Video

Why Senegal rejects the CFA and is warming to Bitcoin: Video

Why is there a groundswell toward Bitcoin adoption in Dakar? And could it influence neighboring countries and regions to explore magic internet money?

Cointelegraph goes to Senegal, West Africa. The mid-sized African nation recently hosted a Bitcoin (BTC) conference, and more and more merchants and customers are joining the Lightning Network.

Armed with a camera, a Lightning wallet and a microphone, reporter Joe Hall took to the streets of Senegal to peer under the surface of Bitcoin adoption in the capital city, Dakar.

As the Cointelegraph YouTube video highlights, Senegal has a young, digitally native population and, in recent years, it’s become second nature for people to send money via mobile phones rather than banks.

A mobile money provider called Wave, for example, began in 2017 in Senegal and has since expanded to other countries in West Africa. It now boasts millions of users.

Much like Bitcoin, the mobile money revolution attempts to bank the unbanked and improve financial conditions for financially underserved populations. Its user experience is quite similar to sending money over Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in that you scan a QR code or send money to a number. However, mobile money charges anything from 1% to 3% and can take a few minutes to confirm. It’s therefore a useful tool, but too costly for microtransactions.

In the video, Hall sends Bitcoin over the Lightning Network to a manager at Wave, who showed interest and surprise at the Lightning Network’s efficacy. In fact, many Senegalese were interested in receiving, acquiring or learning how to custody Bitcoin.

Speakers at Senegal’s first major Bitcoin conference, DakarBtcDays.

The Dakar Bitcoin Days conference underscored the Senegalese’s interest in learning about and using Bitcoin. Founded by Nourou, Dakar Bitcoin Days is part of Bitcoin Senegal, another pocket of budding Bitcoin activity in West Africa.

However, the overarching reason which could lead to greater Bitcoin adoption in Senegal is breaking the monetary chains of its colonial past.

In 1994, the value of the local currency, the CFA, was sliced in half by a combination of efforts from France, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Senegalese fiat savings were decimated.

The scars of this monetary collapse and its residual regime remain in West Africa and Senegal. The CFA money is not sovereign and it disempowers and disenfranchises people.

That’s why people are looking for alternatives, and some are turning to Bitcoin.

Judge rules LBRY video platform’s token is a security in case brought by the US SEC

The court was unmoved by LBRY’s objections that the regulator’s claims were unfounded and it was not given the chance to operate in compliance with SEC requirements.

A United States District Court ruled in favor of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Nov. 7 in its case against blockchain-based file-sharing and payment network LBRY. The court granted the SEC’s request for a summary judgment filed on May 5. The SEC sued developer LBRY, Inc. in March 2021 — after the agency had brought similar charges against Ripple — claiming that its LBRY Credit token (LBC) was sold as a security under the 1933 Securities Act.

According to the SEC, LBRY raised more than $11 million in U.S. dollars, Bitcoin (BTC) and services from investors between 2016 and 2021 without filing a registration statement containing “the information required for such an offering to the public.” LBRY did not hold an initial coin offering, and the SEC did not allege fraud in the case.

We lost. Sorry everyone.

— LBRY (@LBRYcom) November 7, 2022

LBRY operates the decentralized video-sharing platform Odysee, which offers viewers the opportunity to earn cryptocurrency for watching videos while creators earn LBC for their work. LBRY denied that LBC was a security and claimed the SEC spurned its efforts to settle with it. According to the website for a petition addressed to the SEC defending LBRY:

“The LBRY Credit […] allows individuals to create an identity, tip creators, and publish, purchase, and boost content in a decentralized way. Millions of people have used it this way, and many were using it well before we sold any tokens to anyone. […] We’ve acted in extremely good-faith, attempted to follow all the rules, and complied with the SEC at every turn.”

However, Judge Paul Barbadoro of the District of New Hampshire found:

“No reasonable trier of fact could reject the SEC’s contention that LBRY offered LBC as a security, and LBRY does not have a triable defense that it lacked fair notice.”

The ruling means the case will not go to trial. The company stated, “Even if LBRY Inc is shut down by the SEC as a result of this lawsuit, the LBRY network will continue to function and grow through the effort of the distributed LBRY community.” LBRY founder Jeremy Kauffman is currently running to represent New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate as a member of the Libertarian Party.

LBRY, Inc. did not respond to a Cointelegraph request for comment by press time.

Will the Bitcoin mining industry collapse? Analysts explain why crisis is really opportunity

Many BTC miners are in a tough spot and a few could collapse, but experts say the industry is here to stay.

Bitcoin mining involves a delicate balance between multiple moving parts. Miners already have to face capital and operational costs, unexpected repairs, product shipping delays and unexpected regulation that can vary from country to country — and in the case of the United States, from state to state. On top of that, they also had to contend with Bitcoin’s (BTC) precipitous drop from $69,000 to $17,600.

Despite the BTC price being 65% down from its all-time high, the general consensus among miners is to keep calm and carry on by just stacking sats, but that doesn’t mean the market has reached a bottom just yet.

In an exclusive Bitcoin miners panel hosted by Cointelegraph, Luxor CEO Nick Hansen said, “There’s going to definitely be a capital crunch in publicly listed companies or at least not even just publicly listed companies. There’s probably close to $4 billion worth of new ASICs that need to be paid for as they come out, and that capital is no longer available.”

Hansen elaborated with:

“Hedge funds blow up very quickly. I think miners are going to take 3 to 6 months to blow up. So we’ll see who’s got good operations and who’s able to survive this low margin environment.”

When asked about future challenges and expectations for the Bitcoin mining industry, PRTI Inc. adviser Magdalena Gronowska said, “One of the biggest challenges that we’ve had in this transition to a low-carbon economy and reducing GHG emissions has been an underinvestment in technology and infrastructure by the public and private sectors. What I think is really amazing about Bitcoin mining is that it’s really presenting a completely novel way to fund or subsidize that development of energy or waste management infrastructure. And that’s a way that’s beyond those traditional taxpayer or electricity ratepayer pathways because this way is based on a purely elegant system of economic incentives.”

Will Bitcoin destroy the environment?

As the panel discussion shifted to the environmental impact of BTC mining and the widely held assumption that Bitcoin’s energy consumption is a threat to the planet, Blockware Solutions analyst Joe Burnett said:

“I think Bitcoin mining is just not bad for the environment, period, I think if anything, it incentivizes more energy production, it improves grid reliability, and resilience and I think it will likely lower retail electricity rates in the long term.”

According to Burnett, “Bitcoin mining is a bounty to produce cheap energy, and this is good for all of humanity.”

Will industrial Bitcoin mining catalyze the long-awaited “mass adoption” of crypto?

Regarding Bitcoin mining dominance, the future of the industry and whether or not the growth of industrial mining could eventually lead to crypto mass adoption, Hashworks CEO Todd Esse said, “I believe that most of the mining down the road will be held in the Middle East and North America, and to some extent Asia. Depending upon how much they are eventually able to cut off. And that really speaks to the availability of natural resources and the cost of power.”

While it is easy to assume that growing synergy between big energy companies and Bitcoin mining would add validity to BTC as an investment asset and possibly facilitate its mass adoption, Hansen disagreed.

Hansen said:

“No, certainly not, but it is going to be the thing that transforms everyone’s life whether they know it or not. By being that buyer of last resort and buyer of first resort for energy. It’s going to transform energy, energy markets and the way it is produced and consumed here in the United States. And, overall, it should significantly improve the human condition over time.

Don’t miss the full interview on our YouTube channel and don’t forget to subscribe!

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content of product on this page. While we aim at providing you all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor this article can be considered as an investment advice.