Africa is the key to crypto mass adoption

Opinion by: Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and CEO of StarkWare

With a pro-crypto presidency in Washington, a remarkable window of opportunity has opened, and it’s time to think globally. This may sound obvious for a community born to transcend barriers of physical space, but with so much of crypto’s future hinged on decision-making in Washington, there is a danger of this eclipsing our exploration of new and emerging markets.

Do not ignore emerging markets

This is precisely why we need to be embracing emerging markets. Too many in crypto still see penetrating markets like Africa more as noble philanthropy than a smart strategy.

We need to grasp that crypto needs Africa and other emerging markets as much as they need crypto. To become genuinely relevant for day-to-day use, crypto needs to penetrate markets where it may have the most value.

Sure, regulatory easing in the US will prompt growing numbers to use crypto alongside their bank accounts and other financial structures. Mass adoption is still a long road, however, because the range of different financial and technological offerings is so broad. There lacks a sense of urgent need propelling people to crypto for everyday needs.

It has become a cliché in crypto to talk about the unbanked and the financially excluded. Too often, they are mentioned for the sake of virtue signaling. In reality, the emerging markets where people are waiting for solutions are where the infrastructure for mass use will have its tires kicked and where some of the most transformative decentralized applications (DApps) will likely emerge. After all, necessity is the mother of invention. Investment should focus on emerging markets because they present several key opportunities. 

Emerging market opportunities

The result could prove a win-win for the people in Africa and blockchain developers. Users on the continent get systems that will improve their lives — easier ways of transferring payments and a stable store of value for their savings. Tinkerers work out the kinks of these often experimental systems while getting valuable experience and learning the ins and outs of serving users in this crucial market.

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Africa’s economic growth projections are compelling. The population, currently around 1.4 billion, is projected to reach 2.3 billion by 2050. Mobile phone penetration stands at just 63%, leaving plenty of headroom to climb to an estimated 88% by the end of this decade. Some 75% of Africans are under 30 years old.

Use cases are everywhere. Cross-border transaction fees for Africans amount to around 10%, and monthly interest rates on microloans can reach 27%, putting the financing costs well out of reach for many. Some 600 million Africans live in areas with annual inflation ranging from 20% to 30%.

With such conditions as the backdrop, crypto users in Africa have increased 25-fold since 2021. Replacing financial exclusion with solutions that have high price tags is a hollow victory. The average daily fee for a transaction on Bitcoin has ranged around $2 to $4 over the past few months.

If layer-2 scaling solutions reduce fees to $0.01 or $0.02, this margin can be the difference between eating and hunger on a given day for some families. Such a difference could help make micro-transactions and small business financial operations economically viable worldwide, especially in Africa.

We’ve seen this story before

Emerging markets do propel the development of technologies that then transform the world. Consider the case of renewable energy. Developing nations are home to many off-grid communities, often have abundant sunlight, and often lack reliable infrastructure.

There, solar panels and wind farms aren’t a matter of principle or a way to clean up existing energy supplies — they are a way to simply source energy and get reliable electricity in homes and workplaces. These regions have been fertile testing grounds, where production has been scaled, inefficiencies have been faced, and costs have been driven down. 

Today, a family in Chicago, Washington or London can install sturdier and more efficient solar panels on their roof at lower cost thanks to mass rollout in emerging markets. Africa didn’t just benefit from green energy — it helped propel it forward.

The same story is now unfolding with crypto. Just as emerging markets transformed renewable energy through necessity and scalability, Africa’s financial needs are poised to do the same for crypto. These markets aren’t just recipients of innovation — they drive it.

Africa’s unique challenges — high cross-border fees, inflation and financial exclusion — catalyze innovation. Decentralized solutions are poised to solve real-world problems in Africa, refine technology, reduce costs and pave the way for adoption everywhere.

Crypto needs global efforts on all fronts. It requires policy shifts and hackathons, as well as investors and users. The mindset changes on Capitol Hill and the push for innovation in the places that most urgently need this tech are two sides of the same coin. Complementary processes will bring together disparate pieces of the crypto puzzle from Washington and Wall Street to Windhoek in Namibia and the Westlands commercial district in Nairobi.

Opinion by: Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder and CEO of StarkWare.

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.