The Path To A Bitcoin Standard In Africa
A Bitcoin standard in Africa could mean economic growth, higher quality of life and financial freedom for all Africans.This is an opinion editorial by Charlene Fadirepo, a former U.S. federal regulator and Bitcoin activist.In this article, I will be discussing the current state of the rapidly growing Bitcoin ecosystem across the continent of Africa and how this progress will enable the path toward Africa’s Bitcoin standard. Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines an ecosystem as a “complex community of organisms whose environment functions as one whole ecological unit.” In the context of the....
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This week, it was reported that South Africa's Standard Bank was running a trial of Switchless' software that allows traditional financial institutions to integrate bitcoin storage, banking, and merchant services. It was unclear as to whether or not this trial would extend to customers, but we're learning now that it will not. A spokesperson for Standard Bank said that the internal trial was exclusive to the bank and limited to 8 individuals of the bank's staff. "No customers participated in the pilot," said the bank. The idea was to try and offer innovative financial solutions to....
Standard Bank Group has become the first African node operator on the Hedera network. Standard Bank Group — Africa’s largest bank by assets — has partnered with enterprise-grade distributed ledger technology project Hedera Hashgraph.According to a joint announcement, the African banking giant now joins other major corporations like Google, LG, and IBM as a member of the Hedera Governing Council.Standard Bank will also become a Hedera node operator, the first in Africa with a focus on utilizing DLT to ease bottlenecks in cross-border trade on the continent.Across Africa, innovations in....
Representatives from Standard Bank say that it has finished testing the Switchless bitcoin trading platform, and that it will not be made available to customers. The bank said the test is part of wider research on "Internet-based financial services", and that eight internal Standard Bank employees participated in the completed pilot. A company called Switchless says it has developed a "fully operational and integrated bitcoin portal system for a large multinational bank", currently being run as an internal pilot. The news leaked out after the system was showcased at Finovate Europe 2014,....
Bitcoin may soon be responsible for lighting up the streets of South Africa. Yes, because Invirohub, a South African smart meter developer, has integrated bitcoin payments into its smart meters. These meters allow consumers to "to up" an electricity allowance. Each meter will have a specific wallet address and 3G SIM card for connectivity. Once a user puts a deposit on the address their account will be credited at the current exchange rate. Months ago South Africa's Standard Bank, Africa's largest bank, was said to be testing bitcoin payment systems and more recent news of Johannesburg and....
Editor’s Note: This article has been changed to make the nature of the Bitcoin Africa Conference more clear. The name of this title is “Bitcoin Africa Conference,” and this is the first time the conference has been held. The author of this article was not saying that this Bitcoin conference is the very first one in Africa. We apologize for any misunderstanding. As you may know, the world’s first Bitcoin Africa Conference will be held on April 16-17, 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa. With all the buzz surrounding Bitcoin in Africa lately, it is no surprise that the first conference has made....