What was the original purpose of bitcoin? To develop a digital currency, not controlled by a corrupt government or organisation and which could be used in regular transactions. To this end, bitcoin has largely failed. The development of bitcoin is controlled by a handful of powerful mining groups who disagree amongst themselves over the future of bitcoin, leading to a number of forks of bitcoin in recent months, examples of which include Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold.
In addition, the massive demand for bitcoin has ground transaction times to a near standstill, sometimes taking hours to complete even small transactions along with charging fees in the tens of dollars. Combined with all this are the massive price fluctuations that bitcoin (and indeed other coins) face on a daily basis. These all make it difficult for bitcoin and the vast majority of Altcoins to serve as a daily currency. Indeed, bitcoin now serves primarily as an investment platform and store of value. Bitcoin has failed but the need for digital currency immune to whims of governments & profiteering financial institutions while delivering fast and convenient payments and transfers has not gone away. The entire cryptocurrency space remains a massive experimental hub, where new innovations and iterations of past currency models continue to incubate. Which one of these will prove to be the stable, secure and cheap currency that many desire?
An Irish company, Tribal Nexus Ltd, has developed a new cryptocurrency, Baracoin, which is seeking to be the answer to that question. Baracoin is planning to launch its service this year and is aiming to bring a stable digital currency, backed by an equal reserve of Euro, to several African nations, starting off in Southern and Eastern Africa. The company’s decision to focus on Africa is unsurprising, considering that this is a region which has suffered from profiteering of financial institutions, with high costs for basic financial services – including the continent’s large remittances bill (Valued at over $40 Billion annually), along with socio-political issues which have led to unstable local currencies, and cash shortages in some of the countries. This is without taking into account the large swathes of the population not served by traditional financial services institutions, due to challenges like access (e.g. Banks tend not to set up in rural areas) and restrictive Customer Due Diligence policies.
Thus, Africa is not only ripe for expansion of cashless economy, with Sub-Saharan Africans six times more likely to only use a mobile payment account than the rest of the world, but the potential benefits of a service like Baracoin’s can be revolutionary for the continent, with similar though more expensive services being shown to have already raised 2% of local populations above World Bank definitions of poverty.
Furthermore, this is a continent growing faster than the rest of the world, with increasing levels of IT literacy, urbanization and growing, young middle-class populations.
Each Baracoin will be backed by a 1:1 reserve of Euros, facilitated by Company’s relation with Bank of Ireland, ensuring the price of the currency remains stable. Building on the foundations of the robust and proven Stellar Blockchain Platform, Baracoin will be supremely quick to transact, a matter of seconds in most cases. Transaction fees will also be minimal, at 0.25 – 0.75%, becoming even cheaper with additional offers and discounts.
Furthermore, spending Baracoin will earn customers Baratoken, a loyalty token which can be redeemed for offers and rewards with merchants on our network. Baratoken will also be useful for access to other services provided by the network, including low interest peer-to-peer lending and continental insurance.
The Baracoin team are already working on securing partnerships and on-boarding merchants and other stake holders onto their network, working towards their aim of building a sustainable, mutually beneficial network across the continent and ensure Baracoin users and Baratoken holders have access to goods and services they desire from day 1 of system launch.
The Baracoin team will also be conducting Community Development Projects in the areas it operates. These are projects will seek to train individuals for highly skilled work such as programming, build internet infrastructure and carry out educational workshops and healthcare clinics, aiming to meet local needs and utilise the Baracoin Team’s international networks and expertise.
Baracoin will be conducting a crowdsale in early Q2 of this year to fully fund this project, with Baratoken being sold at this crowdsale. Right now, the Baratoken pre-crowdsale is open.
You can visit https://www.baracoin.io/ for more information and to register your interest and participate.
*This is a sponsored post. Readers should do their own due diligence before taking any actions related to the promoted company, product or service. Bitcoin Africa Ltd. is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for any loss or damage caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, product or service mentioned in the sponsored post.*
Nigeria is ranked as Africa’s largest country with the most crypto traders and ranks third globally. The country accounts for the largest volume of cryptocurrency transactions outside the United States. In the last six months, it has been recorded that about 35% of the Nigerian population has traded cryptocurrency.
As encouraging as these numbers may be, Nigeria, as an environment, has been very unfriendly to cryptocurrency and its related aspects. Last year, the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered all commercial banks and lenders to stop transactions or operations in cryptocurrencies, citing a significant threat to the country’s financial system.
The ban on cryptocurrency in Nigeria was big negativity to the Nigerian youth, especially knowing that over 50 million of the population are involved in cryptocurrency. During this time, a lot of crypto trading platforms were shut down in the country. Also, many bank accounts suspected of dealing with cryptocurrency were locked, including their funds.
Even today (as of May 27, 2022), any bank transaction with a description or notes of “crypto,” “bitcoin,” “P2P,” or any crypto-related words will be locked away alongside the account(s).
