Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin gains traction in West Africa with educational drive

Bitcoin (BTC) adoption in West Africa is dominated by Nigeria, the crypto powerhouse and the region’s economic engine. But against a backdrop of anti-French sentiment, Bitcoin educational efforts are also bubbling away in French-speaking West Africa.
Senegal recently opened its first physical Bitcoin exchange and education center called Bitique, and the country of 17 million people will host another Bitcoin Forum in the capital, Dakar, in December, where pseudonymous local Bitcoin advocate, known as Nourou, runs an independent Bitcoin node beamed from space.
In Benin, a country of 13 million people to the west of Nigeria, the Bitcoin-only Bitcoin Mastermind conference takes place next month. The first of its kind in the country, Bitcoin Mastermind unites Bitcoin entrepreneurs and crypto enthusiasts from homegrown groups and businesses such as Izichange, GoesPay and Flash, and it offers locals a space to learn about Bitcoin.
Cointelegraph spoke with Nourou, the founder of Dakar Bitcoin Days and Bitcoin Senegal, and Loïc Kassamoto, the founder of Bitcoin Mastermind, to better understand the Bitcoin and West African crypto evolution — or revolution.
A rising tide lifts all boats
Countries in French-speaking West Africa are subjected to the West African CFA franc currency, described by the Economist as a “colonial hangover.” The Senegalese are vocal in their criticism of the currency, with some Bitcoin advocates, such as local crypto enthusiast and entrepreneur Mama Bitcoin, explaining that it’s pretty normal to complain about the currency — an implicit criticism of post-colonial French policy in the region.
Anti-French sentiment has historically existed in the region but has recently manifested in public demonstrations. Neighboring Mali recently dropped French as the nation’s official language — a law in place since the country won its independence in 1960.
In Niger, to the east of Mali and north of Nigeria, a recent military coup represented a significant setback for French President Emmanuel Macron and France’s military strategy in the region. Well-known French newspaper Le Monde commented that the coup was a “new heavy blow” for France’s military strategy in Niger’s Sahel region.
A groundswell of alternative currency initiatives is occurring across French-speaking West Africa. Growing numbers of Senegalese are turning to Bitcoin as a savings tool and a means of exchange, while in Benin, Bitcoin Mastermind’s Kassamoto told Cointelegraph the number of Beninois turning to Bitcoin is also on the up.
Magazine: Bitcoin in Senegal: Why is this African country using BTC?
In the West, much financial discussion and education tends to take place online. However, the emphasis in West African countries is on physical meetups and real-life interaction. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nourou said that discussions about Bitcoin and money were transferred and confined to online platforms such as ClubHouse and X (formerly Twitter), but more and more physical spaces have opened up post-pandemic.

