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Bitcoin gains traction in West Africa with educational drive

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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.

Nourou opens Bitique in the Dakar business district. Source: Nourou

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.

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. 

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

Crypto Price Analysis September-20: ETH, XRP, ADA, BNB, and SOL

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This week, we take a closer look at Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Binance Coin, and Solana.

cryptopost_friday_cover

Ethereum (ETH)

The market has had a great week so far, and Ethereum closed with a 9% price increase. On Wednesday, the Fed cut the interest rate by 0.50%, which turned out to be extremely bullish for crypto. Since then, ETH has also managed to break above $2,400.

With buyers back, the momentum is shifting bullish again. The current target for this cryptocurrency is $2,800, which will also act as resistance. The former resistance at $2,400 is now a key support, and as long as it is not lost, buyers have the advantage.

Looking ahead, Ethereum is finally showing signs of recovery after months of difficult price action in which bears dominated.

ETHUSD_2024-09-20_14-07-02
Chart by TradingView

Ripple (XRP)

XRP increased by 4% this week but appears to lag behind other market leaders such as Ethereum or Solana. This could be because it already broke its resistance at 54 cents last week, and buyers may be distracted by other opportunities at this time.

Nevertheless, momentum remains bullish on this price action, and XRP needs to make a higher high to maintain it. A clean break above 60 cents can restore confidence and see the price attempt a test of the next key target at 68 cents.

Looking ahead, XRP may be preparing for its next major move, especially if the overall market remains bullish.

XRPUSDT_2024-09-20_14-06-34
Chart by TradingView

Cardano (ADA)

So far in September, ADA has been bouncing between the key levels, but this could be its most important opportunity to break the resistance at 37 cents. While the price closes the week with only a 1% increase, optimism is high that Cardano can finally have a breakout.

The past two weeks saw the price find good support around 33 cents, and sellers were unable to push ADA below that. This improved confidence in the price action, and buyers returned.

Looking ahead, the biggest challenge for this cryptocurrency is to break above 37 cents. That would put ADA back on the offensive to recover the losses incurred since March 2024.

ADAUSDT_2024-09-20_14-06-05
Chart by TradingView

Binance Coin (BNB)

Binance Coin remains a great performer and closed the week with a 6% price increase. This allowed buyers to keep the price well above the $500 support and even aim towards $600, which is the current target for this uptrend.

Buyers are dominating right now, which shows promise for a sustained uptrend in the coming weeks. Moreover, on the 3-day timeframe, the MACD made a bullish cross, which is picking up momentum. This favors a continuation of this uptrend.

Looking ahead, BNB is found in a strong position based on its price action, which shows that it is ready to challenge the highs from earlier this year.

BNBUSDT_2024-09-20_14-07-45
Chart by TradingView

Solana (SOL)

Solana is our strongest performer this week, with a 12% price increase. As soon as the resistance at $134 was broken, buyers rushed to this cryptocurrency, and the price shot up.

The current rally is coming on strong buy volume, which could see SOL test the resistance at $164 in the next few days. That would only encourage buyers further.

Looking ahead, Solana is back in the spotlight, and market participants seem to prefer it over other major altcoins. If this market rally continues, Solana may be among the first to benefit.

SOLUSDT_2024-09-20_14-07-23
Chart by TradingView
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Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Touched $64K, Solana (SOL) Explodes 9% Daily (Market Watch)

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Bitcoin’s price rally that started after the US Fed reduced the interest rates on Wednesday took the asset to a multi-week peak of over $64,000 hours ago.

The altcoins also followed suit, with ETH breaking above $2,500 and BNB soaring past $570.

BTC Kept Pumping

This highly anticipated business week actually started with a retracement on Monday that drove the primary cryptocurrency from over $60,000 to under $58,000 in hours. However, the bulls quickly resumed control of the market and pushed the asset to over $61,000 ahead of the Wednesday FOMC meeting.

Once it concluded that the US central bank announced a 0.5% cut in the key interest rates, BTC went on a rollercoaster with several movements up and down. Still, the bulls came out stronger, at least for now, and initiated an impressive rally for bitcoin.

As reported yesterday, the asset tapped $63,000 for the first in three weeks. However, it kept adding value and briefly exceeded $64,000 earlier today for the first time since late August.

Nevertheless, its ascend has been halted for now, and BTC now sits about a grand lower. It’s still 2% up on the day, which has pushed its market cap to $1.250 trillion. Its dominance over the alts, though, has been slashed to 54.3% after soaring past 55% yesterday for the first time in almost four years.

Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source; TradingView
Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source; TradingView

SOL, AVAX on the Run

Most altcoins were trailing behind BTC in the past few days, but have charted more impressive gains today. The pack is led by Solana and Avalanche. Both of them have surged by around 9% to $151 and $28, respectively.

Chainlink has added 5% of value, and so has Ethereum. In fact, ETH has skyrocketed to a multi-week peak of its own at $2,550.

The most impressive daily increases come from the likes of TAO (15%), APT (12%), CORE (12%), JUP (11%), SUI (11%), and LDO (11%).

The total crypto market cap has gained another $70 billion overnight and is above $2.3 trillion on CG now.

Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto
Cryptocurrency Market Overview. Source: QuantifyCrypto
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Disclaimer: Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. See Disclaimer for more information.

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Cryptocurrency

BTC, ETH Shot Up to 3-Week Peaks as ETFs Recorded Net Inflows

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The cryptocurrency market saw some long-time coming revival after the United States Federal Reserve cut the interest rates on Wednesday for the first time in about four years.

The two largest digital assets went on a run, jumping by roughly 10% in the past few days.

BTC Price Rises Amid ETF Inflows

The 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs have enjoyed investors’ demand and attention ever since they went live for trading in January this year. Their negative and positive streaks in terms of net flows have influenced the underlying asset’s price to the extent that BTC tapped a new all-time high just two months after they saw the light of day.

As with most markets, investors’ perspective changes with current macro and micro-economic conditions and news. As such, it was interesting to follow how they would act in this particular week because of the Fed’s FOMC meeting that took place on Wednesday.

After all, this was the first interest rate cut in the States since 2020, which also means that it was the first since the inception of the BTC ETFs. In the days leading to the meeting, US investors poured over $500 million in net inflows to the financial vehicles but withdrew $52.7 million on Wednesday.

However, their attitude changed once again yesterday – the first full trading day after the rate reduction. Data from FarSide shows total net inflows of $158.3 million. Ark Invest’s ARKB led the pack with $81.1 million, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC with nearly $50 million. There were no reportable outflows, but BlackRock’s IBIT saw no action.

In the same timeframe, BTC’s price skyrocketed from $59,000 (on the rate-cut day) to just over $64,000 earlier today before retracing slightly to $63,400 (as of now).

Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
Bitcoin/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView

Even ETH ETFs See Inflows

Unlike the Bitcoin ETFs, the Ethereum counterparts have failed to attract real interest, recording very few days in net inflows since their start in late July. In the days ahead of the FOMC meeting, investors took out $9.4 million on Monday and $15.1 million on Tuesday. Another $9.8 million was withdrawn on Wednesday.

However, the tides turned for the Ethereum ETFs as well yesterday, with total net inflows of $5.2 million. Interestingly, the entire amount went into BlackRock’s ETHA, and the rest of the ETFs saw zero reportable flows.

ETH’s price also soared alongside BTC. It had dumped to $2,300 during the FOMC meeting on Wednesday but earlier today neared $2,575 (a 12% surge) for the first time since late August.

Ethereum/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
Ethereum/Price/Chart 20.09.2024. Source: TradingView
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