The sentiment permeated talks and fireside chats at the 2023 Blockchain Africa Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The service lets users in nine African countries tap into the Bitcoin Lightning network using basic feature phones. “Anyone who's interested in using bitcoin and living on bitcoin should be able to do so easily,” founder Kgothatso Ngako said.

The Built With Bitcoin Foundation (BWB), a non-profit organization seeking to provide “humanitarian support, powered by Bitcoin,” has built a technology center in Kumasi, Ghana. The aptly named “Bitcoin Technology Center” (BTC) will focus on finance and technology education, and aims to “foster a safe environment to learn.” The center’s official unveiling takes place Thursday, on the heels of the African Bitcoin Conference, which is being hosted a few hours away in Accra. BWB is hoping to educate and train at least 400 residents within the first year of operation, according to a press release provided to CoinDesk.

The CEO and co-founder of the peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange that's popular in Africa explains why the Global South will lead the Bitcoin revolution. Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous founder of Bitcoin, once famously said, “Bitcoin would be convenient for people who don’t have a credit card.”

Jay-Z and Jack Dorsey-funded Bitcoin non-profit picked Vladimir Fomene, who will contribute to the Bitcoin Development Kit and the Swahili Wordlist. ₿trust’s Africa Open Source Cohort program is designed for long-term contribution. New members will be expected to sign a one-year contract to start. Compensation will be based on a number of factors, including the extent of each developer's contribution to open-source Bitcoin projects. Cohort developers will receive professional management, mentorship, support from peers, assistance with relationship management and financial support (e.g., stipends for hardware and miscellaneous expenses).

The venture capital investor published a report which found funding for African blockchain startups far outpaced investment in other venture funding.

Rules look to clarify crypto’s role in the economy by providing a regulatory framework. A digital asset is a token that represents assets such as a debt or equity claim on the issuer, and thus by default is under the purview of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Nigeria, the regulator said in a new rulebook published over the weekend.

Pan-African centralized crypto exchange Mara said Wednesday it raised $23 million. The funding round was led by Coinbase Ventures, Alameda Research, Distributed Global, Day One Ventures, TQ Ventures and more, according to a press release.

Jambo, a Congo-based startup building a Web 3 user acquisition platform, has closed a $30 million Series A funding round led by Paradigm, marking the crypto native investing giant’s first investment in Africa.

Fresh signs emerged of accumulation by investors and greater adoption by nations from Africa to Central and South America.