Indeed, as Kassamoto explains, one of the keys to unlocking deeper levels of financial education and demonstrating how West Africans could use a decentralized currency such as Bitcoin is through interactions in the real world:
“Bitcoin conferences, meetups and shops provide opportunities for education, outreach and direct interaction. Conferences and meetups bring the community together, share knowledge and exchange experiences.”
Norou opened Bitique, which is Dakar’s first physical Bitcoin store for buying and selling cryptocurrency. He explained that in addition to trading services, there will also be educational programs for people to learn about Bitcoin in person: “Training courses will be around 10,000 francs [$16] for two or even three hours of training.”
The in-person training goes hand in hand with a series of classroom sessions that Bitcoin Senegal conducts nationwide called the “Baol Digital Kids” program, which teaches kids how to use Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.
@SeckIdrissa, un membre actif de notre communauté, vient d’animer une session de sensibilisation sur la thématique Bitcoin/cryptomonnaies à de jeunes enfants, lors du “Baol Digital Kids” organisé par @xaralatech.
Une initiative à encourager et à soutenir pic.twitter.com/aX4u9kVFoz— ₿itcoin Sénégal (@bitcoin_sen) August 11, 2023
The kids in the video who received and sent their first satoshis via the layer-2 Lightning Network can spend the money at a growing number of merchants listed on the open-source Bitcoin tool BTCmap.org. In just 18 months, Dakar has developed from one small Bitcoin office to tens of artisans, restaurants and cafés accepting the cryptocurrency.
Nourou recently received a Blockstream Satellite kit, which, once set up, will allow him to run a Bitcoin node that will be protected against network interruptions. The internet service can sometimes be patchy and unreliable in West Africa. According to Blockstream, the satellite kit ensures that any connected Bitcoin full node “will not be isolated or partitioned,” with blocks streaming continuously for the node to verify.
Across a few borders in Benin, Kassamoto, along with his peers, runs what he believes to be one of Benin’s first Bitcoin nodes.
8GB of Ram and using the Ubuntu process from Umbrel and bim we became probably one of the first to run a Bitcoin node in Benin
We’ll share more experience about this soon.
— Loïc Kassamoto (@Loicbtc) January 24, 2023
He explains that Bitcoin adoption has increased, but it comes with risks due to its association with crypto:
“Bitcoin adoption in West Africa is greatly helped and hindered by cryptocurrencies.”
Kassamoto said that the money-making side of crypto attracts more and more people into the “crypto universe,” but crypto scams, loss and rug pulls taint Bitcoin’s appeal. The promise of crypto riches drawing noobies into Bitcoin is not necessarily good.
“It’s toxic for Bitcoin because these people are very quickly disappointed with their loss and associate it with Bitcoin because they haven’t even had time to understand the difference between the two,” he said.
Kassamoto said that “Bitcoin, not crypto,” is what the West African community should understand.
There are more Bitcoin meetups and, therefore, more opportunities to demonstrate what many Bitcoin exchanges and thought leaders have preached for some time: that there could be a difference between Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market.
Related: Worldcoin cryptocurrency project suspended in Kenya
The Central African Republic, which made headlines in 2022 for adopting Bitcoin as legal tender, was elevated and then dropped by large swathes of the Bitcoin community. After adopting Bitcoin, it announced its own crypto token, Sango Coin, while the country is now experimenting with tokenizing real-world assets such as farmland.
In Ghana, to the east of Benin, another large Bitcoin and educational conference will occur this year. Strike CEO Jack Mallers and Human Rights Foundation chief strategy officer Alex Gladstein will speak as part of a Bitcoin educational drive in West Africa.
Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin Price Analysis: What’s Next for BTC After Breaking Above $104K?

Bitcoin kicked off the second week of May with a powerful continuation move, breaking through key resistance levels and climbing to fresh local highs. While the rally has been rapid, and the current technical signals suggest there’s still gas left in the tank, caution is still warranted.
The Daily Chart
On the daily timeframe, BTC has pushed decisively above the $100K resistance and is now hovering around the $104K mark. This breakout marks a clear escape from the month-long compression between the rising trendline and the 100 and 200-day moving averages.
The price has reclaimed both the moving averages around the $90K price level, and the RSI is holding above 70, indicating strong momentum. However, it also points to slightly overbought conditions. If the buyers maintain pressure and avoid sharp rejections, a run toward a new all-time high is likely.
The 4-Hour Chart
Zooming into the 4H chart, the breakout becomes even clearer. BTC exited an ascending channel pattern to the upside, rallying through the previous key supply zone around $98K with almost no resistance. Since then, the asset has been grinding higher in an orderly fashion, supported by the RSI cooling off.
The latest price action shows signs of slowing momentum, but there’s no reversal confirmation yet. A healthy pullback into the $100K–$98K range would be a logical area to look for continuation setups if the buyers remain in control. However, if that level fails, support at $94K could catch the next wave of bids.
Onchain Analysis
Miner Reserve
On-chain data reveals a persistent downtrend in the Bitcoin Miner Reserve, which has now dropped to around 1.8M BTC, the lowest in recent years. This suggests that miners are not accumulating, but rather continuing a long-term distribution pattern. Instead of increasing their holdings during this rally, they appear to be gradually offloading BTC, possibly to capitalize on higher prices or manage operational costs post-halving.
While this doesn’t necessarily signal aggressive selling, it does indicate that miners are not contributing to long-term supply tightening at the moment. Their lack of accumulation, in contrast to strong spot buying, reinforces the idea that current demand is being driven by other market participants, such as institutions and retail investors.
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Cryptocurrency
AB Foundation and AB Blockchain Jointly Champion Tech-driven Global Philanthropy: Building Trust through Technology

