Fresh push for cryptocurrency trade in Africa

There is a fresh push to have African countries enhance trading amongst themselves to growing their economies.

The initiative, which mostly focuses on the youth, seeks to create a trading environment that allows them to not only exchange ideas, but provide a platform for buying and selling commodities that are made in Africa through peer-to-peer trading (P2P).

Driving the new push is a finance outfit under the banner of a Pan African movement by the name ‘noones.com’ which is providing an avenue for the continent’s 54 nations to trade and offer job opportunities for the youth who are hungry for instant results.

P2P trading refers to the direct exchange of coins between two traders without any involvement of a centralised third party.

“We need a means of exchange as that is the biggest problem in the world. There is no form of payment in the world currently that is borderless; it is only cryptocurrency to put Africa on a level playing field,” said Noones.com app CEO Ray Yousef.

He explained that P2P essentially gives everyone, even unemployed students, the same financial access that only multinational corporations have enjoyed.

Potential of trading

“Once Africa can trade with itself, the result is simple – it is options. Imagine 20 cities like Dubai popping around Africa. Most of our traders are aged between 19 and 26 years,” he said.

The place of Gen Z in the country has been brought to the fore by the ongoing demonstrations against the Finance Bill, 2024.

They have been labelled as a lot that seeks instant results and who are unafraid to question authority.

“The age group between 19 and 26 is waking up to the realisation that the world is one big village and thus want to be on the decision making table,” Mr Yousef explained.

Mr Yousef said it is with this in mind that noones.com is providing a platform that allows the young people, mostly, to use cryptocurrency to do trading and connect to their peers across the continent.

The platform has 1.5 million users and trades $100 million US dollars monthly with a reserve of S25 million in cryptocurrency, offering a place to buy and sell Bitcoin in its marketplace.

He pointed out that Africa has the potential of trading with itself and growing economically without depending on aid from the Americas and Europe while creating linkages that leverage on the natural resources that are rich in Africa.

Adoption of cryptocurrency

The chief executive noted that youth in Nigeria are already leading the way in the adoption of cryptocurrency as a means of trade as Kenyan youth also now pick up the trade.

“P2P traders are on their phones all the time as they are doing trade. They are making $40 dollars per trade some time. some are making a lot more. It is like a game. Instead of playing games on their phones, they are doing P2P trade,” he said.

Mr Yousef decried how Africa is the most over regulated region in the world in terms of trade as it lacks a friendly business environment. 

“If an African wants to buy goods from China, how will they do it yet their banks won’t allow them to send money to China? Cryptocurrency is the answer and P2P is the only solution to all our problems. Once people see how much wealth can be created with free trade, everyone else will want to follow,” he said. 

He said that once Pan Africa trade is fixed, everything else will take care of itself as trade between African countries is at less than 13 percent yet Europe is at 70 percent and America 45 percent. 

“Africa doesn't need NGOs or IMF loans; brothers just need to trade with themselves by creating corridors within African countries.”

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