At the Blockchain Africa 2023 conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, in March 2023, industry professionals argued that Bitcoin (BTC) and stablecoins would promote widespread adoption of virtual currencies among African countries.
Analysts have called Africa a "sleeping giant of cryptocurrencies". In their view, Bitcoin and stablecoins will be the two main factors of mass use of digital assets on the continent.
Marius Reitz, general manager of Luno in the African region, commented that the adoption of cryptocurrencies will increase in the coming years.
He said that in about 10 years we can expect a situation where countries will start recognising Bitcoin as legal money. He also said that Bitcoin could become a regional currency or even potentially become part of the common currency of the African Union.
Jonathan Ovadia, CEO and co-founder of the Ovex platform, was quite sure that stablecoin is more profitable than Bitcoin.
"Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are certainly beneficial because they don't require authorisation and are easily transferable - but if you earn minimum wage in Africa, you can't store all your finances in them," he commented.
According to him, stablecoin is one of the major innovations in the cryptocurrency market. His view was confirmed by other experts, who stressed that Nigerians prefer to use bank transfers as well as virtual currencies such as M-Pesa, which has become widespread in Kenya.
Jonathan Owadia strongly believes that digital coins have great potential to revolutionise the banking system.
