Social Media, especially Twitter was agog on Wednesday when Billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, among many prominent US figures were targeted by hackers on Twitter in what has been described as a Bitcoin scam. The official accounts of Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Kanye West also requested donations in the cryptocurrency.
The incident which happened on Wednesday in one of the most widespread and confounding breaches the platform has ever seen, all in service of promoting a bitcoin scam that earned its creators nearly $120,000. Multiple law enforcement investigations, including one from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, are now actively probing the situation over far a deeper concern: that the exploited vulnerability in Twitter’s systems — a result it seems of mid-level employees having powerful access to site-wide admin tools that can fall into the wrong hands — has exposed serious security risks for the platform’s most powerful users. Lawmakers are hounding Twitter for more transparency around the incident, and it seems likely the attack will have longstanding consequences not just for Twitter’s own internal tools and security, but for the broaden cybersecurity industry and every high-profile Twitter user on the platform, too.
Twitter had revealed that its own internal employee tools were compromised and used in the hack, which may explain why even accounts that claimed to have two-factor authentication were still attempting to fool followers with the bitcoin scam. Twitter acknowledged the situation after more than an hour of silence, writing on its support account at 5:45PM ET, “We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly.”
This article was not primarily to talk about the hack but to show that the so called ‘bitcoin scam’ was actually a Twitter hack, using bitcoin as a safe storage for the ‘loot.’ More importantly, this article is to look at Africa’s adoption and readiness for digital currencies in what can best be termed the race of the CBDCs. A CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency will be a virtual currency that will be based on a blockchain infrastructure but will be under the control of the Central Bank of the country that will issue it. In practice, it will simply be cash in digital form instead of paper.
Unfortunately, just like every other thing, Africa is again appearing to play catch up to the rest of the world in this race. In Europe, the Bank of England for instance, would be studying the possibility of issuing its own cryptocurrency in the coming years. This hypothesis is confirmed by Governor Andrew Bailey recently when he said: “We are looking at the question of, should we create a Bank of England digital currency. We’ll go on looking at it, as it does have huge implications on the nature of payments and society. I think in a few years’ time, we will be heading toward some sort of digital currency”.
It is clear that in this race the Bank of England risks falling behind. In fact, China is already on the finishing line, seeing that its digital Yuan would be in the testing phase. The United States would also be working on a digital dollar. Canada is no less. The issue is no longer taboo even for the European Union, where the ECB has formally declared that it wants to be ready.
As allies and rivals move in on their central bank digital currency (CBDC) plans, far away in Asia, Japan is now said to be seriously considering a digital yen. The government is set to examine the possible launch of digital yen as part of this year’s policy agenda, the Nikkei reported Wednesday. Senior lawmakers for the erstwhile cash-addicted country have been calling on the government to collaborate with its allies on a CBDC since early February. In a report, the Bank of Japan already said this month it was experimenting with a CBDC but said there were no immediate plans to launch one.
While this is going on, in Africa meanwhile, digital assets are just trending at the elementary stage in comparison to the rest of the world. As cryptocurrency prices have gained considerable value, Google Trends now shows a new upswing of interest for people searching the term “bitcoin.” The top three countries in the world reside within the African continent: Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana respectively. The three areas in the world where the word “bitcoin” is trending the most are Nigeria, South Africa, and Ghana. Two of these countries are ECOWAS member states.
When it comes to the term “buy bitcoin,” Nigeria and Ghana are the top two countries in the world as well. Moreover, recently, Zimbabwe banned foreign currencies in the country and since then BTC prices in the region reportedly saw significant premiums on various trading platforms. Local.Bitcoin.com, the peer-to-peer marketplace that allows traders to swap fiat currencies for bitcoin cash, also has a slew of people buying and selling BCH in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Benin, Liberia, South Africa, and Burkina Faso.
Despite the fact interest in digital currencies, Africans are still seeing a lack of progress. According to the Blockchain Association of Kenya, there’s been $1.5 million worth of digital assets traded in the country but “lack of education” is making adoption difficult. After Kaspersky released its Cryptocurrency Report 2019, Bethwel Opil, spokesperson at Kaspersky Africa, stated that the latest consumer survey in Africa agreed with the Blockchain Association of Kenya’s assessment. “The survey found that there is a desire amongst many consumers to use cryptocurrency, but a knowledge gap is getting in the way of taking the plunge,” the Kaspersky Africa correspondent wrote. “In addition, many people who thought they knew what they are dealing with, later decided against using cryptocurrency.”
It is not all gloomy however as Crypto adoption is making significant advances in Africa, with crypto ownership, trade volume, and regulation all moving toward greater adoption. Over the last year, certain African regions have seen exponential cryptocurrency growth. According to a report, a fifth of South African respondents (14%) explained that they stopped using digital currencies because they were “technically complicated.” It’s been estimated that transactions from South Africa have risen by 25%, and a 60% increase where Nigeria is concerned, whilst in other areas there were climbs of up to 100%.
The report describes the continent as “one of, if not the most promising region for the adoption of cryptocurrencies,” emphasizing Africa’s combination of low existing crypto adoption alongside an “enormous” domain possibility. While Nigeria has long dominated the continent’s trade volume, the report found that South Africa has the highest percent of cryptocurrency ownership or use among internet users in Africa with 13%, followed by Nigeria with 11%. Worldwide, South Africa ranks fifth for crypto adoption among connected citizens.
The above suggests that the potential for growth of digital currency in Africa is huge. Perhaps, it is high time the government, individuals and institution in this continent pay more attention to digital currency and join the CBDC race. It is not too late to make policies and support the growth of digital currency. If we allow ourselves to be caught napping, the price for this may be too big for the African continent to pay.
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