCs) for compliance with regulations such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CTF).
- Bitmama acquires Payday
Bitmama Inc., a blockchain payments platform, has confirmed its acquisition of Payday, a virtual card service provider, nine months after Payday announced a $3 million seed round. The acquisition was facilitated through Bitmama's 2021 launched cross-border payments product, Changera, and includes 100% of Payday's customer base.
Changera will absorb key personnel from Payday, whose brand will continue to operate under Changera. The acquisition aims to address Paydays dependence on 3rd party integrations issue, and promises an expanded suite of services for Changera customers. Bitmama's post-acquisition roadmap is said to include a new solution for enhancing FX transactions for African businesses, set to launch Q1 2024.
- Convexity hosts French Embassy
Turnkey blockchain solutions & consultancy Convexity, hosted Martin Folliasson and Florent Mangin of the French Embassy in Nigeria. the pair is said to have explored potential collaborations and synergies between the Nigeria and French tech ecosystems.
COO and co-Founder Adedeji Owonibi, gave the embassy team insights into the Convexity ecosystem. This included sharing their intention to set up a Blockchain Hub in Sub-Saharan Africa & the incubation of blockchain-focused startups in Abuja. Convexity reiterated its open-door approach to collaboration with Government institutions, Regulators, Startups and ecosystem players.
Product Launch
-Onboard Launches Onboard Direct
Onboard launches another new product, Onboard Direct. Onboard Direct, which is a web app not requiring users to have the Wallet app, gives the user a wallet address tied to their bank account, allowing them to cash out their stablecoins once a deposit is made into the unique wallet address.
To use Onboard Direct, users need to first add their bank account details, they will then get a dedicated wallet address that’s linked to said bank account. The user is now able to receive cash into the bank account by sending stablecoins on Ethereum, Tron, Polygon and BSC networks to this unique wallet address.
Circle and Nubank Partner to Increase Digital Dollar Access in Brazil
Circle and major digital financial platform Nubank, which serves 90 million customers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, have announced a partnership to extend access to USDC, for Brazilian Nubank customers. The regulated dollar stablecoin, USDC, will initially be integrated into Brazil trading platform Nubank Cripto.
The partnership aims to leverage the strong demand for access to dollars in Latin America, and provide Nubank customers with USDC powered blockchain-based financial services. The collaboration includes educational campaigns to promote USDC awareness and educate users on its secure, cost-efficient, transparent features. Future opportunities for broader Nubank integration are also being considered.
Hardware Wallet Ledger hit with “Supply Chain Attack”
Hardware wallet company, Ledger, got hit with a “supply chain attack” this past week. The attack, resolved 40 minutes post-discovery, was described by CEO Pascal Gauthier as an isolated phishing attack on a former employee, which gave unauthorized access to Ledger's package manager. The hackers created a malicious codebase and uploaded it to the official code repository, which was then used by several dApps like SushiSwap and Zapper.
When users attempted to connect their wallets to the affected dApps, a fraudulent connection popup would overlay the legitimate one, and if this fake popup transaction was signed, their wallet could be completely drained. While $650k was stolen, the hacker’s address has since been frozen, Ledger is looking to enhance its security controls & Pascal Gauthier committed to helping recover affected users.
Africa accounted for 3% of global blockchain developers in 2022 according to Electric Capital’s developer report with the US dropping below 30% for the first time. Ethereum, Polkadot and Cosmos also held the top 3 positions for the highest number of full time developers globally in their ecosystem in 2023. Generally the total number of blockchain developers globally dropped by 28% between Oct 2022 and Oct 2023, yet 2023 figures are still 66% higher than those in 2020.
Here is a short list of some of the resources we are reading, listening to or watching to catch up on the emerging trends affecting the crypto:
The TBD whitepaper, “Connecting the world of legacy money to the world of digital money”
Interesting X thread by Mallick on the December 5th Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System circular
Stanite Labs is the first African recipient of Base’s rolling Builder Grants
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