We took an ETHSafari to see how crypto is working out in Africa

The six-hour train journey from Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, to the coastal city of Mombasa is a pleasant one. Clean carriages, very well-dressed passengers and a punctual timetable make a nice change from the uncertainty of traveling in Africa. 

Opening in 2017, it replaced a colonial-era railway line known as the “Lunatic Express,” which is fitting enough when headed to any sort of crypto event. 

My destination, two more hours by car from Mombasa, is ETHSafari in Kilifi, a paradise-like town on the coast, but I’m early. There’s yet another “Block Train” to the second part of the conference the following day. 

In Swahili, “safari” is another word for journey, and a fairly apt one considering the 36 hours of travel required. Walking into the venue, Beneath The Baobabs, is like arriving at a festival. It’s a huge 50-acre area that hosts a huge New Year’s party every year, attracting ravers from across Africa and, increasingly, the world.

Crypto is on the rise here. Africa has been on the frontlines of financial innovation, led by the success of mobile money services such as Kenya’s M-Pesa, which revolutionized banking by enabling millions of unbanked individuals to access basic financial services. 

ETHSafari draws crypto fans from around the world

The community-driven ETHSafari is a way to showcase and bring together African talent, projects and innovation, says Jason Eisen, “co-instigator” of ETHSafari.

“ETHSafari is such a beautiful thing I think precisely because it’s not Token2049. ‘What do you mean I have to take a long train with everyone?! When you say it’s in the forest, like how deep?’”

ETHSafari is not just about technology—it also celebrates culture, music and environment, bringing together diverse minds to collaborate on crypto-based solutions to Africa’s unique challenges. 

The event’s success is not measured solely by the number of attendees or deals made but by the relationships and networks formed across the continent. 

“We created this event as a way to bring the world to this ecosystem since, for many reasons, African founders and projects are excluded from global Web3 events. We are simply a (mostly) like-minded community group that hosts this event with a lot of love and nothing but ambition for the African Web3 ecosystem,” says Eisen.

M-Pesa set the stage for crypto adoption in Africa

M-Pesa, launched in Kenya in 2007 by telecommunications giant Safaricom, is widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful mobile money systems. With more than 50 million users across several African countries, it allows users to send, receive and store money using their mobile phones. 

M-Pesa has been instrumental in increasing financial inclusion, particularly for those without access to traditional banking infrastructure. More than 70% of Kenya’s adult population now uses mobile money services such as M-Pesa. It’s done more to bank to unbanked in the country than crypto.

This innovation was critical for millions of Africans who previously relied on informal, cash-based systems, and it now accounts for more than 50% of Kenya’s GDP. The platform’s low fees, accessibility and ease of use helped solve one of the continent’s biggest challenges: bringing financial services to the unbanked population.

Also read: South Africa’s digital-nomad crypto hub — Cape Town, Crypto City Guide

While M-Pesa revolutionized mobile banking, cryptocurrencies have emerged as the next frontier, offering a decentralized and borderless financial system.

While both aim to improve financial inclusion, M-Pesa is centralized, tied to mobile networks, and operates within a regulatory framework. It is already highly accessible, user-friendly and widely accepted, making it an indispensable part of everyday life for millions of Africans.

Crypto is decentralized and permissionless, but adoption in Africa faces significant challenges, including limited internet access, a lack of understanding, regulatory uncertainties and the volatility of digital currencies.

There are potential ways for M-Pesa and crypto to complement each other. It is already easy for M-Pesa customers to buy crypto, and platforms such as AZA Finance (formerly BitPesa) have integrated M-Pesa with crypto services to make remittances cheaper and faster.

AZA Finance enables users to convert cryptocurrency into local currencies, facilitating same-day transfers to M-Pesa mobile wallets. 

Elsewhere, at the end of 2023, Opera unveiled MiniPay — a blockchain-based wallet built on the Celo blockchain. Directly integrated into the Opera Mini browser, MiniPay makes it easier and more affordable for individuals across Africa to acquire and send or receive stablecoins simply by using mobile phone numbers.

According to a report by Chainalysis, small retail transactions account for the majority of crypto transfers in Africa, indicating that crypto is being used as a financial tool rather than a speculative asset.

Africa is crazy for stablecoins

As the global crypto market expands, Africa has become one of the fastest-growing regions for crypto adoption. According to Chainalysis, Africa is crazy for stablecoins, which now account for approximately 43% of sub-Saharan Africa’s total crypto transaction volume.

Stablecoins and select cryptocurrencies are gaining traction because they offer protection against inflation and currency devaluation, which have plagued numerous African economies. 

