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Baki; Infinite access to FX for African businesses
Recorded: Oct. 12, 2023 Duration: 0:52:28Space Recording
Full Transcription
OX, OX Von?
Vick, do you want to answer?
Can you send also an invite to OX?
Um, no, to Pascal.
Oh, you want to send an invite to Von?
OX, yeah, 0X Von.
Yes.
Okay, all right.
Awesome.
Um, yes, I think, I think you're up, Von.
Can you, can you hear me, Tony?
Yes, you can.
Oh, awesome.
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Um, so I guess we will just wait a couple more minutes, say five more minutes, um, to get
people to come in here.
And also while I put up reminders in the various channels.
So, yeah, just give me five more minutes, folks, and we'll kick off.
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Hi, OXBone.
Do you want to go next?
Yeah, sure.
Pleasure.
Thank you for having us.
I'm Victor.
I'm the chief strategy officer on the team.
The first thing you know, I'm going to be a good deal.
Yeah.
I think I'm going to be on the team.
So, yeah, no, thank you so much for having us.
Awesome.
Lovely hearing from you.
I think Pascal, oh, Pascal might have dropped off the game, but that's cool.
So, I mean, from my own perspective, personally, I think one of the reasons why I've always been
excited about Kanza, I think you guys, you've also been on the Parkless podcast, if I'm
mistaken, I don't know.
I think one of the reasons why I'm actually excited about this solution, this stack of
solutions, by the way, that you're building is because it seems not only like, you know,
has Hunter said that you're actually building products that solve real world problems within
Africa, but it's like there's also a bit of, no, sorry, there's also a lot of consideration
in terms of like building specific products for specific markets and also specific use
cases because when we look at the, when we look at the current climate within Africa
and we look at how the blockchain space is and how we fit in there, there are just not
a lot of people building and also solving in terms of like, you know, things that affect
everyday people within the continent yet because I think we are still kind of in the early stage.
So, I think personally, that's one of the reasons why I'm super excited to have you guys
on here today.
Yeah.
And I hope we have an awesome time.
So, I will pop on the mic over to, sorry please, could you, could you, okay, yeah, I guess
maybe when people ask questions, different people within the team will take up the question.
So, but I just want to pop on the mic to, um, perhaps Ontario Wu, which is like, so you
give us, um, a brief overview of what Kanza Finance is and the different stack of products
that, you know, you have been giving so far, you know, from, from, from Jolofi, um, you know,
cross-border payment settlements, um, or unwrap and off-ramps.
And also, I think what I'm also interested in is understanding how, um, agent-based banking also
works within Kanza, but, um, so I would leave you to actually do the high-level intro for
folks before we dive into Baki, um, and understanding how, um, that works in terms of access to liquidity
for businesses.
No, perfect.
I appreciate that.
I think, um, uh, it's good that you said Jolof.
I just, uh, left Senegal in Dakar, so there's a big debate with the Jolof rice aspect, but I
think, um, I'm back in Lagos now, so, so, the Lagos, the Lagos, the Lagos, the Lagos
Jolof still wins, but I just want to touch on high-level over the, um, the aspect of the
products.
Literally, from the distributed asset space, um, there's always been a massive, massive
focus on, um, on-ramps and off-ramps, right?
You have to be able to get access within, you know, digital currencies with local fiat, etc.
And I think that's a massive pull.
I think that really started around, even from the beginning, um, from the original exchanges,
um, obviously from, um, around the 2013 and those type of ways.
Like, you just have to have exchanges that accept it.
Um, you go, so that's all the way from Mt.
Gox, and it goes from there.
But I think now, um, we're around two or three cycles or BTC halvings away from that time.
But on-ramp and off-ramps is really, really an essential infrastructure to have.
Like, and I think, um, we really needed to be tailored towards, um, other markets that
wanted to get access, access if you really wanted to go towards, like, what is the original
purpose for, like, the original BTC white paper?
So, right now, you know, we really started going off from OTC desk, um, within the African
continent, um, turning different local currencies into digital assets.
Um, really started, um, working with the rates, um, of just, like, the equivalent of
these digital assets in the localized pairing.
I think that's one of the big things and the missions over our side is that it's a lot
about, say, um, localized infrastructure, um, working and understanding exactly what's
happening on the ground and then building solutions around that.
