The Crypto Fest 2020: Here is a List of 5 Speakers at the Event with a Focus on Africa

Just 3 months after the successful 2020 Blockchain DeFi Conference, South Africa’s Bitcoin Events have once again outdone themselves with the Crypto Fest 2020 that brought some of the biggest names in the crypto space together to talk crypto in Africa and the world.

Dubbed – ‘Rumble in the Crypto Jungle’ – the Crypto Fest 2020 featured over 30 speakers and about 1, 000 attendees during the virtual one-day event.

The Crypto Fest 2020 included lively sessions, discussions, demos, and trainings that featured regulators, lawyers, entrepreneurs, engineers, CEOs, CIOs, CTOs, heads of innovation and strategy across various countries, companies and institutions.

SEE ALSO[WATCH] Here are All the Panel Sessions from The DeFi Africa Conference 2020

Among key speakers at the conference included:

  • Tone Vays – Crypto Influencer, Derivatives Trader & Consultant
  • Ray Youssef – CEO, Paxful
  • Chris Thomas – Head of Digital Assets, Swiss Quote

Below is a curated list of spakers and sessions from the event with a particular focus on Africa:

 

  • Keynote Address: The True Use Cases of Bitcoin by Ray Youssef – CEO, Paxful

In this talk, Ray offers exciting insights into the P2P crypto space on the African continent and how Paxful is making the entire experience of owning and transacting with bitcoin fast and convenient for individuals and small businesses in countries like Kenya and Nigeria.

He highlighted the recent introduction of the Tether stablecoin on the platform due to user demand, and how this is helping combat currency fluctuations in countries like Argentina, Congo, Venezuela, Turkey, and Zimbabwe.

He also talked about the upcoming future plans for Paxful in enabling merchants to use a ‘Pay with Paxful’ feature to help them easily sell their products and customers to buy easily anywhere in the world using crypto.

 

  • Creating the Basis for the Financial System of the Future by Gabriel Kurman – Community Director, RSK Labs

In this talk, Gabriel discussed the need to create an efficient and low-cost financial system that is affordable and open to everyone in the world. He particularly focused on those excluded from the current banking system in Africa and South America and highlighted potential use cases of bitcoin in Latin America. He also said that this open financial system is especially useful and needed in Africa.

Gabriel believes Latin America and Africa are the largest adopters of blockchain technology and thus most likely to be affected by regulations coming from abroad. He highlighted how entrepreneurs from a startup called Ribbon in South Africa are using crypto to incentive HIV patients to continue with their medication and how such projects are helping solve problems in the emerging world.

He also sees much collaboration between Latin America and Africa in the coming years.

 

  •  Future of Payments: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic cash system by Nathaniel Luz – Lead, Dash Nigeria

In this talk, Nathaniel discussed the need for a fast, borderless, cheap, and permissionless platform that is easy to use across Africa. He discussed the unique features and capabilities of cryptocurrencies in Africa and why they are the future of payments on the continent.

Nathaniel believes that bitcoin is currently not fit to be the P2P payment system, and instead, has become the digital gold. As a result, other payment methods like Dash are having a real use case on the continent.

He also said that while crypto remains a luxury for first world nations, it is a lifeline for Africans and Dash is helping solve some of the current challenges on the continent when it comes to remittances, international trade, and currency controls.

He also provided a demo on how Nigerians are using Bitcoin and Dash to carry out remittances, with the use of Dash being 16% cheaper, and how crypto payments will look like in the next decade.

 

  • Realizing the Transformational Power of the Dai Stablecoin on the African Economy by Sahabia Yakubu – Africa Ambassador, Maker

In this talk, Sahabia looked at the volatile nature of cryptocurrencies and why this is slowing down their adoption on the continent. He looked at how stablecoins can help solve the volatility issue and enable wider adoption across the continent.

Sahabia looked at how the Dai stablecoin will help the African economy through a reduction in corruption, greater transparency and financial inclusion, promotion of intra-Africa trade, and inflation protection and savings.

 

  • How Keyless Wallets Are Helping Blockchain SMEs Save Money, Time and Grow by Suren Ravindra and Hakim Mamoni – CTO, Thresh0ld 

In this talk, Hakim featured an interesting product that enables SMEs manage private keys in an affordable and secure manner. The company helps deliver an infrastructure to manage blockchain assets for SMEs at an affordable price.

Hakim said Thresh0ld is largely focused on delivering its infrastructure in Africa with a focus on solving inherent challenges for exchanges on the continent. Cost savings for up to 50% were shown to have been achieved using these keyless wallets.

Hakim highlighted some of the brands and exchanges across Africa that are running on Thresh0ld such as Tradefada and Busha to deliver keyless infrastructure at a fair price.

 

While the above sessions are a small highlight of the much larger event that featured other speakers from across the globe, they provided great insights into how Africa is quickly adopting and benefiting from the growth of cryptocurrencies and how these are having actual use cases in the emerging world.

 

NB: We shall provide an update when the above sessions are available on video

 

 

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