Why Senegal rejects CFA and warms to Bitcoin: video

Cointelegraph goes to Senegal, West Africa. The medium-sized African nation recently hosted a Bitcoin (BTC) conference, and more and more merchants and customers are joining the Lightning Network.

Armed with a camera, a lightning wallet and a microphone, reporter Joe Hall took to the streets of Senegal to look beneath the surface of Bitcoin adoption in the capital, Dakar.

As the Cointelegraph Youtube video highlights, Senegal has a young, digitally native population, and in recent years it has become second nature for people to send money via mobile phones instead of banks.

For example, a mobile money provider called Wave started in 2017 in Senegal and has since expanded to other countries in West Africa. It now has millions of users.

Much like Bitcoin, the mobile money revolution seeks to bank the unbanked and improve the financial conditions of economically underserved populations. The user experience is quite similar to sending money over Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, by scanning a QR code or sending money to a number, but mobile money charges anywhere from 1 to 3% and can take a few minutes to verify. It is therefore a useful tool, but too expensive for microtransactions.

In the video, Hall sends Bitcoin over the Lightning Network to an executive at Wave, who showed interest and surprise at the Bitcoin Lightning Network’s efficiency. In fact, many Senegalese were interested in receiving, acquiring or learning how to take care of Bitcoin.

The Dakar Bitcoin Days conference underscored Senegalese interest in learning about and using Bitcoin. Founded by Nourou, Dakar Bitcoin Days is part of Bitcoin Sen, another pocket of burgeoning Bitcoin activity in West Africa.

However, the overarching reason that could lead to greater Bitcoin adoption in Senegal is breaking the monetary shackles of its colonial past.

Related: ‘We don’t like our money’: The story of the CFA and Bitcoin in Africa

In 1994 the value of the local currency, the CFA was halved by a combination of efforts by France, the IMF and the World Bank. Senegalese fiat savings were decimated.

The scars of this monetary collapse and its residual regime remain in West Africa and Senegal. The CFA money is not sovereign, and it deprives people of power and rights.

That’s why people are looking for alternatives, and some are turning to Bitcoin.