left me with more questions than answers. ‘Decentralised’ and ‘cryptography’ sound to me like ‘legitimised secrecy’ or money being dealt out by an electronic ‘Board Of Secret Shadowy Figures’. So, where to start in the quest to understand The Thing? Until we know a little more about them, cryptocurrencies will be referred to as The Thing. I suspect that this is rather more creative than shortening the name to ‘crypto’. My first port of call was a trusty and wholly more familiar friend: Google. I spent days inquisitively
immersed in unpacking and interrogating the integrity of The Thing. Well before one should ask what it is that the Thing can do for humanity, it is essential that we get to grips with how it works. I was introduced to a key framework called blockchain. This is a system in which a record of transactions made in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency are maintained across several computers that are linked in a peer-to-peer network. At this point my brain was hurting, yet my curiosity about how The Thing can be used to create income security, inclusive
economic participation and women empowerment on the African continent. Now that we know what it is and kind of how it works, we can call it cryptocurrency again. Another angle for exploration was to look for young African people who were actively part of this so-called ‘new economy’. I reached out to friends, we’ll call them Mr.O, a tech-brain to be reckoned with and Imani, a crypto enthusiast in the fintech space. The questions I directed to Mr O and Imani were specific to what potential cryptocurrency brings to the ever changing and
Inspire | Connect | Empower
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