So, obviously, the main aspect there from a Tradfire offering was the OTC desk, and that's
what we call within the Jara aspects, um, and that's where we work with our decentralized
agents and our Bucky agents or whatever the word people use for, there's basically, like,
uh, the decentralized banking network for basically people that are underserved.
And they don't have the traditional banking tools.
You have, um, different type of banking agents on the ground, like, or FX brokers.
So, we've worked, um, from that side to really build up, uh, traffic and brand equity on that
side.
And then, you know, just, like, the team.
You know, it's just, it's definitely just, uh, myself or it's, uh, Yvonne or, or, or,
or Pascal.
Like, it's a massive team.
There's a lot of really good developers.
I believe they're all on the, on the space now.
It's because we have a very deep understanding of the web decomposability and then how then
we bring that web decomposability, um, to create products to really solve the gaps in
the market.
Even though we're introducing, you know, USDT, on-ramp and off-ramps, et cetera, it still
could be even costlier, a little bit more costlier, or it could be a little bit less
costlier pertaining to certain businesses, pertaining to the quote that they get at the time.
So with so much volatility, we wanted to work and understand how do we get, like, um, how
do we see from other projects or how do we see from the space over the years of bringing
that true web three aspects?
You know, but obviously now I think it's a really, really good time because we are in
the space of real world assets and RWA and, and really trying to get the, um, you know,
basically all the, all the, all the noise out the way.
And then how do we really find true value?
So that really leads into the DeFi suite of products, um, that basically we, um, offload
to our different clients and as an overlay to a different OTC that's, that we work with
to utilize these different tools, um, that are very uniquely designed for the, um, emerging
market ecosystems.
And that goes into what you mentioned, the Jullify and the, and the Barkie, um, which
we're really excited to talk about today and some really other interesting concepts that
I know OX1 would love to dive into.
So I'd advise you OX1 to talk about the, um, the high level of the DeFi infrastructure
suite.
Yeah.
Um, thank you.
Thank you for that breakdown.
And I liked the, I liked the overview of it, but also for people who were in here and
who maybe are not in Africa, um, who do not have context of, um, some of the very funny
ways that businesses have to struggle within the continent.
Um, I guess I, I would just like you to, so from your perspective, building Kansas so
far, um, and also like, you know, the different, um, products that are also like stacked within
Kansas.
Um, I would just like to just, you to just help by providing like an overview of like
some of the problems, um, that businesses face, like not just in terms of liquidity,
but like, okay, so why can they not access, uh, why do they not have access to finance?
You know, just like, it could just be like three, um, an overview of like three points
or something.
So people get perspective of the problem that we are having and also key, it's key into
how Kansas is actually like solving those problems.
Yeah, for sure.
Perhaps I can, I can answer that one.
I think the first and biggest problem, I think that we, we all need to kind of understand
is that 95% of consumer goods come in from overseas into the continent.
So that that's really the first and foremost kind of core problem is that a lot of kind of
consumer goods need to be imported.
And for you to import that, you need to access FX.
And that kind of leads you into the second problem, which becomes a kind of question of how do
you get that FX?
Where do you, do you get that, those types of transactions?
And then obviously the first thing that people would kind of expect is actually coming from
Western or European audiences, just be like, Oh, just do a bank transfer.
Uh, and that issue is that you, most banks will not be able to fill your orders because
the banks will essentially say, Oh, we'll only do the order at the official exchange rate,
but there's actually not enough liquidity at that official exchange rate.
And then that leads you to kind of the third one of, okay, well, I still need to make my
business happen.
How do I do it?
And so that one is when you kind of go to these FX agents to really facilitate those
transactions for you.
And the problem there is that now you're really in a system where it's entirely based on trust.
But more importantly, I think the thing that people don't see is that when you give your
Naira, for example, to an FX agent, he gives you dollars.
The first thing he's going to do is going to try to sell that Naira on the other side to
get back into dollars so that he can do the same trade tomorrow.
And that creates this kind of constant downward pressure.
So the combination of these three factors together really kind of leads to this kind
of environment, where especially for businesses, it just gets harder and harder every day to
kind of stay ahead of the curve and still be able to make those kinds of transactions and
keep your business going.
