Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, will speak at the first Africa Bitcoin Conference in Accra, Ghana, from December 5 – 7, 2022.
The first Bitcoin Africa Conference will take place in Accra, Ghana, December 5-7, 2022, with Jack Dorsey, chairman of The Block and co-founder of Twitter, serving as the keynote speaker.
Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter, now heads The Block, a group of fintech firms that also includes Square, Cash App, Spiral, TIDAL, and TBD. The Block develops tools to make the economy more accessible to people and businesses by offering a platform that enables small and medium-sized companies to accept payments online.
Block’s business also heavily relies on Bitcoin, and one of the most widely used and accessible Bitcoin trading platforms in the US is Cash App. Bitcoin was bought by Block for $50 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 and another $170 million in the first quarter of 2021.
Jack Dorsey’s Push for Bitcoin.
Jack Dorsey is interested in the advancement of Bitcoin in Africa because he believes that it has the potential to provide financial inclusion to millions of people who are currently unbanked or underbanked. He also believes it could help reduce poverty and inequality in the region. Additionally, he believes it could help spur economic growth and development in the region.
He has been outspoken in his support for bitcoin, which he wants to see become the native currency of the internet. Dorsey said he believed bitcoin could change the world, and he considered bitcoin the most important project of his life. In 2021, Jack Dorsey teamed up with rapper Jay-Z to launch a new endowment fund called “B-trust“, worth 500 BTC, to fund Bitcoin software development in Africa and India.
At the largest Bitcoin conference ever to be held in Ghana, Dorsey will speak alongside about 70 other speakers. “Hundreds of millions of unbanked Africans could use bitcoin as a currency of decolonization“, according to Farida Nabourema, a Togolese human rights activist and organizer of the Africa Bitcoin Conference.
Bitcoin could also give militants a powerful resource-based battle against dictatorships by enabling them to participate in a global and independent monetary system. To build a movement to hasten the adoption of bitcoin in Africa, Bitcoin Conference Africa will bring together developers, investors, startups, and human rights advocates from all over the continent and beyond. Other noteworthy speakers included Paxful CEO Ray Yussuf, Human Rights Foundation CSO Alex Gladstein, Fedi Co-Founder and CEO Obi Nwosu, and many more.
Changing The Bitcoin Narrative Through Education.
Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world. While there are many possibilities to use Bitcoin, and different ways of storing it and setting up an inheritance plan, for example, most people still lack basic knowledge on how to do so. Besides the practical setup, the theoretical part of Bitcoin being a tool for financial empowerment, which enables people to break free from authoritarian regimes and the financial suppression going along with it, is also widely unknown. The panellists will shed a light on their experiences in educating about Bitcoin and what still needs to be done.
Bitcoin has transformed how people interact with money and the global monetary system. Over 300 million crypto users have emerged in just over a decade, far outnumbering the annual adoption rate of other digital innovations such as the internet or mobile money. Despite having the lowest internet penetration in the world, Africa has experienced the fastest growth in Bitcoin adoption.
The winners of the ABC hackathon will be announced during the closing ceremony on Dec. 7, 2022, at the Africa Bitcoin Conference at Kempinski Hotel in Accra, Ghana.
