As an African living in a first world country. When talking to folks back home I marvel at how crypto currency or block chain technology still remains a foreign language to them ; yet to me its becoming second nature . I believe block chain technology and technology in general is advancing at a pace that most of the African population will never be able to catch up and yet It has become a multi-billion industry.

However I feel this should not be the case as there are millions of Africans who have migrated into the developed nations and we are still failing to transfer such valuable knowledge and innovation to the continent. Yet we are contributing substantial amounts of money to the economies in Africa . In 2015 this ammount was above $66 (£50.9) billion , with implications of high remittance fees on all transections for example in the UK alone the figure stands at about £400($518) million a year making it an undisputed fact that Africa is considered to be the most expensive place to send money. However if Africa was to catch the fire of the block chain and crypto currency, this would drastically reduce the fees including processing times for transections and by cutting out the middlemen we would further make savings. This would also give people control over their money, which is the main motivation of decentralised currencies

On a final note I would also like to emphasise the importance of the block chain technology to business and banking on the continent especially making cross border payments available, reliable and cost effective. This means that if Africa embraces this technological innovation, it will create for it self an environment easy to facilitate international and inter regional transactions. Presently we have Fintech companies such Ripple who have utilised this technology for cross boarder payments serving the banking and financial sector .

Africa let us catch the fire.