The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has intensified its education campaign in Africa with Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa getting the most attention given the growing size of the markets in the evolving global cryptocurrency space.
So far over 70,000 people have benefitted from the training and masterclasses hosted by teams from Binance Africa. The company sees Africa as strategic in the next phase of the cryptocurrency market and has long term plans for the continent which has contributed significantly to the surge recorded in the market.
As the price of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by valuation, erased the all-time-high it set in 2017, surging to a new high of over $28,000 in December, recent statistics from Usefultulips, shows Nigeria leads Africa in peer-to-peer lending in 2020, posting monthly P2P volumes of between $25.8 million, followed by South Africa and Kenya respectively posting about $8.2 million and $7.7 million monthly.
Another recent report names Nigeria as the second largest in terms of bitcoins traded next to the US on the peer-to-peer market. Nigeria had traded 60,215 bitcoins, valued at $566 million. Kenya is second in Africa in bitcoin trade growing more than 390 percent in 2020 while South Africa comes in third on the continent.
Binance also reported that it has processed a total volume of $280 million for P2P trades alone so far this year.
“Africa remains one of our most important and strategic markets,” says Changpeng Zhao, founder and CEO of Binance at a recent meeting with reporters from across the world.
He says only a long view is the best approach to investment and unlocking the massive potential in African markets.
“If you want business results in the next 6 months, then maybe Africa is not the best place to spend money on. We are looking at this at a 5, 10, 15-year horizon, and I think Africa is going to be huge,” he said.
The company has hosted over 400 free events in 2020, getting attendees in more than 40 countries – many in Africa – online and offline. Usually, a crypto masterclass undertaken by any private entity could cost as much as $200 per student.
The Binance Masterclass for Africa series provides necessary crypto education for over 30,000 confirmed attendees and reaching over 70,000 people via registrations and YouTube views.
Apart from deepening knowledge of cryptocurrencies on the continent which has implications for security, education also forms one of the building blocks for customer acquisition and loyalty.
In February 2020, Emmanuel Babalola, Binance’s business manager in Nigeria, said the company had seen a 50 percent increase in signups already, leading to ‘thousands’ of new Binance users in Nigeria. Roughly 300 people signed up for a corresponding “masterclass” in Benin in January teaching users how to set up their own personal wallets and experiment with crypto trading strategies. There was so much demand for the six-hour class that Babalola will run three more classes over the next four weeks and offer two a month.
The first Binance Masterclass went live on 24 January 2020 in Benin, capital of Edo State, Nigeria.
The six hours intensive seminar which included a comprehensive crash course into understanding bitcoin, blockchain, trading, etc, was attended by 222 people.
Following the success of the maiden edition, the Binance Africa team on 4 February 2020 launched the Campus Ambassador program with 7 ambassadors in 7 universities. The ambassadors have so far hosted 30 campus webinars and over 100 Ask Me Anything events (AMAs) monthly in 2020. AMAs provide participants the opportunity to ask questions and get answers from expert facilitators.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been a setback, the Binance Campus Ambassador program has proved a masterstroke in reaching an additional nearly 10,000 Africans, many of whom are students.
Other educational opportunities include the #MyBinanceClass series which Binance launched in the fourth quarter of 2020. The series has over 1,000 tutor applications with crypto enthusiasts who are eager to educate their communities. In November, the Binance team worked with over 200 of its more 600 approved tutors to hold over 258 classes spanning over 20,000 minutes for participants in different locations.
They also recently launched the Binance Nigeria homepage here solely customized for crypto and non-crypto enthusiasts in Nigeria to easily access the platform both on mobile and desktop.
In 2021, As the biggest crypto educator in Africa, they plan to focus a lot of energy on growing the crypto space within the continent and also develop faster the Crypto community across each touchpoint through educational masterclasses, Defi training, Hackathons, and other amazing initiatives.