The unfriendly treatment of cryptocurrency in the country is alarming. In the plight of making a positive solution, the community led to adopting systems where crypto traders could trade cryptocurrency without involving the bank.
Top 4 Problems Nigerians Face When Dealing with Cryptocurrency
Where to Buy or Sell Cryptocurrencies
Today, finding the right crypto trading platform that works for you significantly can be frustrating. Many cryptocurrency exchanges came into existence to aid in safer cryptocurrency transactions in the country. In this plight, some fraudulent platforms were made in disguise to exploit money from crypto investors. How would Nigerian crypto traders know which platform is genuine or not? With some checklists for selecting the best crypto exchange in Nigeria, you will be given key guidelines on how to choose the best place to sell bitcoin in Nigeria.
Speed of Transactions
A fast crypto transaction is important as the speed of cryptocurrency may block. Most times, transactions take hours to complete. Ideally, crypto transactions on regular crypto trading platforms take between 10 minutes to one hour. Surprisingly, some take over 5 hours. However, a few crypto transactions can take less than five minutes, depending on the app. In cases where we need transactions done quickly, or we accept crypto payments for your business, how do we intend to confirm payment before allowing customers to take their products? Should the customer wait for hours?
The speed of transactions has been a damaging factor for most Nigerian crypto traders. This has been a reason why many Nigerian companies find it difficult to accept cryptocurrency as payment options for their businesses.
High and Inconsistent Fees
Crypto transaction fees are another issue many Nigerians face. To really compare the best options for you, you have to look at the fees before and after conversion. What are the withdrawal fees, processing fees, and receiving fees,… These fees cause a huge discouragement in crypto trading in the country.
Limitations
It is saddening that many Nigerian crypto traders cannot make transactions because many of these crypto trading apps have put some limits on how much they can withdraw, receive, buy or sell. This breaches the purpose of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency has made it easy for people to send money from one place to another without a barrier. Why should I not be able to receive my funds because it is below your limit for withdrawal?
Limitations have made many Nigerians lose interest in cryptocurrency or lose their cryptos.
These factors, alongside many others, have caused the trading of cryptocurrency in Nigeria very difficult.
How Breet Solves Some of the Issues Nigerians Face in Cryptocurrency
Breet is an OTC crypto exchange platform that allows users and businesses who simply want to receive crypto and get a flat equivalent of their coin to convert their crypto to cash money immediately.
With Breet’s over-the-counter system, you are saved from the hassle of boring explanations of what and how crypto works and tedious illustrations of cryptocurrency market charts. Breet enables users to securely convert and withdraw their crypto coin to cash money in less than five(5) minutes without the use of peer-to-peer trading or any third-party agent.
Breet is a revolutionary new way to convert and withdraw your crypto coin without the need for peer-to-peer trading or any third-party agent. With just one click, you can have cash money in hand within five minutes.
With Breet, you can sell your cryptocurrency in less than 5 minutes. This is an incredible feature on its own, meaning businesses can now accept cryptocurrencies as payment options without having their customers wait for hours to confirm payment.
Breet is also completely free. There are no hidden charges, no withdrawal fees, no processing fees and no receiving fees. There are zero charges with Breet. Breet’s free usage solves the issue of high and inconsistent charges for many Nigerian crypto traders.
There is no limitation to how much you can receive or withdraw on Breet. You don’t have to have about 10,000 Naira worth of cryptocurrency before you can withdraw. You can even withdraw as low as 100 Naira with Breet Exchange.
Breet is simple, free and certified. There is not much sugar coating to tell before believing that Breet is, arguably, the best crypto trading platform in Nigeria currently. The incredible reviews on the Breet app give perfect evidence.
What more do you need? If not, a crypto exchange that makes crypto transactions easy and makes people happy. You should become a Breet user by downloading Breet mobile app available on all Android and iPhone devices.
The much-anticipated transition of the Ethereum network from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus is finally taking place. The adaptation of PoS has always been the plan and a vital part of scaling Ethereum by future upgrades. However, abruptly shifting to PoS can pose significant technical and community challenges that are not as simple as using PoW to achieve network consensus. Having said that, what exactly are PoS and PoW?
Proof of Work
Proof-of-work (PoW) is a consensus algorithm that allows for the secure, decentralised verification of transactions on a blockchain. In a PoW system, miners are responsible for verifying and committing transactions to the blockchain. During the verification process, miners compete against each other to solve complex cryptographic puzzles. The first miner to solve the puzzle is rewarded with cryptocurrency, and the transaction is added to the blockchain.
Reasons To Shift From Proof of Work
The Ethereum ecosystem has evolved at an astounding rate in the last year. This growth was primarily due to a significant emergence and explosion of NFTs and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) initiatives. While the change-over was imminent, some factors to be considered for the same are:
The PoW consensus protocol requires users to utilise significant computational power to validate transactions and add new blocks to the network.
Users who devote their computational resources to the shared ledger are miners.
These miners are rewarded with Ether tokens in exchange for the computing power they have supplied to the network.