[PRESS RELEASE – Dublin, Ireland, May 11th, 2025]
The AB Foundation and AB Blockchain successfully hosted the inaugural “Tech-driven Global Philanthropy Closed-door Forum” today in Dublin.
The forum brought together distinguished global leaders, including His Excellency Bertie Ahern, former Prime Minister of Ireland and former President of the European Council; His Excellency Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria and former Chairperson of the African Union; Malcolm Byrne, Member of the Irish Parliament and Chairperson of the Artificial Intelligence Committee, alongside other prominent states persons and scholars. The attendees convened to discuss the transformative potential of cutting-edge technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence in global philanthropy.
The forum was chaired by Bertie Ahern, Chairman of AB Foundation, former Prime Minister of Ireland, and former President of the European Council, who delivered the keynote speech titled “Technology and Trust: Building a New Global Philanthropic Order.”
Subsequently, Anthony Tsang, spokesperson for AB Blockchain, presented key developments on AB Blockchain’s high-performance mainnet, innovative cross-chain system AB Connect, and the groundbreaking zero-Gas stablecoin protocol Universal Transfer. He emphasized AB Blockchain’s mission to provide fully compliant infrastructure platforms for global philanthropy.
The AB Foundation will actively forward the key proposals from this forum to relevant international organizations and partners, continuing to promote a new global paradigm of “Technology for Good.”
About AB Foundation
The AB Foundation is an independent international non-governmental organization registered in Ireland with recognized legal status within the European Union. Supported by technology and funding from AB DAO, the Foundation leverages advanced technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence to create transparent, trustworthy, and traceable philanthropic infrastructures, thus promoting sustainable development in education, healthcare, environment, and humanitarian aid.
For more information, users can visit the official website: www.ab.org
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Cryptocurrency
Why ETH’s Undervaluation May Not Signal a Buying Opportunity: CQ Report

Ethereum (ETH) plunged into territory not seen since 2019 before it posted a substantial recovery in the past few days. However, it’s still trading at a steep discount to Bitcoin (BTC).
According to the latest weekly report from on-chain analytics platform CryptoQuant, the ETH/BTC MVRV ratio, which measures market value relative to realized value, has entered “extremely undervalued” territory, a level that in past cycles set the stage for major ETH rebounds.
A Discount Amid Growing Headwinds
CryptoQuant’s analysis noted that Ethereum’s deep discounts against BTC have historically signaled prime buying opportunities.
However, it pointed out that the current environment is markedly different, with a series of fundamental headwinds responsible for the undervaluation. These include the unraveling of Ethereum’s once-promising deflationary supply narrative, with the asset’s total supply hitting an all-time high of 120.7 million.
The analytics platform attributed the reversal to March 2024’s Dencun upgrade, which drastically reduced transaction fees and collapsed the ETH burn rate. With fewer tokens being burned, inflationary pressure found its way back into the ETH market.
Further compounding the issue is that on-chain activity has been stagnant for a while. Since 2021, key metrics such as transaction counts and active addresses have dropped, mostly because Layer 2 (L2) networks diverted usage away from the Ethereum mainnet. Even though they have improved scalability, L2s have also diluted demand for base-layer block space, undermining ETH’s utility narrative in the process.
CryptoQuant also noted that institutional interest in the asset has been waning. The amount of staked ETH has reportedly dipped from its November 2024 peak of 35 million to about 34.4 million. ETF holdings have also shed as much as 400,000 ETH since February this year, reflecting weakening investor confidence.
“Bitcoin is benefiting from robust institutional demand, capped supply, and ETF-driven inflows,” read the report, contrasting the fortunes of the two cryptocurrencies.
Undervalued but Not Without Risk
Despite the obstacles, ETH staged a sharp rebound towards the end of the week. It shot up to roughly $2,400 on Friday.
Additionally, over the past week, the altcoin soared just above 30%, crushing Bitcoin’s 7.5% climb and vastly outpacing the global crypto market’s 8% gain. The rally coincided with the successful activation of the long-awaited Pectra upgrade on May 7, which introduced account abstraction and improved staking mechanics via 11 bundled EIPs. However, its impact may be muted.
Past experiences show that Ethereum’s discount to Bitcoin is often a buying signal. Still, CryptoQuant’s analysis suggests that the returning inflation, weakening demand, and stagnant activity may mean that this could be the first cycle in which ETH’s undervaluation isn’t a springboard but a trap.
“While ETH appears undervalued on a historical basis, its recovery path may be more complex and slower than in prior cycles,” CQ concluded.
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