More and more familiar Internet people are starting to “go into” Africa.

Ma Yun, who is familiar to the Chinese people, talked about Africa many years ago, invested in Africa, and stayed in Africa. He was once invited by the presidents of four African countries to communicate with young people a week. He ran three African countries a day, doing public welfare activities in Africa, holding an African version of the entrepreneurs competition, being a judge, and dancing with entrepreneurs.

And Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also publicly stated that he will live in Africa for half a year to learn about this booming new market .

It’s a pity to leave continental Europe now, but Africa will define the future (especially the future of Bitcoin). I’m not sure exactly where, but I will live here for 3-6 months in mid-2020. Thankfully I can experience part of Africa.

African Growth Initiative Fellow, Brookings Institution Witney Schneidman appreciates Jack Dorsey’s decision . In his opinion, Dorsey did the right thing at the right time, in the right place-to understand the complexity of this African market.

We see a lot of investment opportunities in the technology industry, and we also see the possibility of market growth.

Jim Breyer, an early investor in Facebook and co-chair of Beijing IDG Capital, compared current investment opportunities in Africa to China in the early 2000s. He said that promising African companies don’t necessarily need to invent something new, they just need to find new ways to use technology.

Africa also provides some important leapfrogging opportunities, these opportunities are obtained through the use of smartphones and other technology platforms … we see some smart people from top academic institutions in the United States and elsewhere return to Africa On the mainland, growing talents of entrepreneurs and developers have contributed to it.

▲ Picture from: Umaizi

Africa is a promising new market.

In 2016, Nii Quaynor built the first Bitcoin farm in Africa in Ghana. He added hundreds of Tera per second Hash calculations to the global Bitcoin mining pool, and dug out the first Bitcoin in Africa. “We should think about how to use it to affect society, so as to increase its adoption.”

This is the beginning of African Bitcoin, and now the “African Bitcoin Future” Dorsey intends to participate in is more imaginative. Only 11% of people in Africa have a bank account. In the vision of these Bitcoin bosses, 89% of people have no bank account is a new opportunity.

Bitcoin boss Pomp said: “Lack developed countries will surpass developed countries in (cryptocurrency) financial services, and building from scratch is much easier than trying to transform a giant ship.”

Since it is so underdeveloped, skip banks and Internet financial services, and let local people have encrypted accounts directly.

Another reason cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin can have a market in Africa is the instability of local currencies. Zimbabwe even has 100 trillion paper currencies, and it is very common in the country to buy only toilet paper with a stack of money. The annual average inflation rate is also as high as 12.09% . The unstable currency system and ultra-high inflation rate can easily make people lose confidence in their currencies. The instability of the local currency has even made some people choose to save with cryptocurrencies .

But because the proportion of people using the Internet in Africa is not as high as in other countries, Internet financial services are still in their infancy, and the development of cryptocurrencies has just begun. However, it is because of these characteristics that many cryptocurrency leaders have liked this unruly “rough” land.

Around 60% of the population is under 25 years of age , this is the youngest continent on the planet. On the one hand, young people need to face fierce competition, but on the other, Africa is full of demographic dividends to the outside world.

More consumers, developing primary markets, extensive growth space, and a young national structure are all pushing Internet people to “go” into Africa, and “go” into the “world’s last billion-dollar blue ocean market” “.

Witney Schneidman said that understanding the rules of 54 African countries and ensuring that they are consistent is a challenge, and finding local partners in this market can also be a challenge. But as U.S. stock market valuations soar, other countries’ interest in Africa may increase.

Venture capital markets and Africa are still struggling to find each other … Investors in the United States and Western Europe are not used to ROI like Africa, so we have not seen a large influx of funds, but we have seen Market people.

The picture is from Dugba Cauley-Hushie on Unsplash