And not only that, being able to actually grow your business to take it to the next level
where you can actually start accessing that deeper pools of financing and all the other
kind of issues that really kind of exist in the market.
So hopefully that kind of gives a high level one.
I know there's, I probably missed a few elements, but I think that in our minds, it's kind
of the big three ones there at least.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Vaughn.
But also, I would just like also now, I would just like you to just also key, you know,
all of these problems into, so for instance, you know, Jolofi solves the access problem.
And then, you know, Baki solves the liquidity problem.
And yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
So yeah, so if just to translate that across, Baki is really kind of the big one to facilitate
that liquidity problem and try to overcome that kind of challenge that we have with the
FX agents trying to sell their currencies and kind of that onward going downward spiral.
So and then on the other hand, we have Jara, which really solves the access to that agent
network of how do you want to pick up the phone a hundred times or do you want to pick
up the phone once and kind of execute that trade?
And then lastly, with Jolof, that's really more of our kind of DeFi product where that's
really kind of solving the idea of how does a business is able to kind of save that money
so that they're able to invest it in the future to actually grow their business.
And so that's kind of the combination of the three there.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you so much for that quick summary.
I hope folks in here, especially those who are looking to have businesses or even, you
know, not.
I hope that that has actually provided some form of clarity in terms of how this works.
But we're 20 minutes in.
So I would just like us to go deeper and dive into Baki.
And essentially in terms of, you know, we speak so much of not having.
Especially because I'm also a Nigerian.
So I think that might also be why I am particularly interested in also getting the high level of
how Baki works specifically.
So yeah, I don't know who would take that.
Yeah, I think that one will fall on me.
But yeah, very quickly, Baki is a stable coin protocol with the key difference for Baki versus other stable coin protocols is that we allow users to mint more currencies.
So on top of U.S. dollars, we also allow users to mint Nigerian, Naira, South African Rand, and CEFA, XAF.
And the way it works is similar to MakerDAO, where users are able to bring in $1.50 of collateral.
They're able to mint $1 worth of debt.
And whether that be in ZUSD, ZNGN, ZZAR, or XAF, that position can move between any of those currencies through a burn and mint mechanism.
So for example, if you have one ZUSD, you can burn that one ZUSD.
And assuming the exchange rate from Naira to dollars is $1,000, then you essentially burn that one ZUSD, get $1,000 ZNaira.
And the $1,000 ZNaira still represents a debt position of $1.
And you're still collateralized by $1.50.
So your collateralization ratio is unchanged.
So what that means is that for you in business, in kind of a business context, businesses can now use this as a treasury currency to quickly go between Nigerian, Naira, to U.S. dollars and back and forth, so that they never have to worry about having that liquidity or not to actually make those transactions.
And secondly, it also works really well as a working capital currency.
Because now, for example, imagine that you're a business that you just sold Nigerian jollof rice, for example, take the early example, into Cameroon, and you sold that for SIFA.
You can actually, and you sold it for ZSIFA.
Now you can swap it from SIFA to Naira directly without actually incurring any slippage on your transaction, no matter how big it is.
And so that becomes really, really interesting for those businesses that are trying to operate cross-border on the continent to add this into their ecosystem.
And then the last point I just mentioned really quickly of why this is quite interesting, especially to solve that kind of third issue I mentioned, is that instead of the FX agents or anybody bringing liquidity into the market, selling their liquidity, getting the local currency risk, and then trying to have to recycle that local currency back into the U.S. dollars or what have you,
what happens now is we allow them to collateralize that, deposit it, borrow against it, and then do their trades with the synthetic assets.
And what that means is that now, imagine that if Naira devalues before you're able to sell it back to get it back into your position, well, your debt position is now tied to Naira.
So that debt position will also devalue at the same time.
And so now you're really in a net neutral position where you can actually do your trades, but you don't have to worry about is the rate going to drop really quickly tomorrow,
or am I going to get stuck with a lot of Naira and not be able to get back into dollars?
And so that's kind of the real difference that I think will really change a lot of the dynamics in terms of the inflation or currency devaluation that we're seeing today.
Okay, so essentially what Baki is, is, you know, at the top level provides access to, you know, FX, which is also right now, I think, kind of scarce,
especially for businesses performing in trade.
