Jack Dorsey plans on surviving on crypto in Africa for six months

When Jack Dorsey announced that he would be going on a tour of Africa, many took it as one of his random visits where he gets to interact with different cultures across the globe. He is after all the CEO of Twitter, a social media platform that fosters global integration. However, with this visit, it was quite different.

While he did get to interact with people from different cultures in Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and South Africa, his visit was focused on Bitcoin. We all know Jack is a massive crypto fan and he has not shied away from advocating for its use. His other company, payments processor Square has been on the frontline in promoting crypto adoption. Square has gone as far as forming a crypto division which reports directly to Jack.

In his tour of the four African countries, Jack has met several technology entrepreneurs, many of whom are involved in cryptocurrencies. As CoinGeek reported recently, he has also attended a number of Bitcoin meetups.

His message is clear: Africa will shape the future of Bitcoin.

The African continent was slow in embracing cryptocurrencies. While the Western world and Asia took to crypto years ago as the prices took off, Africa was on the sidelines. However, the region got into crypto mostly after the price hype, at a time when the emphasis was mostly on utility. This has shaped the African crypto narrative, with most people looking at crypto to solve their day-to-day issues, not for hodling and price speculation. This is what the future of crypto will be; utility over speculation, and Jack knows this.

He tweeted:

Sad to be leaving the continent…for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small part. 🌍 pic.twitter.com/9VqgbhCXWd

— jack (@jack) November 27, 2019

The great strides African countries are making towards crypto adoption are quite clear for all to see. As CoinGeek reported, Ghana’s central bank is already in discussions with key stakeholders on the possibility of issuing a digital currency.

It goes beyond the state-backed digital currency, however. According to Google Trends, in the past 90 days, the top three countries with the most searches for Bitcoin are in Africa. Nigeria leads the pack, with Ghana and South Africa following suit respectively. The interest is clearly there and as Jack stated, this is what will shape the future of Bitcoin.

Africa has the highest remittance fees in the world, almost twice that of second-placed Southeast Asia. Africa has the highest unbanked population in the world as well. All these set the stage for widespread Bitcoin adoption. The people of Africa are ready to get aboard the Bitcoin bandwagon, and the price movements are the last thing they are concerned about. The evidence to this is the continued rising interest in crypto even during the 2018 bear market. Crypto wallet Paxful revealed to CoinGeek earlier this year that their users shot up in 2018, at a time when most exchanges were losing users in numbers.