African Bitcoin Revolution: Strike’s Launch of Strike Africa Marks a New Era of Financial Empowerment

• Strike is reported to have extended its Bitcoin services to seven countries in Africa namely: Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia.

• It is also rolling out support for two major use cases for businesses within these supported regions to execute cross-border payments at a cheaper cost. 

Last year, Bitcoin firm Strike announced the expansion of its services outside the United States as part of the plans to give billions of people access to its Bitcoin and lightning wallet, USDT, and debit card on-ramps. According to the latest report, the firm chooses Africa as its next destination as it launches Strike Africa.

As stated in its official blog post, users residing in Gabon, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, and Zambia can now take full advantage of its suite of Bitcoin services with more markets expected to be announced in the future. 

At Strike, we envision a future where everyone has access to Bitcoin, a truly open, global, and public digital infrastructure for money. To realize this vision, we’ve been hyper-focused on expanding our Bitcoin and Lightning services to as many markets as possible with as many on and off-ramps as possible.

Over the past few years, several countries in Africa have been facing serious economic challenges with Nigeria having an inflation of almost 30%. On top of that, the Nigerian Naira has also experienced a 230% devaluation in the last year.

Ghana also had its inflation averaging 14.3% in the past ten years leading up to 2022. In addition, a World Bank report confirms that remittance rates in Africa are among the highest globally. In 2022, the average cost of sending $200 to the continent was 8.5% of the amount involved. 

Strike Makes More Revelation on its Latest Expansion

According to Strike, rival platforms like Coinbase and Binance leverage the ongoing challenges as they offer “shit coins” as money.

With skyrocketing inflation rates, antiquated payment rails that are riddled with fees, and intense capital controls forcibly locking people into deteriorating money, other platforms like Coinbase and Binance have taken advantage by promoting alternative “currencies” and shitcoins like Ether and Solana as money. At Strike, we remain committed to offering a principled, ethically sound solution focused on helping customers find value in all Bitcoin has to offer, without the distraction of speculative assets. That’s why we only offer Bitcoin and a USD Stablecoin, USDT. That’s it.

Customers within the supported countries in Africa, according to the blog post, would now be able to buy and sell Bitcoin and USDT and send and receive on-chain payment with free on-chain withdrawal options. They would also be able to send and receive Lightning Network payments with Bitcoin and USDT, unlock the P2P strike users across the world, cash out to local currency, etc. 

With this launch, businesses can equally open accounts within the supported countries. In addition to rolling out support for businesses to buy Bitcoin and USDT, it is working on opening a full suite of cross-border payment services for businesses for cheaper and faster transactions. 

Strike uses Bitcoin technology to execute B2B cross-border payments for business customers that are affordable and settle quickly. For example, a business with a South African division of their company could repatriate revenue in Rand back into the United States as USD into their corporate bank account. Settlement is the same day and the fees are cheap. Open networks win.