Here’s what’s happening in Web3 across Africa

Whatever you prefer to call it — crypto, blockchain or Web3 — this new segment of the digital economy is booming across Africa. If you’ve been sleeping on the sector, now’s a good time to wake up.

Why? Well for one, according to analytics firm Chainalysis, Africa’s crypto market increased in value by more than 1,200% between July 2020 and June 2021. Led by especially high adoption rates in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Tanzania, Africa had the third-fastest growing cryptocurrency economy worldwide during that period. And that’s not all. Chainalysis also found that Africa leads the world in the share of overall crypto transaction volume coming from peer-to-peer, an indication that African consumers in crypto-unfriendly jurisdictions are increasingly finding workarounds to explicit and implicit bans.

Alongside the overall growth in cryptocurrency trading and transactions across Africa, the last 12 months have seen an accelerated pace of activity across the continent from blockchain networks/protocols, venture capital firms, grant funders, governments and more.

Blockchain networks/protocols

It seems like every day now, leading blockchain networks are announcing new Africa-focused initiatives. Ethereum, Cardano, Stellar, Celo and others seem to be actively jockeying for position in the race to build and mold Africa’s emerging Web3 economy in the last twelve months alone.

The Ethereum Foundation committed resources to an insurance program with over 6 million farmers in Kenya.

The Stellar Development Foundation announced several initiatives including a partnership with African unicorn Flutterwave to launch new Europe-Africa remittance corridors, an investment in a Nigerian remittance platform, blockchain boot camps for African startups and a $30 million matching fund, which has already invested in Afriex, an Africa-focused company with users across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.

The Celo Foundation announced some initiatives of its own, such as a collaboration with a Burkinabe startup to launch a stablecoin that tracks the value of the CFA franc, a partnership with Mercy Corps Ventures on a pilot in Kenya to drive financial inclusion among gig workers, equity-free grants to a number of African projects as part of its Wave IV Grant Program, support of various early-stage African companies via the Celocamp boot camp, and a Founders in Residence program that saw Africa-focused founders comprise 40% of the first cohort.

And Cardano was busy across the continent as well. Cardano chief Charles Hoskinson completed a tour of African countries from South Africa to Egypt and outlined Cardano’s vision for the continent, Cardano’s Africa-focused commercial arm EMURGO Africa was established in Kenya with plans to invest $100 million in over 100 pre-seed blockchain startups within three years, EMURGO Africa announced investments in Adanian Labs and Adaverse, and Cardano announced a partnership with Kenya’s Pezesha to build a “peer-to-peer financial operating system.”

Venture capital investment

In addition to increased activity from blockchain protocols, the last twelve months also saw an uptick in fundraising by startups leveraging various blockchain protocols to help individuals, businesses and other entities participate in the Web3 economy.

On/off-ramps that act as bridges between the traditional economy and the emerging Web3 economy were among those attracting investor attention. Fonbnk raised an oversubscribed seed round to build the easiest way for millions of Africans to access digital assets — simply by using prepaid airtime. And Canza Finance, an onramp powered by a network of physical agents, also raised funding recently.

Exchanges and wallets that allow users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies also experienced increased fundraising over the last…