I am Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob AMA
Hi everyone! I’m @bernard_parah, Founder and CEO of Bitnob.
Bitnob - Bitcoin + Noble (uses) started as a project to demonstrate the good uses of Bitcoin beyond speculation. Our distributed team is based out of Nigeria, Ghana and some parts of Europe. Come visit our Bitcoin hacker houses in Abuja and Accra anytime you find yourself in Nigeria or Ghana.
In an environment where we are having to deal with very strict monetary controls such as the ability to only spend $20/month from our debit cards, double-digit inflation and high remittance costs, Bitnob uses bitcoin and the lightning network to connect Africans to the world.
Recently, we became the major sponsor of the Nigerian Professional Football league, which is the equivalent of the English Premier league, through this medium, we can get Bitcoin to the millions of people who need it around the country
Ask me anything about: Bitnob Lightning Bitcoin use cases in Africa Farming (haha) Sports
Let’s go🚀
What do you think is the biggest misconception that the West has about the global adoption of Bitcoin?
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That:
Everyone in the world also has access to cash app, PayPal, etc and therefore has no reason to use bitcoin beyond speculation.
The majority of the world population lives outside the West, and they're capable of figuring out ways to survive in their environments. Bitcoin fixes some problems for them, and use bitcoin they will.
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What kind solutions/improvements need to be developed for lightning to make it usable in areas with a bad internet infrastructure? Where should the focus be, the costumer of the merchant?
Things that are in development are LNURL NFC payment cards and a offline POS terminals. Are this developments in the right direction, or do you think there are important specs that are not being taking in to account at this moment?
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You just mentioned them! I love LNURL NFC payment cards. The Bolt card is pretty dope!
Those are the things we need, offline POS terminals, merchants will be key drivers if consumer adoption is to grow.
One other thing that needs to be developed to make lightning more usable in these areas is finding ways to connect it to USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). This will enable millions of people using feature phones to use lightning. It's already the biggest way people use mobile money on the continent.
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I think the current NFC cards still needs a lot of improvement. Especially in the field of authorisation. At this moment there is no way to check/approve the amount that will be deducted from the card. I think if a solution is found for this, it can go fast with the adoption.
What is needed to connect Lightning to USSD. Is this something telecom providers need to support? Or is this something that (for example) Bitnob can build?
Wouldn't it be nicer if there was a Mash network available for Lightning payments? I thought that goTenna and Blockstream (https://txtenna.com) are working on this. But than you first need to invest a little bit in hardware before you can use it.
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Yes the auth part needs improvements. I think the folks at coincorner have a way out, though not publicly released.
For lightning to work with USSD, it's more of a regulatory than technical issue. It should be pretty easy hacking a USSD <> Lightning connector.
Mesh networks should definitely be a thing in the future, we need more hardware down here
  • Are there any other notable businesses on lightning/ products being developed in Nigeria that you are aware of or that you might hope to work with? Wondering how retail looks, availability of products and services in Nigeria, or wider on the continent.
  • What is the competition in the remittance space?
  • Does Bitnob plan to grow userbase to other regions, if legislation allows for it?
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Is Bitnob a company that can bring people into Bitcoin or just thriving from the preexisting Bitcoin community?
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Bitnob's has primarily brought in more people to Bitcoin, many of our users had their first interaction with Bitcoin by dollar-cost averaging on our platform. The thought of trading was a huge barrier for many, but we made it look simple. Many also didn't know of the other things you could use Bitcoin for until they found Bitnob.
We are growing the community in Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
Also, Bitnob is Bitcoin-focused, this way, we are creating a lot of new Bitcoiners who see the long-term benefit of holding bitcoin instead of speculating.
With our lightning integration, many users now bypass monetary controls by topping up visa cards on sites like paywithmoon, or buying gift cards on bitrefill.
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Will Lightning one day be synonymous with Bitcoin?
Or will we have to say "Bitcoin-Lightning" and confuse normies from now until reality?
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I think lightning will be relegated to the background for normies, many of them will probably first experience bitcoin on lightning in the coming years.
For example something we do on the Bitnob app is let the user scan a QR and we pay via lightning or onchain depending on the QR without asking them to select "Lightning or Onchain" as the payment channel
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Or maybe even USD/EUR payments routed over the Lightning network. So people not even know they are using lightning.
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Is there a cost to doing this?
e.g., If I deposit via LN and then withdraw on-chain, beyond on-chain fees?
