In a recent interview with Binance CEO, CZ, Global Crypto’s in-house reporter was given the opportunity to question CZ about the role he believes Africa will play in crypto, over the next few years.
“I think Africa will play a huge role that people don’t realise yet”
CZ outlined some of the factors that influenced his views on Africa, mentioning that:
“In countries where the traditional financial system is very established, it takes more effort to replace them.”
Most businesses want to chase the larger, established markets like the US, China and Japan as they are big markets with very high populations. CZ argued that crypto is different in the sense that it is replacing the traditional financial system. This is one of the reasons crypto is thriving and will continue to thrive in Africa. The traditional financial systems in most African countries are relatively underdeveloped and it may be easier to replace them. Similarly, Africa’s experience in quick adoption of mobile payment systems, along with a large “unbanked” population, deem it ripe for crypto adoption.
CZ went on to mention that Binance was eyeing out an app to app payment service and would probably launch this service in Africa first as there is very limited competition.
“We probably will launch a payment service, like an app to app payment service in Africa first – We think that there is a huge demand for it.”
CZ believes that Africa has huge potential, but is a slightly longer play:
“If you want business results in the next 6 months, then maybe Africa is not the best place to spend money on, but we are looking at this at a 5,10, 15 year horizon, and I think Africa is going to be huge.”
CZ has high hopes for Africa over the next few years and it seems that he is not alone. Chainalysis recently published their Geography of Cryptocurrency report which included The Global Crypto Adoption Index 2020, that lists South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria among the top 10 countries in the world for crypto adoption.
Feature image by Bitcoin CrypTO from flickr
