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Using Bitcoin as a small business in Africa

• spiralx 6y ago
  Bitcoin: 7.2 million transactions, $316mn transferred M-Pesa: 12 billion transactions, $60bn transferred, 41.5 million users There are almost six times as many M-Pesa users in Africa as there are BTC transactions in a year... M-Pesa handles ~1,670 times as many transactions each year and transfers ~190 times as much money. And that's just the largest mobile wallet service in Africa. The linked article does mention these services in passing but only as a way to imply Bitcoin will also see massive adoption, which isn't a given due to the massive differences between the two types of system. https://www.theafricareport.com/25846/africa-over-500-million-mobile-money-users-expected-in-2020/ https://www.theafricareport.com/25846/africa-over-500-millio... --- Values for M-Pesa taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa https://www.vodafone.com/what-we-do/services/m-pesa https://www.vodafone.com/what-we-do/services/m-pesa
  • BelenusMordred 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa#Criticism
    • rspeele 6y ago
      Seems like most of the criticism is about them charging exorbitant fees for small transactions. 30 cents on a $1.50 transaction is given as an example of such an exorbitant fee. With BTC that'd be more like a $4 fee on a $1.50 transaction. Problem solved!
• imtringued 6y ago
  The problem with Bitcoin is that it has no monopoly on being a cryptocurrency. There are so many alternatives that I don't see any point in sticking with Bitcoin if you are looking forward to using cryptocurrencies for purchases or money transfer across countries.