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Kenya Prepares to Legalize Cryptocurrencies in Policy Shift: Report

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2 months ago

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Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said the country is preparing legislation to legalize cryptocurrencies, a shift from the government’s previous warnings against the industry.

“The emergence and growth of Virtual Assets (VAs) and Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) have given rise to innovations in the local and international financial system with dynamic opportunities and challenges,” Mbadi said according to local news outlet The Standard.

Mbadi stressed a need for a regulatory framework to both capitalize on the potential benefits of the industry while mitigating the risks posed by money laundering, terrorism financing and fraud.

“The Government of Kenya is committed to creating the necessary legal and regulatory framework in order to leverage opportunities presented by VAs and VASPs while managing the reluctant risks,” Mbadi said.

Kenya launched a draft policy on virtual assets and virtual asset service providers in December. The draft policy aims to establish a “fair, competitive and stable market” for cryptocurrency industry players and foster innovation and financial literacy, Mbadi said.

Kenya has historically kept a cautious stance toward the cryptocurrency industry. In December 2015 the country’s central bank issued a public notice warning against cryptocurrency use, stating that these assets weren’t legal tender in the country and no entity was licensed to offer money remittance services using crypto in Kenya.

Fast forward to 2022 and lawmakers in the country started weighing on whether to move ahead with a law to tax crypto as the industry kept on growing in the country. A United Nations report at the time showed roughly 8.5% of Kenyans owned cryptocurrencies.

CoinDesk did not hear back from Kenya’s Treasury before press time.





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Africa

The Bitcoin And Cypherpunk Spirit Is Alive And Well In Africa

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2 months ago

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January 30, 2025

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In the past two months, I’ve attended the Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town conference in South Africa and the African Bitcoin Conference in Kenya. I’ve also visited Bitcoin circular economies in both of these countries including Bitcoin Ekasi, Afribit Kibera and Bitcoin Witsand.

These experiences have opened my eyes to the fact that developers, community leaders and everyday plebs across Africa are harnessing the power of Bitcoin to catalyze change in their lives, and they’re doing so while carrying on the spirit of the early cypherpunks.

An African Bitcoiner’s Manifesto

In “A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto,” Eric Hughes wrote:

“Cypherpunks write code. We know that someone has to write software to defend privacy, and since we can’t get privacy unless we all do, we’re going to write it. We publish our code so that our fellow Cypherpunks may practice and play with it. Our code is free for all to use, worldwide. We don’t much care if you don’t approve of the software we write. We know that software can’t be destroyed and that a widely dispersed system can’t be shut down.”

It’s with this attitude that the builders in Africa are building. And while not all of the builders on the continent are writing code, they’re all doing as much of their work as possible without asking permission.

So, based on what I saw in Africa during my recent two trips to the continent as well as to my trip to Ghana in late 2023, during which I attended the African Bitcoin Conference and visited Bitcoin Dua, I’d image an African Bitcoiner’s version of Hughes’ manifesto might read something like this:

“African Bitcoiners just build things with Bitcoin. We know that somebody has to step up to enact change, because all of the promises from the NGOs and governments have fallen short. We publish our proof of work online so that fellow African Bitcoiners can use it as a model and adapt it to their own unique context. Our proof of work and/or code is free to replicate across Africa, and beyond its borders. We aren’t looking for approval from authorities; however, we aren’t opposed to working with them if they see the value in our projects and visions. We know that our work harnesses the immutable and uncensorable nature of Bitcoin as well as the indefatigable nature of the human spirit and, therefore, can’t be stopped or shut down.”

The following are some examples of projects that embody such a spirit:

Bitcoin Ekasi

Bitcoin Ekasi is one of the most shining manifestations of the cypherpunk and Bitcoin ethos in Africa. The project, initiated in 2021 and based in Mossel Bay, South Africa, has become a model for Bitcoin circular economies across Africa.

