Ghana to host the inaugural Africa Bitcoin Conference (ABC) at the Kempinski hotel in Accra, on 5 – 7 December 2022.
Jack Dorsey, Chairman of Block and co-founder of Twitter is expected to attend the conference as a keynote speaker. Jack Dorsey will join about seventy other speakers in the largest Bitcoin conference ever to take place in Africa.
Announcing this in a press conference today, Prince Acquah, the Guest Officer for the conference said, the event will feature keynote addresses, panel discussions workshops, presentations, exhibitions and a hackathon with some other exciting additions. The ABC Hackathon will run from October 10 to December 7 and registration for the event is currently ongoing.
Participants of the hackathon will develop and pitch solutions to problems utilizing Bitcoin.
The winners of the hackathon will be announced on December 7 at a closing ceremony during the conference. Additionally, there will be prizes for first, second, third place contestants as well as a prize for best design, totaling $10,000 in prizes.
Approximately 800 attendees are expected for the conference and multiple participants including C-suite executives, departmental heads, government officials, investors, venture capitalists and many others are already confirmed for the event.
The Partner and Sponsor Liaison for the conference, Alfred Adjabeng, assured participants that the conference will provide a platform for stakeholders to interact with regulators to find a middle ground to ensure a win-win for all.
Africa has witnessed a large amount of growth in its adoption of bitcoin, despite having one of the lowest levels of internet penetration in the world. Between June 2020 and July 2021, Africa saw a 1200% increase in adoption, per the release.
Additionally, Nigeria was highly ranked in the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index from Chainalysis. Togo followed Nigeria by being one of the top countries in peer-to-peer transference of value.
Thus, the conference will host many opportunities to discuss innovation, employment opportunities, improving regional trade, and tourism among many other initiatives for Africa to continue growing by leveraging bitcoin.
Jack Dorsey who co-founded Twitter now heads Block, a conglomerate of fintech companies housing Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, TBD.
Block builds tools to make the economy more accessible to people and businesses by providing a platform aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses accept online payments.
Bitcoin is also a major part of Block’s business, and Cash App has become one of the most popular and accessible Bitcoin exchange platforms in the United States.
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Block purchased $50 million worth of Bitcoin and another $170 million in the first quarter of 2021.
Jack Dorsey, hasn’t been shy about voicing his support for Bitcoin, and he hopes to see Bitcoin become the internet’s native currency.
Jack Dorsey to speak at the conference
Dorsey has stated that he believes Bitcoin can alter the world, and he considers Bitcoin to be the most important project of his lifetime. In 2021, Jack Dorsey partnered with rapper Jay-Z to launch a new endowment called “B-trust” worth 500 BTC to fund Bitcoin software development in Africa and India.
Farida Nabourema, a Togolese human rights activist and the convener of the Africa Bitcoin Conference, believes Bitcoin could become the currency of decolonization, allowing hundreds of millions of unbanked Africans to participate in a global and independent monetary system and providing a powerful resource to activists fighting against authoritarian regimes.
The Africa Bitcoin Conference will bring together developers, investors, startups, and human rights activists from across the continent and beyond, to build a movement that will accelerate Bitcoin adoption in Africa.
Other notable speakers include Obi Nwosu, co-founder and CEO of Fedi, Alex Gladstein, CSO of the Human Rights Foundation, Ray Yussuf CEO of Paxful among others.