But then at the same time, it's also kind of like a hedge against currency devaluation, right?
Exactly. Yeah.
Okay, so I think that's, I think I'm still a bit curious on, I know you have explained, but I'm actually still a bit curious for us to dive deeper into how that works.
Because I know that, like, I know that, like, you know, the problem of hedging against the devaluation of the Naira is constant.
And it's a constant problem that so many people are experimenting on solving.
But then to now find out that, like, you are mixing both the access to FX and also the hedge against, you know, waking up and saying,
yes, the Naira was 8,000 Naira.
And then today I've woken up and Naira is 8,005.
And, you know, the FX that I have isn't enough because, you know, there's no FX.
And also, you know, when I convert it back to dollar, it just doesn't relate.
So, I don't know.
Do you mind diving deeper?
But also in terms of possibly businesses, like, from the business perspective.
So, like, just a breakdown of how that will work if they were to use that key.
Yeah, sorry.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, just to kind of give a conceptual kind of answer first.
I think the interesting thing to understand is what's happening today, specifically in Nigeria, but it's also being replicated across the continent.
So, forgive me if I could just go through the example specifically in Nigeria, is that what we're happening is that we have an FX scarcity.
There's not enough FX in the market.
And so, if we translate this to imagine that there was milk instead, it was kind of the main currency.
And there's only so much milk in the market.
And everybody wants to kind of – some people want to buy the milk to either speculate on the price of milk or some people actually want to buy the milk to use it.
What happens is that the scarcity of it is going to drive that price of milk really, really high.
And so, what happens is that now, even if you want to use the milk, you're going to be priced out by the person speculating on it.
So, the solution that financial markets came up with back in the late 1800s, early 1900s was the creation of what was called synthetic assets.
And so, now what happened is that you created a new class of asset that tracks the price of milk so that the speculator can speculate and benefit from the price of movements of milk, but then the user of the milk can actually still use it.
And that's exactly the kind of situation that we're seeing today in Nigeria, but just with dollars instead of milk, where there's an element of speculation and there's an element of using the dollars.
So, what happens is with Bakke is the key difference is that we're saying we don't want dollars to leave the system like they are today, where essentially what's happening is that you're just getting dollars for your Naira and then you're spending that elsewhere.
And then whoever you sold your Nairas to, their first job is going to be find dollars somewhere else in the market from somebody else.
And so, that kind of creates this deflationary cycle.
So, with Bakke, what we say is we say, okay, well, deposit your dollars as collateral, mint the Zed Naira against it, and then sell Zed Naira for Naira.
Now, the user that has the Zed Naira can swap that Zed Naira to Zed USD and then from Zed USD to USDT or whatever they want to do.
And then for you, you've ended up in a position where now you have a debt position in Naira, denominated in Zed Naira, and then you also have your assets that you've received in Naira.
So, what happens now is let's say that Naira devalues, so it goes 1,000 to 1,005.
Well, your debt went from 1,000 to 1,005, and the money that you have in your hand also went from 1,000 to 1,005.
So, now you're actually in a net neutral position because there's no impact.
Your debt decreased, but your assets decreased.
So, you can always repay your debt and close that position.
And so, by doing it this way, not only do we keep the dollars in the system, allowing it to back the rest of the ecosystem,
but it also means that we can also open up the door for if there is more demand for Zed tokens in the wild.
Now, we end up in a situation where Zed tokens are priced above the par.
So, let's say, hypothetically, Zed USD is now at $1.10.
It now creates an incentive for DeFi users around the world to come in and provide liquidity for the African market.
And so, that's really kind of the situation here.
We're not only are we solving the local issue by changing how the local market actually sources and keeps their dollars in the ecosystem,
but we're also opening the door to actually allow that foreign currency to come directly into the market to provide liquidity for these types of transactions.
Thank you so much for that.
I hope people who are also in the audience took some notes.
We will open this space up, say, by 3.40 in case you have questions, or you can also feel free to drop them in the comment section.
So, I think so far we have been speaking of this in relation to the Nigerian market.
So, I'm also just curious, you know, if there, if Kanzar, like, also, basically, if Baki also, like, serves other markets.
I understand why Nigeria is such a, is kind of like a smart place to do this, because, like, I think so far we are the ones with the very poorly performing currency.
