Why Bitcoin might not see early institutional adoption in Africa

Let's talk about Africa for a bit. This area is often labeled as developing rather than developed, and you can totally see why. They face issues like unstable currencies, inflation woes, and a lack of trust in banks. There's a huge youth population there, and we're starting to see a rise in entrepreneurial spirit along with the demand for cross-border payments. So, it looks like Bitcoin might not get picked up by institutions first in Africa. Instead, we could see it being adopted through things like informal trading, freelancing, and remittances. Right now, Bitcoin's making its way through the underground scene, but I don't think that's gonna last. It’s reaching a point where it’s gonna be hard to ignore.

We still have many African countries whose governments are not yet involved in cryptocurrency yet Bitcoin adoption among the people continues to grow rapidly. With the high cost of living and persistent inflation in many of these countries uoung people are beginning to think outside the box because for many survival is their main goal.The truth is that adoption has to start at the individual level. People need to become familiar with Bitcoin's use cases in their everyday lives. Once governments and institutions see that people are using and trusting the network, they may begin to explore ways of incorporating it into the system..If we eventually reach a point where a significant portion of the African population trusts and uses Bitcoin without fear, adoption rates could increase dramatically. At that stage, institutions and governments may find it difficult to ignore and could be compelled to follow suit..

Bitcoin adoption was not institutional-first anywhere else either! It was always regular people who first adopted it and then the institutional investors jumped on board and tried to take their own fish from the "stormy waters" that is the bitcoin market.

Really, people get acquainted to something they dont know gradually...African is not taking any underground route in bitcoin adoption late, because some countries that are civilised have not fully adopted bitcoin...or make bitcoin a legal tender and it remains bitcoin...Their's something I understand in bitcoin adoption, countries doesn’t openly or fully adopt bitcoin...it's individuals that fully adopt the use of Bitcoin faster not a country...

The exact things I wanted to say. Even in the global scene, institutions and government came last in the adoption hierarchy. I'm happy to see you again pooya87, never knew you are back.

We are certainly seeing a rising of interest across Africa regarding things like self custody and entrepreneurship and so many more . Because of that I believe this momentum /growth will almost certainly be unstoppable, especially since the government leaves the people with no choice but to look for alternatives.that said to me all that is left is making Bitcoin easier for the average person to use not just the tech savvy guys in Africa for that it's easy to say Africa is currently standing on the edge of revolution where by it’s either endless innovation or more suffering. Overall ​While Bitcoin adoption has brought a little bit of  stability, as long as African's lack good leadership it can start to feel like an endless loop because the more you earn, the higher the cost of living becomes due to inflation and demand-and-supply pressures. That's all for me...

You guys are definitely right because by default or if we look at the origin of adoption, institutional bodies and regulations came last and it's still difficult for them to gain control of the market now, no matter how they try to regulate or force compliance. The volume of those who have adopted cryptocurrency so far has grown tremendously mostly in Africa where inflation hits harder and government corruption is high while economic growth is ignored. It's no fault that decentralization works better than the legal default banking system, hence why institutions are getting onboard just to bridge the gap and earn revenue from it.

Show me one developed country in Africa, they are all developing while majority are even on under-developed. Why do we need to do through third party services before bitcoin adoption, bitcoin is made available for everyone to adopt as long as they are willing to independently who needs without going through any means and you can as well get paid or make the payment in it to any international recipients at your discretion.

You should not expect that adoption in any country starts with institutions.  It took a LONG time before the first few institutions jumped in.  It will take a long time for most countries to have one jumping in the wagon.  Bitcoin is not that new any more but it is still something pretty difficult to approach for them for obvious reasons.

In the majority of African countries, I doubt that governments will allow institutions to adopt bitcoin at any time soon despite it becoming unavoidable. You are talking about countries whose economy and finances are entirely subject to external dictates and can't even control their local currencies. Countries that are excluded from using the global payment systems. In my country, people aren't allowed to buy products online because they are not allowed to transfer money outside the country (with limited exceptions for some types of companies). In the parliament, voices are still calling for a free banking system.

