24 Oct African eCommerce - Online Payments - Blockchain - Cryptocurrencies - Stablecoins
We’re off to the world leading blockchain institution University of Nicosia’s Decentralized Blockchain Conference in Athens to participate in and listen to talks on Extending Bitcoin with Sidechains, Latest Trends in Crypto and Blockchain, Next Generation Blockchain Platforms, Contemporary Women in Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency Adoption amongst many other mind expanding educational delights. As African Payment Solutions we are really excited about what blockchain, smart contracts and digital currencies are going to do to transform our online payments space. Whilst most of the consumer activity around crypto currencies is speculative or “investment” related, there is a groundswell of experimentation and infrastructure development going on in the background. The online payments space across Africa is going to be disrupted and transformed rapidly over the next few years. At this stage most of the user and merchant need and activity is around fiat on and off ramps using cards and mobile money to cash in and cash out of crypto. How mobile money payment methods across Africa can be used to load wallets, facilitate onramps for cross border remittances, cross border payments, and to fund purchases of digital currencies for a variety of uses. It looks like the next most popular need for online payments across Africa is stablecoins. Cryptocurrencies haven’t yet matured enough and are a little too volatile for “parking” funds or for a stable transition of funds across space and time. Although consumer wealth is being consistently dissipated with the printing of money and the creation of fiat by governments, consumers haven't really woken up to this fact. Consumers are still more comfortable with the gradual degradation of fiat than the swings and roundabouts of crypto. So stablecoins are the logical way to move cash into the digital domain so that funds can be easily used or programmed and transitioned for online payments, via the internet and mobile, node-to-node, and crossborder, rapidly and cost-effectively. More about this when I return from Decentralized in Athens but in the meantime . .