Africa-focused decentralized finance platform Mara said it was releasing a testnet for its upcoming Mara Chain, an Ethereum-compatible layer 2 network that uses MARA tokens for fees, developers told CoinDesk in an email.

Developers in Nigeria and across Africa can build and test their decentralized applications on the Optimism forked Mara Chain. The network comes on the back of the recent launch of the Mara Wallet, which allows users to trade and withdraw both fiat currencies and tokens.

“Blockchain technology has become a necessary utility and infrastructure that is critical and essential to the development of every country, similar to electricity or the internet,” said Chi Nnadi, CEO of Mara, in an email to CoinDesk. “Opportunities abound in Africa that can be harnessed using blockchain as a technology to deliver widespread utility for African people.”