I'm not sure that Kenya is doing as bad as we are doing right now, or even Ghana.
Yeah, so, like, are there plans to save other regions within Africa, or even other emerging markets?
Deji, do you want to take this one?
Oh, yes, for sure.
I think, obviously, for the Nigerian aspect, this is where we started with different agents and FX brokers and broker-dealers that are on the ground,
and currency exchange network.
But, yeah, like, I think I just mentioned a little bit earlier, the last statement, just coming back from Senegal with different access within Cameroon,
definitely went to South Africa earlier this year, Joburg in Cape Town.
So, we definitely are looking towards the whole aspect of the continent, even, not even from the, from the poorly performing aspects.
It's just making sure that, you know, as long as we have that Oracle price or that reference material, we can add different assets towards the synthetic asset exchange, which is Baki.
And, yes, you know, we want to start off from a good basis, obviously, where we see majority of the volume, but then we can also get really much more creative and bring different type of assets towards the exchange.
So, I think, you know, Africa is definitely, you know, it's a massive place.
It's not like how a lot of people think, you know, Africa is just one country.
This is, you know, 50-plus countries.
This is, it's really vibrant, and there's a lot of different moving activity.
But, you know, we've talked to multiple different deaths in Latin America, as well as even other parts within Southeast Asia as well, which we really want to expand in.
You know, I just did a couple of trips to the Middle East this year, so there's going to be a lot of activity and movement coming from that side as well.
So, I think we definitely do have that local aspect.
I believe what OX1 was mentioning, you know, we have a lot of different, you know, global presence, speak multiple languages, even within our dev team.
You know, in our dev, it's really scattered across the board of the continent.
But, you know, obviously, think local, you know, act global, think global and act local, you know, those type of statements first, and really just build initially,
and then we can really scale effectively going forward.
So, I mean, obviously, other people who are also in the audience, you know, I've heard you people speak so much of, you know, synthetic assets, which is like, which is also like on back here.
I'm curious as to the risks, and also, just like the risk itself in that model, and also like from also a regulatory perspective.
Yeah, I'm curious on that.
Yeah, so I think just the first element here with regards to the core risks of Bakke, I think the biggest one that we have is just fundamental stablecoin risk.
We're collateralizing our product with other stablecoins.
So there's definitely always the risk there on that element.
But that really was put in place for a specific reason, which is actually to mitigate the second risk, where normally in these kind of platforms, the biggest challenge that you have is a liquidation risk.
For us, the way that we've structured it is that the only real way that you'd get liquidated using Bakke is if African currencies start valuing against the dollar at a significant rate.
And so right now, we're setting our collateralization ratios 150%.
I think it'd be quite interesting.
I think a lot of us would be having different conversations if we start seeing African currencies value against the dollar.
And I think it'd be a good spot.
But I think just to be realistic, it was one of those elements that we've naturally put that as kind of the standard risk in the system to avoid that from happening.
So in essence, any user depositing on Bakke is actually getting a short on African currencies.
And as African currencies devalue, they actually technically make money on that position.
So I think that's a very interesting way where we've mitigated at risk.
To talk about it from the regulatory standpoint, I think this is the part where we really kind of split the core offering into two.
Where on one side, where we're offering our OTC trades, all of that is we're following all the rules that we have to follow with regards to kind of those transactions, whether it be KYC, KYB, AML, et cetera.
All those kind of elements we're following and we're following the rules as prescribed by the authorities.
On the DeFi side, I think the challenge here is that the authorities aren't in a place to imagine what the future looks like.
And so the way that we've built it is that we've built it in a way that all of the crypto elements are purely crypto elements or purely a DeFi element.
And we're operating it in such a way where if the authorities want to really look into it and kind of assess it, all the kind of pieces for them to understand are all there.
And everything is driven by very clear parameters and code so that there isn't really the ability for anybody to put their finger on the scale and kind of take advantage of this system as a whole.
And so that's really kind of been something that when we've engaged with the authorities that they've been quite interested in kind of knowing, hey, all the rules and regulations that you have to have this are all controlled by code rather than having somebody there that you kind of have to trust or file a report every month to say, yes, we followed all the rules, even though perhaps you may not have.
So I think that's kind of where we're seeing the regulatory element.