With PoW consensus, Ethereum takes up to 113 terawatt-hours of electricity in a year. According to Digiconomist, it is more than the total electricity consumption of the Netherlands per year.
The current Ethereum transaction with PoW consensus takes up energy equivalent to the consumption of one week of energy of an average US household.
With so many downsides to its cap, PoW has many advantages, which is one of the main reasons it has been a reliable consensus for so long. The PoW consensus has been robust and secure all these years. But the consensus can be utilised by a cryptocurrency with a massive valuation and relatively simple use case, such as the bitcoin. With the amount of energy and power involved, it becomes difficult for individuals to meddle with a high valuation asset.
Proof of Stake
The consensus protocol Proof-of-stake (PoS) has been introduced to address the issue of over-mining. Proof of stake (PoS) is critical to understand because it could eventually replace the proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism that is currently used by most cryptocurrencies.
“PoS is a way to achieve decentralised consensus without using energy-intensive mining. It is an alternative to the more common proof of work algorithm. With PoS, a cryptocurrency’s blockchain is secured by its token holders who are required to lock up their tokens as stake and not by miners equipped with powerful hardware. It’s an energy-efficient, cost-effective and therefore, a popular choice for crypto giants like Ethereum,” states Dev Sharma, CEO of Blockwiz, a crypto marketing agency.
In contrast to PoW, in which the individual who completes the mathematical proof first is rewarded with new coins, with PoS, no new coins are created.
Benefits of Proof of Stake Consensus
Proof-of-stake introduces several enhancements over the PoS mechanism:
Improved resource proficiency – you don’t need as many energy mining blocks.
Minimal entry barriers, lower hardware requirements – Even if you don’t possess top-tier hardware, you still get ample opportunities to participate in the creation of blocks.
More excellent resistance to centralization – PoS would imminently facilitate the generation of more nodes.
Staking facilitates the operation of a node. It does not necessitate significant expenditure on equipment purchases or resources, and if you lack the ETH token to stake, you cannot participate in staking pools.
Staking consensus enables reliable sharding. Shards enable Ethereum to generate new blocks simultaneously, leading to enhanced throughput of transactions.
In a PoW mechanism, sharding the chain would reduce the amount of energy required to modify a particular network section.
In a Nutshell
Proof of stake (PoS) is a type of algorithm used by cryptocurrencies to determine who gets to create new blocks on the blockchain. PoS works by requiring users to lock up some of their currency in a smart contract called a stake. In return, they are given the right to validate blocks on the network and earn rewards.
The advantage of PoS is that it doesn’t require the massive energy consumption that PoW does. This non-dependency on massive energy utilisation makes it more environmentally friendly. It reduces the risk of centralisation since few users would be able to control the majority of the currency. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Ethereum is making the much-anticipated switch.
CEO Michael Wu joined Forkast News to discuss crypto’s consumer adoption and what’s next for crypto.
CEO Michael Wu joined CNBC Street Signs Asia to share how Amber Group seeks a balance between regulation and crypto development.
CEO Michael Wu gave an interview with Economist Impact at Technology for Change Week on how to stay ahead of the curve in the fintech space.
Managing Partner Annabelle Huang joined Economist Impact’s Asia Trade Week to discuss the future of crypto as payment in Asia.
Managing Partner Annabelle Huang joined Avalanche Summit to discuss the opportunities and challenges in DeFi.
Managing Partner Annabelle Huang joined Goldman Sach’s panel discussion on “Digital assets – Investing in the future” to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Managing Partner Annabelle Huang gave a guest lecture on DeFi and Web3 for the International Finance class at Singapore Management University.
Managing Partner Annabelle Huang joined the DIG FIN VOX podcast to talk about Amber Group’s move to Singapore and into retail.
CSO Dimitrios Kavvathas joined Blockchain Africa Conference 2022 to discuss institutional investment in crypto.
CSO Dimitrios Kavvathas joined FinTech Festival India at a panel discussion on “De-Fi – A better solution for peer-to-peer lending”.
CSO Dimitrios Kavvathas joined the World Blockchain Summit in Dubai at a panel discussion on “Fostering the global crypto ecosystem”.
Europe Managing Director Sophia Shluger delivered a keynote speech on digital wealth at Blockchain Africa Conference 2022.
Europe Managing Director Sophia Shluger joined the CryptoCompare Summit in London to discuss the building blocks of the new digital economy.
Europe Managing Director Sophia Shluger joined the FundFocus Europe 2022 conference to discuss the foundation for the widespread institutional adoption of cryptocurrency.
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Latin America Managing Director Nicole Pabello joined the Ethereum Rio conference to discuss the LATAM Ecosystem in the world.
Institutional Sales Director Justin d’Anethan joined EmergentX’s Annual Digital Asset Summit to discuss the institutionalizing of the digital asset industry.
Managing Director Ben Radclyffe joined Credit Suisse’s Asian Investment Conference to discuss the spillovers between crypto and equity markets.