VIDEO – A Preview of ‘Eth East Africa Meetup’ by ConsenSys

For a second time in 2018, ConsenSys brought together Ethereum and blockchain enthusiasts to discuss blockchain and blockchain use cases, in addition to what ConsenSys is doing in the space.

Part of the discussion included a look at the the uPort blockchain application that enables a single identity on the blockchain in order to give users more control over how and where their identity is used.

Head of Enterprise Innovation, Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), Mr. Irungu Waggema, was also on a panel to discuss how the NSE is looking at adopting blockchain, and in particular tokenize the NSE ecosystem.

“We have different assets that need to be transferred and traded. For us in the capital markets, a possible use case would be digitizing assets such as bonds. In the real estate, we have a real estate investment trust where you can tokenize and sell units of it. A company shares can also be tokenized. There is a whole lot of potential in the digital assets space.” Said Mr. Waggema.

Irungu Waggema, Head of Enterprise Innovation, NSE Kenya

Mr. Waggema was very positive about the blockchain and tokenizing the different aspects of NSE. He mentioned about the Capital Markets Authority Sandbox with a possible timeline of February 2019 when it is expected to roll out before they can start adopting such innovations.

Among the limitations he mentioned are the Know Your Customer (KYC) pain points that regulatory bodies are trying to resolve before adoption can start to take place. He however encouraged the attendees to dive in and start developing solutions despite these limitations.