I think as a broader element, I think the African market has adopted crypto regardless of the regulatory approach.
And I think that kind of gives us the opportunity to really build a product that makes sense for the market.
And that's really our first and foremost kind of goal.
And then from there, it's really kind of working with the regulators once the product is in the hands of businesses to say, what do you need to take this to the next level and kind of sign off on it fully?
Rather than kind of trying to go to them and force them to imagine what a future would look like, which is not really their job to do anyways.
Yeah, I mean, I do agree with you on that.
It seems like there's also a bit of slowing down or dragging, you know, that kind of dragging their fits because I don't know why, but yeah, there's a lot of fits dragging.
So just to be clear, is Baki a product that has launched, like there's a website or an app or something folks can access or a mobile?
Yeah, so we're just on testnet now.
We're finishing up our testnet.
We will be launching on Avalanche C-Chain very, very soon.
We're just waiting on our final audits to complete.
And then we should be ready to have it up on C-Chain.
Awesome.
So in terms of like also businesses, you know, what kind of businesses would Baki essentially be serving?
Yeah, so our clients so far have really been all kinds of businesses, anything from construction businesses to supermarkets to pharmacies.
We've even helped the Polo Club buy their horses a while back.
So we really have kind of any type of business can kind of use Baki to facilitate with those transactions or act as a treasury currency for them.
So it's really a wide range of anything from small to medium-sized enterprises all the way up to kind of the bigger ones as well.
They can come over and use Baki.
So when you say small and medium-sized businesses, I understand what that means.
But also in relation to, say, somebody who has a store in a market in Nigeria or in Lagos, for instance, you know, is Baki something that they can access and that they can use?
Yeah, absolutely.
So Baki is completely permissionless and it's just a DeFi product.
So really anybody can come in and use it.
And then on our Ajar OTC side, we help with the kind of the on-and-off ramp elements to get you into the ecosystem as well.
So if you need a bit more help, we can always come through the Ajar OTC side where we can actually facilitate your on-ramping into the product too.
Oh, okay.
I think I was just like asking this in relation to, you know, actually onboarding businesses who maybe are not necessarily digital service.
Because I think also at the end of the day, there's people that solutions like this also kind of solve for.
Yeah, I mean, they do have exposure to FX and all of those things in terms of like buying goods and accessing goods.
But maybe they're just not like digital savvy in the grand scheme of things.
No, for sure.
And then that's really the kind of the goal for us to combine the OTC side with the DeFi side.
And I think Ryan and David in the other Bankless podcast, they always kind of refer to this as the DeFi mullet, where it's TradFi in the front, but DeFi in the back.
And that's exactly what we're kind of building here, where it's really TradFi entering points.
And it all looks really feels a lot like TradFi, but in the background, it's actually powered by DeFi.
And so that's really how we see the opportunity to bring those businesses that may not have that kind of backing or, as you've said, kind of technical or savviness.
Awesome. I think I'm almost always excited for that specific niche and that specific market because there are just not a lot of people serving them at the moment.
And they are kind of like the unbanked, or they are the unbanked within Africa and also within Nigeria.
So I guess my last question before I pop the mic over to the audience, in case anyone has asked questions,
please raise your hand or request to come up to speak if you don't have questions right before it gets to the audience.
But also, I guess my last question is also in relation to, you know, the big picture.
I don't want to use the phrase roadmap yet, but kind of like the big picture for back here.
I know we have spoken of possible expansions to emerging markets, but maybe, you know, also other possible routes.
And I'm not sure if anybody does this right now to you guys.
Yeah. So in terms of the roadmap, I think the goal here is for Baku to become the implementation of African currencies on chain.
And really, this is just the first step of bringing them on chain.
The next step is really going to be building forward swaps and options on top of them so that we can actually create efficient currency markets
to allow businesses to create that certainty that they need for those transactions that they're doing day to day.
And essentially removing a lot of the volatility that we're seeing at the market.
So between those two, I think that's really where we see the vision going.
I think as a broader company and as a team, our vision is really for Kanza to become the Web3 investment bank in Africa,
where we're not only are we building our own DeFi products, but we also have that service side of the business
to actually put these products in the hands of those businesses that need it the most
so that they can hedge or benefit from the macro trends that they're exposed to.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
So does anybody in the audience have questions, please request to come up or not?
