Some Nigerians were shocked when cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that it would stop all services in Nigeria by March 8th. Despite facing scrutiny from regulators ahead of the announcement, many people are still wondering how the largest cryptocurrency exchange could disappear from the world's fastest-growing Bitcoin market. adoption. I wasn't shocked because I had been expecting this for years. Entrepreneurs in the Global South are under attack, and the front line is a currency war playing out right before our eyes.
I founded NoOnes, a peer-to-peer Bitcoin trading platform based in the Global South, because I anticipated the issues facing the cryptocurrency industry. Three years ago, I saw this day coming. I knew it was coming because I was the CEO of a US-based Bitcoin company, and I saw financial apartheid and all the regulatory problems up close. American regulators hold Africans in such low regard that they make rules that suit Westerners and don't care much about anyone else. I knew it would be more and more difficult to serve Africans and the rest of the Global South if my company was based in the United States. That's why I created NoOnes.
My only option was to turn my back on the business I had built in the Bitcoin P2P platform with over 10 million users. The problems I saw then are exploding now, but blaming governments alone is not the way forward. We must understand the pressures on our leaders because only when we do can we come to the table with them to forge a new way forward. Right now, all we have is a bunch of people cursing each other, and that's not the way forward.
This war is about the financial system and the ability to control the levers that decide who has good money and who has bad money. Entrepreneurs in the Global South are so locked into their own markets that even making payments or doing business with neighboring countries is difficult. For the average African entrepreneur to scale any business venture by expanding beyond the African continent, it is basically impossible. Now that Binance has left Nigeria, some companies based here are wondering what's next.
In order for us to truly unleash the value-creating potential of entrepreneurs in the Global South, we must nurture them and create an environment that allows them to thrive. This is only possible if we do what I have been calling for for years: ensuring free trade through a free money flow system. Achieving this will not be easy, which is why I had to make some tough decisions. I had to leave the United States, I had to abandon the successful company I had founded, and I had to start over in the Global South.
I know why Binance had to leave Nigeria, and I'm sure this will happen to other crypto companies and in other countries. It is almost impossible to run a cryptocurrency company or bitcoin market serving Africa from another continent because you have to be on the ground to see the problems and find solutions. I knew we couldn't achieve our mission of helping the unbanked if we didn't have boots on the ground in the Global South, which is why we built NoOnes here in the first place. I'm not a crazy man who gave eight years of my life to a company and then left on a whim. I set up NoOnes so I can be here for this
Moment. Binance may have withdrawn its stakes and gone home, but no one will – we've already gone home.
I know Nigeria and I know the Global South because my business has been doing business here for years. We live and work here now, listening to what people on Earth are telling us. We hire local Africans to handle moderation for Africans, for example, and that's partly what “boots on the ground” means — instead of a bunch of Americans passing judgment, we use local Africans to make moderation safer and fairer. We do not view Africa – or any of the Global South countries in which we work – as places of plunder. We see Africans as partners and fellow human beings. That's why we created our Partner Program to share our profits with the people who are part of our business.
I've met thousands of tech-savvy Nigerian entrepreneurs and I know there's a reason Bitcoin adoption is so high here. They have been shackled for too long by an unfair global financial system and financial apartheid that creates financial prisons and stifles economic growth. Bitcoin and NoOnes give these entrepreneurs the opportunity to show what they can do when markets are free and money is allowed to flow. All they need to grow is equal opportunities. They just need an opportunity, a path to success, and when we open any opportunity to them, they take it. That's why NoOnes doesn't just create the best site to buy Bitcoin. We do our best to give them life-changing opportunities.
When I speak in halls across Africa and explain what is possible with Bitcoin and our peer-to-peer platform, I see people's eyes light up. When I talk to them one-on-one, I'm amazed at how much business acumen they have. Our next step is to make it easier for these entrepreneurs to take their businesses to the next level. We are building a product that will give local entrepreneurs a tremendous opportunity to build businesses in their country for their countrymen and, ultimately, keep the profits within their country.
Despite Binance Nigeria's withdrawal, there are still plenty of opportunities. NoOnes was created for these times and we are ready to pick up the slack to help dynamic and smart Nigerians who see the value of Bitcoin and want to be part of this new era of prosperity in the Global South. The battles we have to fight may be difficult, but the opportunities on the fastest growing continent on the planet are worth it.
This is a guest post by Ray Youssef. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
