Mama Bitcoin is the pseudonym claimed by a young Senegalese Bitcoiner called Bineta. Her business, Bleu comme la mer, was the first retailer in Senegal (and possibly West Africa) to accept crypto as payment. She’s also the first generation of her family to read and write proficiently. The name Mama Bitcoin takes inspiration from the initials of her name, while the “mama” not only reflects her motherly instincts but serves to inspire other women in West Africa to get into blockchain technology and Bitcoin (BTC). She told Cointelegraph: “There are very few women that are active in the blockchain space …

South African crypto exchange VALR has raised $50 million in a Series B equity funding round, marking the largest-ever funding for an African crypto exchange. With this latest round of funding, VALR’s valuation has increased to $240 million, a 10X in growth since it raised its $3.4 million in a Series A round in July 2020. This round was led by VC Pantera Capital, Alameda Research, Coinbase Ventures, and several others. VALR claims to have processed over $7.5 billion in trading volume since 2019 from over 250,000 retail customers and 500 global institutional users. It currently has about 420 BTC …

Nourou is a 29 year old Bitcoiner with a vision for his home country. A former financial analyst for a French Bank, he founded Bitcoin Senegal in late 2021. Following an eight-year stint in France, during which Nourou earned his Masters degree, Bitcoin Chaincode qualifications, and a deep understanding of legacy financial markets thanks to work in investment finance, he was primed to orange-pill Senegal. He returned to his home country disheartened to learn that Coinmap (a website showing Bitcoin vendors and merchants around the world), had zero locations in Senegal. That’s despite singer and influencer Akon’s plans to set …

Africa-focused blockchain internet company 3air has officially abandoned the Cardano blockchain in favor of SKALE, a network powered by Ethereum, after reporting a “massive talent shortage” for Haskell developers. The skillset for Haskell, which is Cardano’s primary programming language, appears to be in short supply, according to 3air CEO Sandi Bitenc. After spending months actively recruiting for senior Haskell coders to build on Cardano, 3air was only able to obtain two entry-level part-time developers, said Bitenc. Although the company reached out to development agencies recommended by Cardano, 3air still wasn’t able to find the talent it needed. By migrating to …

Global climate change continues to challenge the world's productivity and has already badly impacted the overall ability to maintain minimum sustainable goods production in Nigeria, as well as impacting overall food security for much of the population. Today, 100 million people in Africa face multiple crises, emergencies and catastrophic levels of food insecurity - with an increase of more than 60% between 2019 and 2020. As a result, social uplift has become a key goal for Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) impact investing and global interest under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNDP). As concerns around climate change …

Even though the digital asset market seems to be witnessing a bit of a lull at the moment, the adoption of crypto-centric tech has continued to move forward with a full head of steam globally. Africa, in particular, is a continent where a growing list of mainstream financial entities have continued to make their presence felt, as they have begun to realize that the economic opportunities presented by the region are immense. To put things into perspective, a recent report released by Singapore-based crypto data provider Triple A shows that the North African country of Morocco currently boasts one of …

A group of people who have claimed they refuse to take any of the COVID-19 vaccines — at a time when the number of cases around the world is at an all-time high — is reportedly looking for a cryptocurrency expert to join them in Africa. According to a Friday report from Vice, the group of anti-vaxxers is building a “community” off the coast of southeastern Africa and plans to hire private chefs, television presenters, and crypto experts. The company behind the group, Liberty Places, is a self-described real estate firm based out of the archipelago of Zanzibar. It has …

Web3 and social games publisher Carry1st has raised $20 million in Series A funding to further expand product development in Africa — a continent that could become the premier hub for the gaming industry over the next decade. The investment round was led by Silicon Valley venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which has been highly active in the blockchain space, with additional participation from Avenir and Google-parent Alphabet. Carry1st’s existing backers, including Riot Games, Konvoy Ventures, Raine Ventures and TTV Capital, also participated in the investment round. The cash injection will be used by Carry1st to expand its content portfolio, grow …

Estimates from Triple A, a Singaporean cryptocurrency provider and aggregator, state that 0.9 million people, or roughly 2.4% of Morocco’s total population, currently own cryptocurrency. That puts the kingdom as the top country in North Africa and in the top 50 holders of cryptocurrency population percentage, just ahead of Portugal. Data from Useful Tulips — a platform that tracks peer-to-peer BTC trading across the globe — confirms the trend. The Kingdom of the West, as it’s known locally, has been the runaway North African leader for BTC trades in the past year, pipped by only Saudi Arabia when weighing up …

Monday marked the start of the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations tournament — the largest men’s football championship series in Africa. At the same time, Binance announced its official partnership with the Confederation of African Football as well as its official sponsorship for the AFCON 2021 tournament, becoming the first crypto and blockchain sponsor for the event. Through this sponsorship, Binance will also be promoting CAF’s social media content which will include the Assist of the Day, Assist of the Week and Assist of the Tournament. This content will cover games from five cities in Cameroon across all six venues. …

Samsung Electronics America announced Monday at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas its partnership with veritree, a blockchain-based climate solutions platform, to plant 2 million mangrove trees in Madagascar over the next three months. Veritree uses blockchain technology to manage the reforestation process and verify each tree that is planted. The tree-planting initiative is part of Samsung’s nature-based action plan on environmental sustainability, specifically to capture and sequester carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The goal is to restore roughly 200 hectares of land and sequester roughly 1 billion pounds of CO2 over a 25-year period. Veritree, developed by …

A groundbreaking five-year study into whether crypto token incentives can improve health outcomes for patients with HIV/AIDS will be launched in Kenya by the end of the year. On Nov 1, the blockchain-powered healthcare ecosystem Immunify.Life and the Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST) announced they had secured the approval needed from an ethics committee and the national commission to launch the study. Together they will conduct a five-year study on HIV/AIDS starting before the end of 2021 in the Kakamega County region of Kenya, before extending throughout the rest of the country. The first major project of …