Last week I interview Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace. You can read the interview below. To stay up-to-date with the interviews I conduct and to read them before my free subscribers, sign up to premium here.
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We are now entering the golden age of cryptocurrency and Africa will lead it.
That's according to Ray Youssef, CEO and co-founder of Paxful, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace, or as Youssef calls, a people-powered marketplace, for money transfers. Founded in 2015, Paxful has over 320 ways that people can choose from to pay for their Bitcoins. Several examples are through gift cards such as Amazon or iTunes, online wallets including PayPal, or by direct debit.
According to Youssef, the long-term case for Bitcoin has always been strong, but there hasn't been a mid-term value proposition, which has left a spotlight on the short-term grey and speculative use cases. Going further, he argues that the toxicity of the short-term and a lack of the mid-term is what's keeping bigger funds from moving to Bitcoin.
In his opinion, though, Africa is showing what the mid-term proposition is: peer-to-peer finance.
Driven by the necessity of a segregated and broken financial system, the people of Africa have risen up and found ways to use this technology to solve actual problems, Youssef said. This is the heart of people-powered finance and it will be the middle layer that shows the world the true value proposition of Bitcoin as a clearing layer for all the world's money, no matter what form it may be in.
In Africa, Paxful's biggest markets are Ghana and Nigeria. In 2019, Nigerian trading volume on Paxful amounted to $1.2 million; in Ghana, it was almost $80,000. For this reason, Youssef believes that having equal access to the financial networks of the world will ensure that young entrepreneurs of Africa "will rise up and show the world the power of a truly free market."
BuildWithBitcoin
Youssef has always dreamt of building schools, especially for those who need it the most. When speaking to him last February, he said: "education is essential in the sustenance of a community."
Before setting out to build 100 schools across Africa and the emerging world, it was one school he helped to rebuild in America that helped to plant the seed for the BuildWithBitcoin initiative. The school in question was the New Orleans Cathedral Academy, which was the first to open in the city after Hurrican Katrina. He said that this enabled the police and fire departments to return knowing there was a place for their children while they worked.
The reopening of that school showed me the power of education as the basis of civilization, he said.
Since then, the team behind Paxful has gone on to build two schools - all funded with Bitcoin - in Rwanda, which were built in the Kasebigege Village, next to each other. One is a nursery school and the other is a primary school. Turning their attention to Kenya, work has already started on the third school, a nursery school, in the Machakos county. Youssef said that they are aiming for the school to be finished by the end of April or early May. The goal for 2020 is to have six schools built.
Describing the school, Youssef said that it will have three classrooms, a teacher's office, a kitchen equipped with kitchen supplies, restrooms (three for boys and three for girls), solar power, tables, desks, and chairs, and uniforms. Youssef added that they have around five acres of land donated by the county for further expansion to include primary and secondary schools.
While the schools are no doubt an important aspect, Youssef said that the wells and water filtration systems always come before them, adding that "water is the medium of consciousness and foundation of civilization."
Our wells in Rwanda have proven to be a massive success with the entire county of 450,000 people now going to the wells at the school just to retrieve water as the wells are overcapacity. These wells could change the lives of hundreds of millions of people living in Africa and raise the GNP of the entire continent.
Impact from Coronavirus
Since the coronavirus pandemic, crypto and traditional markets have suffered. Bitcoin is one example, which lost nearly 50 percent of its value earlier this month, whereas the Dow Jones suffered its worst-ever loss last week. Speaking about the infinite amount of money by the U.S. Federal Reserve this week, Youssef is of the opinion that this will see rampant inflation, which will bring many to Bitcoin.
Bitcoin will achieve it's place as a hyper liquid store of value, he added. The price will follow suit once the inflation flows through enough layers and begins to be felt by retail. Expect massive surges by year-end if the wheels of industry begin to turn again.