If you don't have any questions, you can also leave your question in the chat if you have any for the Kanza team.
Yeah, I haven't seen anyone come up so far.
So, I mean, we still have time to get there.
I do have, when you were speaking, I actually realized that I had another question in terms of support,
but I would say, but also general education.
But this also takes us back to the work that is involved in actually banking the unbanked
or like providing access to financial services for, you know, the unbanked.
So I know you have actually addressed that and talked about how, you know,
those are the people that like you're also looking to serve, but I'm curious as to like right now,
are you involved like in any user support or also like education?
I would say activities for those folks.
Yeah. So I think in terms of those ones, I'll probably let Edgy speak to it a bit more,
but we're always very keen to work with universities.
We've done work with the universities before to really kind of take that next step of educating.
I think the other element that we've also identified very early on,
and I think this is kind of part of the discussion that you kind of mentioned of
talking beyond Nigeria, is actually translating a lot of the documents to French and Portuguese as well.
So that's something that we're working on as well.
Myself, I can speak French and Portuguese. Pascal can speak French.
So on our team, it's something that we've always kind of been quite keen on of how do we get,
you know, those connections into Portuguese-speaking Africa, French-speaking Africa,
and all the other parts of the continent so that everybody kind of has the same opportunities.
But then I want to just mention one quick thing just in terms of the unbanked and the element.
I think when we talk about the unbanked, we often, the statement that is often used is underserved and unbanked.
But I think the biggest problem is that a lot of these businesses, if you look at it just as a very high level,
they do have bank accounts. They are banked.
The problem is that they're underserved.
And I think that that's a lot bigger problem today than the unbanked element,
where fundamentally these are businesses that don't have access to the same types of financial products
to protect themselves or invest in that businesses around the world do.
And I think that that's really been one of those core things that has limited growth,
because at the end of the day, if a business is just struggling to survive tomorrow,
they can't really plan for the next year or the year after that.
And so by building these products, it allows the certainty to be added back into the system,
allows them to actually plan for those long-term prospects,
which then allows for long-term financing to come into play,
allows them to actually do the capital expenditure that they want to do to grow and take it to the next level.
And I think that that's really a massive part that we don't really consider or think about as clearly
in our common parlors that I want to kind of challenge people to think a bit more about.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, sorry. Please go ahead.
No, I'll touch upon that.
I think what we did, I think, you know, originally getting into the space,
especially if you're like a little in the Web3 aspect, you're really just learning.
You're really doing a lot of reading.
So I think the education aspect and media and understanding how those moving parts work,
it really helps you to understand how can I build products better.
If you look at really like some of the really most successful products that are being built,
you know, they really started from a real understanding of what's the problem or what's really happening here.
You see Vitalik, you know, who's working at Bitcoin Magazine, right?
You see some other different founders where it's like they really created a product after they got much more exposure
within the ecosystem and the industry.
So I believe the education aspect, the outreach, I think that's the correct term here,
the outreach element of all of this, I think that's where you can really understand all the different moving parts.
And then you can really understand, okay, how now can I develop tools or products to really assist this space?
So I think with that, I think what OX1 said, you know, we did a lot of things, especially within Nigeria.
I'm not going to be very specific here, but, you know, we went to Futa University.
There's really, really bright students building and developing really creative stuff, right?
We went to Redeemers University in Oshun, Ede, talked to the builders and the computer science department there as well.
So just having availability to the internet, you know, you can have all these, you know, resources and tools that are accessible to yourselves
to really build different things to really help.
I think when you look at, you know, I've never talked to the founders directly,
but if you look at the real core infrastructure DeFi tools, you know, they're really successful.
They just wanted to build.
Like, you can look at Curve or you can look at, you know, Aave and all of these things that really came from the layer one aspects
or all that 2015, 2016 parts and they're still here now is because they really found the space
and to really build value towards the ecosystem as a whole.
But when we really look at it from a real outside view looking in,
you can see that majority of, you know, the project success are really core and built around, you know, working with others.
Right. That open source type of ideology, you know, working with the different constructs of code,
you know, working with, you can go on GitHub and get open source technology
and piece them together to really create something within your own vision.
