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10 sats \ 0 replies \ @KenyaCoin 8 Jan \ on: Bitcoin Transforming Africa w/ Erik Hersman & Charlene Fadirepo - Preston Pysh bitcoin
Haven't watched this yet, but Preston's interviews are always excellent.
There is one thing. I wanted to say however, regarding the degree of impact that bitcoin mining has and potentially could have.
Bitcoin mining revenue is very small relative to revenue that comes from traditional demand. In the aggregate it is like a rounding error, in size
So bitcoin mining isn't transforming anywhere, except in perhaps the acutely local sense. Like what Gridless is doing ... enabling a community to go from zero KW capacity to a sufficient level to cover demand -- in the areas served.
But for every micro hydro plant Gridless serves, there is the need for hundreds more where they do not yet have electric service. And bitcoin alone isn't big enough to transform even a single country nonetheless the continent.
Not saying this is too small to matter, but that these are tiny developments that won't move the needle as a large scale solution.
Kenya has a relatively large area with deposits of (lower quality) coal, and the government has already sold mining rights to investors (China), however the extraction will ultimately involve the relocation of tens of thousands of households, among other downsides expected.
While the economic gains from mining the coal are sorely needed in the country, the ground will still likely remain untouched for quite some years, if ever.
Neither Strike's Send Money product nor Bitnob's Withdraw provide support for PayBill or Till Number (paying at the point of sale). So, advantage: Tando
Also, Tando's Send Money (person to person fiat transfers) are lightning fast (pun intended), which let's you be able to rely on the fiat payment to the recipient going though promptly. Both Strike and Bitnob rely on a third party intermediary to deliver the the fiat and, at a very high rate, will see payment stuck in a pending/processing state until the sender contacts the app's support team with a dispute.
tl;dr: Tando definitely is deserving of the praise this article gave them.
The incident has left at least 13 people dead, with several others trapped inside the structure. It remains unclear how many persons were injured. The cause of the collapse remains under investigation.
Over a decade ago, it was a One Woman Army in Botswana, ... Alakanani Itirileng (Bitcoin Lady). Great to see the bitcoin community growing and bitcoin gaining traction!
To be fair, they show burning EUR š„š¶ š„ as well as burning USD š„šµš„
Probably wanted burning GBP š„š· š„ as well, but that was probably going a step too var for even London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Backed or not, there never was the promise that you could redeem for gold, nonetheless any specified weight in gold (e.g., N grams)
Otherwise people would buy the discounted currency up, and redeem it, and the price of the remaining currency would rise to about the value of that weight of gold the currency represents (less redemption fees, and other costs), unless the discount is because you cannot redeem on demand, at a counter, and carrying a redeemable note might not actually yield the weight of gold (if anything) as expected.
There is a lot of shitcoinery yet -- the shitcoin platforms sponsor events and such so that's the road into the shitcoin Web.
Well, that didn't last long...
Zimbabwe knocks 40% off value of gold-backed currency
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8el4kgk98eo
When you are financially poor, money that comes in must, essentially, instantly go out (i.e., there are expenses, purchases, or debts where those funds received will be used).
It's the same everywhere in the world where the poor are, but in most of Africa, being financially poor is the norm, not the exception.
Thus integration where spending bitcoin to pay in fiat is necessary, otherwise the bitcoin earned (or bought) is limited (or useless) to those who do not save and are not in a financial position to where saving in bitcoin is an option. When there is wider acceptance of bitcoin by individuals, merchants, and lenders, then at that point funds received can be turned around and spent immediately. But today, there's a wide gap between when bitcoin comes in and the ability to use it for spending that would otherwise be done in fiat funds.
The combination of Strike with mobile money drives huge things in terms of financial inclusion, not only in Malawi but in Africa as a whole.
Except, Strike actually integrates in very few countries in Africa:
There is "Send Globally", which is not reflected in the chart from the FAQ in the link (above), but even then there are significant gaps (e.g., Strike's Send Globally feature does not list Malawi as a country you can send to):
In places where Strike and Strike's Send Globally are available , ... they definitely dominate on the cost factor, relative to not only traditional remittance methods but to new fintech, p2p, and other approaches
with a whooping 86% declared
What does that refer to?
The program will also explore ways to increase transparency and accountability in the donation process by direct tracking from donor to program participant.
Adding transparency, this is an improvement.
āA high debt burden is a huge drain on a countryās economy and hit the poorer parts of the population first through cuts in welfare, education, or health expenditure to pay debts.āA debt crisis is paralysing and undermines all other development efforts."
Usage of the Salvadoran colĆ³n was higher than the dollar even, until it wasn't.
Why use an inferior currency?