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No there isn't any extra cost to that beyond onchain fees
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What might be the most surprising or unexpected thing about life in Africa for someone who has never been to Africa?
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Nice. I'll say a few gotten from my friends who visited Africa for the first time.
Africa is diverse, life in one country is almost totally different from life in the neighboring country. So it's difficult to understand one African country and have the same image for all of Africa.
That there are beautiful houses and places etc, not the people living in huts and on trees western media portrays.
The energy is positive despite the difficult circumstances
There is so much hidden talent and opportunities the world doesn't know about
The sense of community is high
and the is food is the BEST in the world haha!
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love it, hope to make my first trip soon!
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yooo! Happy to host you!
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let’s gooooo! ⚡️
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If you had to guess, how many people are using Bitcoin in Nigeria today?
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A good guess would be in the range of 2-5million people who have at least interacted with Bitcoin
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Interesting, if you had to guess, how many people have debit/credit cards in Nigeria today?
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As of 2020, there were 111m active bank accounts, 1 person can have multiple bank accounts, so let's assume 60m people have bank accounts, I am not sure up to half of them have debit/credit cards. I'll settle for a 20m debit card users
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What's your experience with farming?
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Livestock - I did poultry farming for a couple of years.
I am now more focused on trading agricultural commodities and growing grains like corn, and soybean.
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Nice! What's the path from poultry farming to Bitnob?
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poultry farming, then I went to study computer science in Ghana (2013), back in Nigeria in 2018 and then Bitnob.
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Do you talk about this on any of the podcasts you've been on? I tend to love these kind of hero journeys, and I don't want to ask a million questions.
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Haha, the only podcast I got close to sharing this is coming out this July!
It's packed with a lot of personal stories!
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I know that bitcoin usage in Nigeria has been stunted somewhat by the association with scammers. Has that perception improved at all recently? Also, is the term"bitcoin" used as a shorthand for any crypto, as I know is the case in some parts of the world.
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Yes, that perception has largely changed and is changing every day. Regular folks now talk about Bitcoin, people use it for remittances as well. The EndSars protests which were funded using bitcoin donations were a watershed moment for this change in perception as well.
No, it's not, when people say crypto, they actually mean it. When you find someone who says Bitcoin, then they're really talking about Bitcoin
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In what way are people using LN? Galoy for example made this fancy multisig setup where community elders (or someone like that) would custody everyone's sats. Of course non-custodial is better but even the simplest non-custodial app Phoenix has this problem that you can't just start with receiving a small sum and people have great trouble figuring out why. So what would be the best working solution in Nigeria?
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People mostly use lightning for remittances to and from Europe, the US, and Australia. It's still early days for lightning over here, so we don't exactly have any unique setups yet.
Custodial wallets are currently the easiest way, Bluewallet is the most common I've seen here outside of Bitnob.
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  • Do most people have access to a PC or phone and are they technically experienced?
  • Is it difficult to explain them bitcoin/lightning?
Great work btw;)
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Phones are common place.
Yes, it can be difficult explaining it, the best way I've seen it work is getting them to try it without trying to explain too much too fast.
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What's the standard pitch for Bitnob to a customer? What are their main reservations when getting them to use Bitnob?
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What's the prognosis for e-Naira (CBDC)?
Does it have any traction to speak of?
Will it be growing in usage organically, or will they have to force adoption, carrot and stick methods?
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With the amount of resources and influence pushing it, I'd say adoption has been very bad. Terrible.
Even the forced adoption isn't working at the moment. DoA
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What's the most surprising thing you've learned building a Bitcoin company?
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That a lot of people don't actually care about Bitcoin, they only care about what problems it solves for them.
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If anyone is interested, just started now there is a Twitter Spaces from Bitnob:
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What's something you believe about bitcoin that no bitcoiners agree with you on?
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That people who don't believe in Bitcoin or play on other chains are not necessarily bad people. There's life outside of Bitcoin.
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Hi boss, when will your card feature be available and would it be available via API?
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It's already available via API and will be soon be on the app!
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What are the challenges to mass Bitcoin adoption in Nigeria?
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Education is certainly the biggest challenge
Regulation comes at a close second, the banks are not allowed to serve crypto companies
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How has Bitnob fared with regulators and regulations in Nigeria?
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We've done out best to comply where regulations are clear. In areas where nothing is clearly defined, we self-regulate.
It hasn't been easy growing since regulators are not exactly happy with banks serving crypto companies, this makes it difficult for on and offramps
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Are you guys still working on a crowdfunding tool?
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