The project, founded by Hermann Vivier (also one of the organizers for Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town) aimed to do two things: raise funds in bitcoin for The Surfer Kids non-profit, which Vivier also founded, and onboard shops in the community to Bitcoin. (Project Community Leader Luthando Ndabambi has done the latter masterfully over the years.)

The purpose of the second dimension of the mission was to enable community members to spend their bitcoin within the community, ideally raising the economic status of the community as a whole in the process.

The project now works with the local public primary school, which recently began accepting bitcoin for school fees, and has revamped the community centers for both Bitcoin Ekasi and The Surfer Kids (in part thanks to generous donations from Jack Dorsey and fundraising efforts by Aubrey Strobel.)

Some politicians in the country, several of whom spoke at Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town this year, have taken notice of the project and are as a result starting to see the value of Bitcoin.

Tando

Tando is an app built by a team based in Kenya that lets Bitcoin Lightning wallets interface with Kenya’s mobile money system M-PESA.

The app, which doesn’t require KYC and is highly intuitive, is one of the greatest tools for financial inclusion in the country, as those who lack the proper ID-papers are excluded from making payments via M-PESA. Using Tando, they can make the payment via their Lightning wallet and transact digitally with their fellow Kenyans.

Tando is also a great option for Bitcoiners who visit Kenya. I used it multiple times during my stay in Kenya to pay Kenyan shilling-denominated tabs digitally.

Learn more about the app here.

Bitcoin Dua

Founded in 2023, Bitcoin Dua is located in Agbozume, Ghana, which is near the country’s border with Togo. It’s quickly established itself as one of the fastest-growing Bitcoin circular economies in Africa.

Not only does the project help to educate Ghanaians about Bitcoin, but it also provides coding and robotics classes to help its community members develop skills that can help them find employment that pays in bitcoin.

The project’s founder, Mawufemor Kofi Folivi and his team were awarded the Social Impact award at this year’s African Bitcoin Conference, and Jack Dorsey has committed funding to help build a sports complex in the community.

The team at Bitcoin Dua can’t stop and won’t stop.

Machankura

Founded in May 2022 by Kgothatso Ngako (KG) (also one of the organizers for Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town), Machankura enables Africans to use bitcoin over Lightning with feature phones (i.e., cell phones before smart phones).

The technology allows users to send bitcoin over USSD, the equivalent of SMS in Africa, giving some of the two-thirds of the population of Africa that doesn’t have access to the internet access to bitcoin.

KG is also currently working on technology that will store the private keys to bitcoin on chips embedded in feature phones, essentially enabling these phones in the six African countries in which the service is available to double as bitcoin hardware wallets.

CYPHERPUNK AF.

Afribit Kibera

Afribit Kibera, located in Kenya, is a Bitcoin circular economy located in the largest informal settlement in Africa.

The project’s co-founder, Ronnie Mdawida, is a long-time human rights advocate and community organizer, and he’s now using Bitcoin as a tool to help further bring the unbanked and the underbanked into the economy.

Mdawida and his team have onboarded 40 merchants to Bitcoin thus far and have set up a recycling program that rewards participants with sats for their work.

While many of the merchants and community members of Afribit Kibera were introduced to bitcoin primarily as a medium of exchange, many have started saving in it, feeling more hopeful about their future as a result.

Proceeding Together Apace

While each of the projects mentioned above are incredible in their own right, what makes the Bitcoin story in Africa really special is that the members of all these projects continue to learn from and build with one another.

This is the beauty of not only open-source software but also conferences like Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town and the African Bitcoin Conference where builders across the continent share their successes and challenges as well as offer support for each other.

If you’ve yet to attend one of these conferences, I highly recommend you do so, especially if you’d like to feel firsthand the spirit of the cypherpunks or those who embody the Bitcoin ethos.

African Bitcoiners aren’t waiting for permission to change both their lives and the lives of those around them. Bitcoin gives them the opportunity to build a brighter future — together.





