Crypto Africa Report: Bitfund, Augmented Reality and PWC Looking to South Africa

In our weekly Crypto Africa Report, YouHash take a look at the latest stories unfolding in one of the fastest-growing crypto continents.

Recently Launched BitFund Opens Accounts for 1,000 Investors

Since launching the BitFund Cryptocurrency Platform in mid-July, the company has opened accounts for almost 1,000 investors – the majority of whom are South Africans

BitFund was founded by Josh Miltz, Jonathon Ferrer, Bradley Goldman, and Dean Joffe.  According to Miltz, “South Africans have shown enormous interest in the BitFund platform, and it is largely because there are so few local options to gain easy and secure exposure to a wide array of cryptocurrencies.”

 BitFund simplifies the process for investors by investing in a number of portfolios offering up to 20 of the largest cryptocurrencies – which are offered on either market cap or equal weightings.

South Africa:  NONA Partners Builds Augmented Reality for Augmentors Gaming Company

The co-founders of Augmentors, South Africans Michael Deon and Kyle Haffenden, along with CEO Gert Kruger, have created a multiplayer mobile game featuring augmented reality and blockchain technology which allows for character ownership through a public ledger.

A mixture of fantasy and reality, the technology is popular with gamers, who currently make up market worth in excess of $100 billion.

NONA is led by another group of South African entrepreneurs, Gordon Angus, Mike Scott, Dave O’Reilly, Ed O’Reilly, Dave O’Reilly and Gordon Angus. 

Look out for a the official launch of Augmentors later in 2018 with a soft launch to take place in September at Comic Con Africa.

BanQu and Anheuser-Busch InBev Set to Transform Supply Chain In Zambia

BanQu, a Minneapolis software technology company, has developed a groundbreaking blockchain economic-identity platform that not only creates an immutable platform, but also boosts economic opportunities for small-scale farmers in Africa. 

The technology provides Anheuser-Busch Indev’s local business, Zambian Breweries, with the ability to track its product through geo-location tags on all transactions.  The means that as the cassava crop moves from farmer to local businesses and ultimately to the retailers, there is a record of sale recorded on the immutable, decentralized blockchain ledger.

PwC confirms that South Africa is Fertile and Active Ground for Blockchain Innovations

According to Paul Mitchell, fintech and blockchain lead for PwC South Africa, commenting recently on PwC research findings “Blockchain is here.  What is your next move?”, “we are seeing rapidly growing interest in this space in South Africa as start-ups look to create new businesses around blockchain, and incumbents across industries are learning what blockchain will mean in their context.”

“The speed at which blockchain technology is being adopted is unprecedented. There is a growing recognition that this technology has profound implications in many areas, and we are watching it move from a start-up idea to an established technology in a fraction of the time it took for the Internet to be accepted as a standard tool.”

Kenyan Electoral Body Eyes Blockchain Adoption

In preparation for the country’s next elections in 2022, the Kenyan Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) is investigating blockchain for improved results.

Kenyan elections are often associated with rigging and irregularities. In the most recent elections, opposition leader Raila Odinga disputed the results announced by the IEBC.  The IEBC therefore believes that by creating a blockchain solution, results will be real-time, irrefutable, and accepted in future.

Nigerian Startup Kora Harnessing Blockchain Technology for Cross-Border Money Transfers

According to founder and CEO of Kora, “it was faster to drive cash to Ghana than to transfer money there using a digital channel.”  And this was one of the reasons he was inspired to develop the Kora network whilst working in the USA.  The Kora offering promises to transfer funds faster and cheaper than current offerings.

The Kora team expect to launch in September and are targeting people who are banked but who live in underserved areas.  Thereafter they plan to tailor their offering to the unbanked.

Kora aims to be “..the leading Pan-African digital banking solutions provider from Africa by 2022.”