Utility Today, Part 1 — On Africa & Global Digital Money

A lot of the time — I agree with detractors of cryptocurrency and all their associated technologies. There’s a lot to criticise:

• Majority of proclamations are utopian, mostly exaggerated because they lack nuance and a thorough understanding of the technology’s constraints at different levels of the stack.
• Majority of proponents (who lack this understanding) are motivated by relatively quick and sometimes immense financial gain and this is a good reason to be skeptical of what they say. It brings to mind the saying “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Admittedly, it is a complex subject matter that purportedly dramatically affects what is unfortunately perhaps the most important social construct in the history of mankind — money.

However, amidst all of this brouhaha — there’s a financial revolution happening and I think a big part of why I and the rest of the team at Helicarrier are able to see this clearly is due to our unique perspective as native African Internet builders.

The Internet has transmogrified my life & the lives of so many others on the continent. It has connected a huge chunk of the entire world. It lets us instantly communicate, work and play with thousands of people very far away. However, despite the many advances over the past 10–15 years, despite the many “multiplayer” experiences that the internet has unlocked, money [and its surrounding “instruments”] hasn’t quite become globally interconnected.

For most people in the west [particularly the US], paying for stuff [on the internet] and getting paid [on the internet] isn’t really a problem — it mostly just works. Most people have never been in a situation where they have to think too deeply about currency conversions and systemic roadblocks (e.g Paypal not letting Nigerians sign up/receive money) to participating in “e-commerce”. They have access to credit & instruments that let you grow your wealth. They also don’t experience double digit inflation + most of the world is willing to accept USD as a means of payment.

Because of this, I think it’s really difficult for most of them to see [beyond all the noise] how the world has changed since Bitcoin went live. It hasn’t [yet] changed their lives in any observable way.

Bitcoin, a 13 year old currency, is the most universally accessible currency in the history of mankind. Unlike USD, anybody with an internet connection can get Bitcoin [if they cared to]. It is also likely the currency with the second most widely distributed acceptance in the history of mankind — wherever there’s an internet connection, you’re very likely to find someone that will accept Bitcoin.

This “distributed accessibility & acceptability” likely doesn’t matter to the average American whose 229 year old currency is recognised pretty much everywhere in the world. But it matters to me, the Nigerian who cannot spend the Naira anywhere else but in Nigeria.

Before founding Helicarrier, I used to be a freelance software developer — with clients scattered all over the world. My least stressful experience of getting paid was when I started accepting Bitcoin/Ethereum payments.

I had to sell this Bitcoin on slow & fraud prone P2P Exchanges with relatively complex UX. This was pre-Buycoins & there was nowhere you could simply tap a button to go from Bitcoin to Naira. Despite this, it was still a markedly better experience — I had gotten paid, quickly & cheaply. The money was in my wallet and I could do whatever I wanted to with it.

It is difficult to overstate the immense value that lies in the perpetuation of trusted global, internet native protocol(s) for money and its accessibility to a continent with a fast growing population of young, Internet natives.

• It is useful for the African business that needs to move money around the world.
• It is useful for the African investor with a global outlook trying to move money to AngelList.
• It is useful for the diasporan trying to pay his tailor in Nigeria ahead of his wedding.
• It is useful for the remote UI/UX designer or music producer trying to get paid for their work by international clients.

And so on & so forth. These aren’t just fictional user profiles — they are real users that interact with our products every single day.

However, like I said in my last essay about how it’s early days:

There are still many problems to solve in order for billions of people to benefit from this technology. I prefer to see those problems as opportunities as opposed to deterrents.

That’s kuku what builders are for.

In the second (& final) part of Utility Today, I will be addressing “Decentralisation” — How it is already extremely successful today, why complete decentralisation isn’t necessary for utility to be gained & why we should still aspire to it.