There has already been individual adoption of Bitcoin in Africa way before any institutions coming in to bag theirs, and afterall, Bitcoin purpose isn't for institutional approval before showing herself, it's for every damn individual no matter the continent, to fully interact, transact and spend crypto easily without stress. What comes later in the future by governmental agencies to dominate the ecosystem by bringing rules that suits them, will not have anything to do with crypto itself.

Pretty normal and institutions are usually the last one to follow the train, considering all the regulations they needed to obey. Lately I've seen people from Africa adopting crypto for remittance more and more, the rate of growth probably surpassed developed countries. Bitcoin really find its use in there which is great. Institutional adoption will be there when everybody is already adopting crypto and they can't ignore the growing market anymore.

Such issues are national and governmental ones, not institutional ones, you misunderstood that. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies and blockchains provide very good solutions for African people with permissionless and cross border transactions. It means a lot for people who belong to unbanked or underbanked class by opening gates to the world monetary systems without needs of having a bank account or using bank transfer. Of course people can deal with each other and complete their trades completely by bitcoin or altcoins but they can use bank accounts and bank transfers for their deals as well. There are other options such as gift cards and in the Global South nations, trading with gift cards is very popular and one of their favorites. [List] Gift cards providers.

I heard this too but I don't have the number. I remember reading a thread where someone says they're using crypto to make payments overseas and whatnot. Is there any reliable report on this? Saying it surpassed developed countries can mean many things. Even "rate of growth" can be debatable. It would be great if the report mentions how they calculate and what category they used to determine that. Even in my country where the use case is limited to trading, it was counted as "adoption" in many reports that I've read.

We must need to consider here a poor governance now if you can't see the government does not take any action to help their community there is no chance that they will grow and learn throughout about innovation and especially with the bitcoin. Also, people will seek for their daily needs and there is no time, resources, and of course money to make an investment so they will choose to survive then having an investment.

Then it's just perfect. In such cases, Bitcoin functioned as it should. Bitcoin used directly between persons and without institutions in between is precisely its envisioned function. Informal trade may sound insecure to some especially those who are used to dealing with other people using banks, payment processors, and other centralized financial apps, but it's actually where freedom, control, and ownership truly reside. Remittance using Bitcoin via non-custodial wallets, which means no institutions as third parties, is precisely how one makes use of the seizure-proof, borderless, censorship-resistant features of the technology.

I am from a developing country, and I was one of the first people who bought Bitcoin, my country doesn't even care at the time of Bitcoin existed or not, I don't care either, I am not one of those people who waits on their leaders to tell them about Bitcoin or anything before they decide to buy or risk money on it, I don't want on anyone I just went ahead, it was the reason why many people around me thought I was crazy, because no one was into Bitcoin in my surrounding when I started in 2016, the only support I had was from my late father.

Adoption is growing faster in Africa than in some developed nations. However, the continent is still playing catch-up to other regions when it comes to the values traded. Some developing nations have begun to make crypto laws to regulate the industry. Policy makers are now aware that they cannot stop the informal crypto sector. So they want to regulate the sector to encourage the use of centralized platforms. The government is also interested in collecting taxes and monitoring crypto transactions.

When the whole world was watching the beginning of the situation between Iran and the United States, on-chain analysts noticed that Bitcoins were being used much more actively in Iran. And even though the Iranian population and government lost a lot of usdt frozen on exchanges as a result of tether's decision, everyone realized that Iran resorted to Bitcoin precisely because of the complete decentralization of this asset. And no matter how slow and unwieldy it may be called, Bitcoin has remained the digital gold that is used in difficult times.

I agree. Most people adopt a tool because it solves a problem. If Bitcoin makes cross-border payments easier for freelancers, adoption will come naturally.