How crypto can help redefine business across Africa

Cryptocurrency and blockchain have many use cases that can be used to help Africa experience faster economic growth. The use cases are almost unlimited between banking, wallets, loans and the internet. Most notably, these use cases can help provide connectivity across the continent and enable banking access for millions of unbanked individuals.

3air, a blockchain-based connectivity company, is working to provide high-speed broadband connectivity and access to decentralized banking across African countries.

Through proven wireless technology, blockchain services and cryptocurrency, 3air aims to connect sub-Saharan Africa to the global economy. There are many problems facing sub-Saharan Africa in terms of economy and connectivity. The region has an internet penetration rate of only 35%, which is significantly lower than the rest of the world.

The figures are similarly unfortunate for banking services. By 2022, 57% of Africans were unbanked; no checking accounts, no savings accounts, no banking of any kind. Crypto can fix the banking problem in sub-Saharan Africa by allowing the unbanked to use peer-to-peer transactions without the need for a centralized intermediary.

Digital-only banks are increasing worldwide, but are often centralized, which can cause customer problems and limitations when handling fiat currency. Banks often have long identification processes and fees in place, require minimum deposits and have issues with accessibility, security and financial inclusion. Since there are a large number of unbanked individuals in sub-Saharan Africa, inaccessibility is a major barrier to adoption.

Decentralization through cryptocurrencies prevents many of these problems, lowers fees, and prevents security issues from occurring in the first place. Due to the nature of crypto, the barrier to entry is low and less formalized, thus more inclusive. There can be no exclusion when all functions are online as long as access to the internet is widely available.

In Web3, banking accessibility can be solved with crypto by decentralizing access to financial and identity services. For example, a company named 3air recently introduced NFT-based internet subscriptions. Users connect to the internet through high-speed broadband connections by purchasing an NFT containing rights to use telecom services.

Using NFTs as a subscription model offers significant advantages over standard telecom contracts. You own NFT, and that NFT can be freely transferred between you and others.

Assume that you no longer wish to use the subscription service. In that case, you can resell your token on a decentralized market or simply exchange it for another user. For example, when you move out of your apartment, you can transfer the internet service of said apartment to the new residents without spending hours on the phone with customer service. This method will save you both the hassle of canceling and re-hiring internet services.

Blockchain technology can also be used to store health information for one’s personal use while being as secure as or more secure than a centralized database. Storing information on a blockchain, locked behind an NFT for access, allows users to quickly retrieve any medical information needed from anywhere they have an internet connection. NFTs are encrypted using hashes, which often provides more security than you’d find on a standard storage server.

On the hospital side, these NFTs allow interoperability and ease of use of data without worrying about storing it. Hospitals are often locked into contracts to use specific, varying software, which can be expensive, tedious and may not even interoperate, requiring increasing amounts of manual work to enter information into a new system.

Organizational transparency is another issue that is becoming increasingly important across the globe. Enter DAOs, a blockchain-based codebase that provides governance for businesses or a non-profit organization. DAOs are a strict set of rules that cannot be manipulated and prevent corruption, forcing those who use them to be completely transparent with how they manage their funds. Take the case of non-profit organizations, where this enforced transparency adds an extra layer of trust, allowing organizations to operate without interference or corruption.

These are just some of the many ways crypto can impact the global economy. However, they all benefit Africa exceptionally well by connecting users globally like never before: by providing banking services for the unbanked, decentralizing hospital records and health-related documents, and giving non-profits a way to better help those in need more reliably.