Building Bitcoin Village In Nigeria – Bitcoin Magazine
Nigeria is a unique country in West Africa, geographically located between the Sahel in the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the south in the Atlantic Ocean. Inflation is currently over 18% and currency depreciation is sometimes a daily occurrence. If you’ve never had a backpack full of useless naira, you wouldn’t understand.
In places like Accra, Ghana, the cost of living is among the highest of any African country. But Bitcoin can remove the trust factor of money from the hands of malevolent governments and broken monetary policies, which are driving inflation and high living costs across Africa.
A recent KuCoin report found that of the 51% of Nigerians who have access to the internet, 86% are familiar with cryptocurrency as an investment vehicle. And a country like Nigeria, with limitless talent, full of entrepreneurs and developers looking for ways to solve the country’s many economic problems through the Bitcoin protocol, will have a profound impact.
Trailblazer with Bitcoin
For example, a circular Bitcoin economy, similar to El Salvador’s infamous Bitcoin Beach, is being built there, and it could be just as important and world-changing as its Latin American counterpart. The time is now to make Nigeria a tourism destination for Bitcoiners worldwide.
Satoshis Journal founders Jeremy Garcia and Oluwasegun Kosemani of Satoshis Journal are working to build the first ever Bitcoin Village in Lagos, Nigeria. They plan to power it with solar energy, mine Bitcoin on site, educate the local community about Bitcoin, and create a synergy of Bitcoin Core development with a STEM lab.
This won’t be your typical village you see in Africa, rooted in steamy jungles with no internet connection – this place is going to create a new economy in Nigeria using Bitcoin.
Nigeria has had its fair share of fear, uncertainty and doubt in relation to Bitcoin, whether this has come in the form of a government ban on cryptocurrency activity or in competition with the country’s CBDC, eNaira, which presents several challenges in establishing government-led adoption.
It takes a village
But this has not stopped Nigerians seeing Bitcoin’s benefits in their everyday lives. And creating a circular economy on a bitcoin standard can start with this Bitcoin Village in West Africa.
In a promotional video, Kosemani, who is breaking ground on the website, states, “We are going to open up a Bitcoin village in Lagos, Nigeria. You would come here, spend bitcoins, buy fish from the local fishermen, buy goods from the local people directly by use the lightning network, and all that.”
A domestic water well and solar panels will allow continuous running water throughout the village and a limitless supply of energy to power the school, mining equipment, street lights and a hospital. The property is located on private land in the heart of the financial metropolis of Lagos.
The first phases of the building will include:
- Survey of the property
- Clearing land, which consists of lush jungle vegetation
- Construction of a 2,500 square meter school and an amphitheater for 120 people
Bitcoin Village. Source: Kosemani.
When Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the motivation behind the development of Bitcoin in a series of writings, they designed the new protocol as a solution to the shortcomings of traditional money. This village will open up the possibilities of bitcoin’s peer-to-peer capabilities in Africa, and it hopes to curb the shortcomings of corruption and currency deterioration there.
Bitcoin Village will eventually also include the construction of a basketball court, soccer field and swimming pool. The village’s school curriculum will revolve around what money is and how bitcoin is money, and a regular school curriculum will also be implemented to meet local educational requirements.
Not only will the locals have the best Bitcoin education as residents of the village, but tourists can also experience the valuable benefits of bitcoin as well as its use as a payment rail in shops there.
The technology laboratory in the village hopes to attract the best technology talent in the region. Nigeria has proven to produce Bitcoin skilled developers, such as BTrust’s Abubakar Nur Khalil, so fostering a new generation of developers for Bitcoin’s protocol is a win-win. The STEM program will eventually include programming for Bitcoin, building nodes and servicing miners. The enterprise is massive, but the power of Bitcoin is even more significant.
Upon construction of the first phase of Bitcoin Village, sponsor Botmecash will donate 1 BTC to the village to use as the first step in establishing a supreme circular economy, just as Bitcoin Beach started.
Making Bitcoin History
In conclusion, Nigeria is in a unique position in Bitcoin history, and although it has yet to officially declare bitcoin as legal tender, many of the people living there see it that way.
Upon completion, Bitcoin Village will host a conference both virtually and in person with the plan to open source the Bitcoin Village idea to the world. Currently, Bitcoin Village expects to be completed by the anniversary of the first Bitcoin client release, January 9, 2023.
As countries like El Salvador and the Central African Republic accept bitcoin as legal tender, Nigerians are building something special of their own. Stay tuned, because at the moment when innovation in the Bitcoin ecosystem seems to be at a standstill, new businesses, solutions and ideas are being pushed forward with the conviction that the best digital monetary fortune man has ever created is here to stay.
This is a guest post by Dawdu M. Amantanah. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