So I believe, you know, when it comes to the support aspects, you know, we have multiple different ecosystems that we work with,
but at the end of the day, it's really like working together and try to really solve the problems that we really see on hand.
And I think the RWA aspect and the African content emerging markets is really primed for this technology.
It's not really about the, I would say that, you know, a lot of people use it as marketing statements
or, you know, just marketing pitches, but like when you really sit back and think about it,
the real aspects of, you know, you know, the Ethereum, the stable coins on Ethereum
or the aspects of, you know, the BTC and the store of value and the store of wealth,
it really comes down to working together, understanding what the problem is
and really just getting, you know, down to the business and getting in the weeds
and really creating aspects to really further, you know, basically the development of humanity, et cetera.
So I think that's the real aspect when I think about support, but like really start with the outreach.
You know, you can have conversations with people and go from there,
but you just got to get involved, you know, join discords, you know, make your voice be known.
But because we are in this open source and this Web3 type of ecosystem.
So working in each other is essential.
And I think just on that is that we also have our own discord.
So if anybody wants to join and kind of keep the conversation going there, by all means,
we always love talking about crypto.
So I think that's a great avenue for support.
If anybody kind of wants to start asking questions or kind of understand things,
that that's always a great resource to kind of join into where our whole team is there.
Awesome.
Well, yeah, I think I also wanted to add to what Vaughn said earlier that I do agree that there's a very huge difference
and also gap between underserved and also unbanked.
But so far, it seems like when solutions are built even for underserved,
they end up possibly unbanking the underserved folks.
So, yeah, I think I'm super excited, you know, for Kanza.
My last question is not really a question, but it's just like a close up since I don't think anybody in the audience
seems to have a question.
You can also share a link to the discord server.
So people, so individuals will be able to actually, you know, join in if the, if questions do come up randomly for them.
But I was just also curious as to how people who are listening in here today can actually, you know, support the Kanza mission.
Even like, you know, also, I think you said that like you're launching Bakis soon.
So it's like, yeah, also contribute to the success of Bakis launch in their own way.
Yeah, no, awesome.
Yeah, I'd say join the discord.
I think that's going to be the main place where you'll be able to follow and see everything come up there first.
Also follow us on Twitter.
And then really from there, it's, it's, I hope you guys are excited for, for the launch of Bakis.
We will be making some more announcements around that in the, in the coming days and weeks.
And so there will definitely be benefits for those early adopters in the platform.
So, so I very much recommend joining the discord and kind of just keeping eyes and ears open.
To the developments that are coming down the pipeline.
Awesome.
If there are no more questions, I would just actually like to close with a few things, which is like, first, I have posted a, I've actually posted the Twitter, sorry, the podcast conversation that we had with the Kanza team earlier this year.
So if you want to actually have a high level understanding of what kind of works, you know, outside of also Bakis, feel free to go listen to the podcast.
Um, we also record, you know, podcast episodes that give you a high level of what is happening within the crypto space, um, via the Bakis Africa podcast, which you can listen to us, Spotify, Apple music.
Um, I think also like Google, Google, yeah, I think Google and also pod being, um, yeah.
So aside from, you know, aside from introducing all of these wonderful individuals and building and also solving critical solutions within Africa.
Uh, we also, yeah, we also, you know, provide info on crypto within Africa through the Satsangwe and also, you know, general projects highlights.
So, um, please go listen and also subscribe to the podcast.
Um, we also have a newsletter where we provide an overview of what is happening within the crypto space and also aligning it with our reality as Africans.
Um, so you can also listen, you can also subscribe to our newsletter on here.
Um, at the end of the day, our mission still remains, you know, onboarding and also educating everyday Africans, um, you know, into Web3, DeFi, and also cryptocurrency.
And we're always, always excited to have folks in here, uh, you know, talking about our reality and also sharing our perspective on how, on how we, we hope to solve those problems that we are collectively experiencing, um, as individuals within, within the emerging, emerging markets.
Um, if there are no other questions, um, for the Kaza team, uh, we can call to this AMA session to a complete close, but shout out to every single one of you, um, shout out to OX1, um, Huncho, and also, um, and also Pascal.
Um, it has been awesome getting to know every single one of you and also figuring out how you are solving for the African markets.
Thank you so much for having us.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Thanks guys.
Bye everyone.
Have a great rest of your day.
