Kenya goes crazy for cryptocurrencies.
The fact emerges not only from the amount of articles that covered the topic in national newspapers and blogs in 2021, but also finds confirmation from insiders.
In an interview with leading industry media, the general manager for Africa of "Luno", a company specializing in bitcoin exchanges and the like explains:
"The country's crypto industry is booming with a rapidly emerging crop of companies building blockchain-based solutions and considering its young population, high heels of mobile connectivity and familiarity with digital payment solutions such as mobile money, it is firmly positioned to emerge as East Africa's leading crypto hub in 2022."
The tourism crisis and the exponential drop in admissions to the African country due to the pandemic have resulted in a lack of foreign exchange reserves across the continent, and this defection has been felt most in a nation, like Kenya, that is among the fastest growing of the emerging nations and is accustomed to major injections and companies dealing with cross-border payments. According to the experiments, now these companies will be led to consider cryptocurrencies as an alternative means of handling transactions.
"With the severe lack of foreign exchange reserves across Africa preventing companies from receiving international payments and remitting their profits," Reitz explained, "many companies may look to cryptocurrencies as an alternative means of handling cross-border transactions.
The interest however has also reached individuals and companies that operate only domestically and is also part of an attempt to escape an increasingly careful but still unresponsive control system on modern technologies and methods of saving, exchanging and exporting currency. This can certainly pave the way for Kenya as Africa's leading crypto-hub.
"However, progress in this area will be highly dependent on a favorable regulatory climate, and if this were to materialize, cryptocurrencies could emerge as an important resource for companies with extensive operations throughout Africa, of which Kenya remains the most promising country in this respect." Reitz concludes.