In Nigeria, for instance, the naira has depreciated significantly over the past few years, pushing many to adopt Bitcoin as a hedge. Cryptocurrencies also enable cross-border transactions with fewer fees compared to traditional remittance channels, making them an attractive option for Africa’s large diaspora population.

Blockchain also offers potential solutions to long-standing issues such as corruption, lack of transparency and inefficient land registries. Crypto in Africa is still in its early stages but holds tremendous potential. 

Developers and entrepreneurs across the continent are experimenting with blockchain to solve real-world problems, from financial exclusion to environmental degradation. 

And ETHSafari is one way to bring them all together to bounce ideas off one another. Jimi Cohen, founder and CEO of Treegens DAO, tells Magazine:

“One of my many highlights at ETHSafari was seeing the spark in the eye of developers working towards solving real-world problems through blockchain tech. Seeing all the real-world use cases throughout ETHSafari made me more bullish than ever about the future of crypto and reaffirmed why this industry needs to flourish.”

Treegen DAO: Planting trees with a DAO

Cohen’s company, Treegens DAO, is pioneering a global movement to make tree planting more accessible, rewarding and transparent. They have planted more than 60,000 mangrove trees and set a Guinness World Record for planting more than 30,000 trees in 24 hours.

Also read: Bitcoin in Senegal — Why is this African country using BTC?

Using the relevant elements of a DAO and its decentralized community structure and smart contracts, Treegens has also developed an AI-powered tree-counting tool with over 97.5% accuracy, ensuring transparency in its environmental impact. Its goal is to plant 1 billion mangrove trees by Earth Day 2025, a move that would surpass Ethiopia’s record of 350 million trees planted in a day.

Treegen DAO integrates blockchain into its business operations by leveraging the decentralized and community-driven structure of a DAO. As with many DAOs, Treegen utilizes smart contracts — self-executing agreements encoded on a blockchain — to automate tasks, execute transactions and enforce agreements. 

Bill Okoba is one of the young Kenyan Web3 pioneers that ETHSafari attracts. He works in business development for Global Ledger, a European-based crypto risk assessment company.

He shows me around his “tent,” a high-end glamping setup with a Starlink connection, nestling next to a water standpipe.

“At ETHAfrica, Global Ledger engaged in research on top African CEXs, uncovering significant compliance challenges, with notable illicit transactions,” he tells me in a message after he gets back home. 

“We engaged several on/off-ramp crypto projects in Kenya that are heavily integrated with the global economy via M-Pesa, highlighting the urgent need for compliance as crypto regulation remains limited, except in South Africa.”

Compliance and difficulties with crypto in Africa

One promising innovation is Yield Guru Investments, which is transforming Kenya’s public transport sector by tokenizing electric mobility, also using the Celo blockchain that the Opera Mini wallet is built on. 

The platform’s co-founders — Eliud Mungai, Mike Ochara and Eric Wachiuri — tell me at the event that their goal is to create a sustainable, investable transportation system using blockchain backed by the Kenya shilling stablecoin cKES. 

These digital tokens can be used as a universal payment method across various electric public transport services such as buses, trams, ridesharing for electric vehicles and electric scooters. Users can also earn tokens as rewards for environmentally friendly actions, such as using renewable energy for charging or participating in ride-sharing.

Electric vehicles can even be integrated into decentralized energy markets. Tokens represent units of energy, allowing EV owners to sell excess energy back to the grid or directly to other users in a peer-to-peer market.

This is just one of the crypto projects with big dreams for Kenya and Africa.

As co-instigator of ETHSafari, Eisen emphasized that the African crypto community is a diverse, collaborative ecosystem driven by ambition and love for the continent’s unique challenges and opportunities. That diversity is the essence of how things change in Africa, and in many different ways.

There are 54 countries in Africa, and somewhere, there is a Steve Jobs or Vitalik Buterin in one of them, preparing the next crypto revolution; I may even have met them in Beneath The Baobabs. After two great days in the forest, it was time for me to go back to the beach and spend my last 24 hours by the sea. Global Ledger’s Okoba came over to see me off at my coastal hotel before I left for Mombasa and, this time, a flight, not a train, back to Nairobi.

As I said before, safari is Swahili for journey, and it is one that is undoubtedly going to be very, very interesting for any African involved in Web3 or crypto. It’s the future… that’s almost certain.

Monty Munford

Monty Munford writes regularly for the BBC, The Economist and City AM and has been a tech columnist for Forbes and The Telegraph. He also runs a growth and visibility consultancy and has appeared at more than 200 events and conferences, interviewing figures such as Tim Draper, the late John McAfee, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Steve Wozniak, Kim Kardashian, Guns N’ Roses and many others.

Follow the author @montymunford