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Adoption

Coinbase Rolled Out the Newest State of Crypto Report

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2 months ago

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January 24, 2025

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Coinbase rolled out the newest State of Crypto report. The study was conducted by Ipsos. It observes how crypto and blockchain technology are viewed in Argentina, Kenya, the Philippines, and Switzerland and how it impacts the lives of people in these countries.

For most of the part, the study is based on surveys with 4,000 adults (not specifying the age rates) in Argentina, Kenya, the Philippines, and Switzerland conducted on behalf of Coinbase. The choice of countries aims to give an outlook of societies living in markedly different socioeconomic conditions in different parts of the world (none of these countries belong to the same continent, with the Philippines being an archipelago-based country).

The similarities between these countries are the mostly Christian populations and the government systems revolving around the republic model. Nevertheless, the countries have strikingly different areas, positions on the map, historical experiences, cultures, languages, climates, economic states, etc. 

Coinbase, however, outlines another similarity between Argentina, Kenya, the Philippines, and Switzerland: according to the exchange team, the residents of these countries feel that the local financial systems need to be improved. More than that, generally, the polled residents see cryptocurrencies and blockchain as tools that may enhance their lives in terms of financial wealth and overall give more freedom and independence. 

The state of economy in these countries

The report starts with the statistics demonstrating that in each country, less than a half of all respondents believe that the current financial direction in their country will make them live better than the previous generation. However, even fewer people believe that they will live worse than their parents in Argentina and the Philippines. 

So it’s fair to say that in Kenya and Switzerland, people don’t approve of the current financial politics in contrast to the past years, while Argentina and the Philippines rather dislike both the current and the previous efforts, believing that nowadays things are a bit better than before. Respondents in all these countries agree that the local financial system should be changed or overhauled completely. They refer to the financial systems of their countries as “slow,” “expensive,” and “unstable.” They also cited a lack of innovation as one of the problems. 

Coinbase study finds the residents of the countries with bigger financial challenges view crypto more favorably - 1
Top countries to change financial system | Source: Coinbase.com

The study reveals four main concerns of the respondents named in the surveys: lack of fairness (discrimination), centralization, decreasing value of the national currency, and too much hard work to earn enough or save money.

The distribution of concerns varies from country to country, with Kenya and the Philippines being most critical towards centralization, discrimination, and wage slavery. Switzerland is least concerned about many of these issues while being cautious towards the government’s dependency on banks. Argentinians have the biggest trust issues with their financial institutions and a problem with saving money.

Crypto as a remedy

Most people polled by Ipsos for the study want to be in charge of their financial state and gain more freedom and control over their money. 7 in 10 respondents see cryptocurrency and blockchain as the way to achieve these goals. More than that, both crypto owners and those who don’t have crypto agree that digital currencies can help them gain more freedom and control over their wealth.

Switzerlanders are markedly less interested in crypto than respondents from other countries. However, over 70% of crypto owners in Switzerland believe that crypto offers them more control and freedom. Less than half of the surveyed Switzerlanders with no crypto believe that they need it.

Coinbase study finds the residents of the countries with bigger financial challenges view crypto more favorably - 2
Source: Coinbase.com

Wider blockchain adoption is also viewed as a favorable factor that may improve the local financial systems and individual wealth. Most respondents believe that blockchain promotes innovation and facilitates control over individual finances. Respondents hope that blockchain will make the system faster and more accessible.

In all polls, Switzerland is presented with lower numbers. It reflects the lower expectations associated with Bitcoin and blockchain and the lower level of dissatisfaction with the financial status quo.

Looking into this study, you may notice a strong connection between the level of satisfaction with the country’s financial direction and the level of support for cryptocurrencies and blockchain. The residents of Switzerland and Argentina are less concerned with the current financial state of their countries, and they are less into crypto than Kenya and the Philippines. Probably, that’s one of the reasons why not only Kenya but Africa in general, where the population has little to no access to banking services but has smartphones, are usually seen as the driver of the mass adoption of cryptocurrency and blockchain-based solutions as the substitute of traditional banks. 



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