Fleeing Binance executive Nadeem Arjarwalla is reportedly traced to Kenya following his escape from custody. A new report from local media outlet Punch says the Nigerian Government has traced the Binance executive with steps taken towards extradition.
According to the report, sources within the Presidency disclosed that Arjarwalla went into hiding once he arrived in Kenya but his cover has been blown. This could open another chapter in the whole saga as the country looks to extradite the Binance executive.
Arjarwalla was detained alongside another Binance executive after a meeting held with the Nigerian government over Binance’s regulatory woes in the country.
“We have found him. We know where he is. He is in Kenya, and we’re working with the authorities to bring him back to Nigeria.”
Possible Extradition for Arjarwalla
The Nigerian government is now collaborating with international security agencies like Interpol and the Kenyan Police to bring Arjarwalla to the country to face charges leveled against him.
“All hands are on the deck. The government and all the security agencies are working hard in conjunction with the Kenyan authorities and INTERPOL, to ensure his return to Nigeria to face the charges brought against him,” the source added.
According to the report, other sources also claimed the Nigerian government was working to extradite Arjarwalla.
Binance Executive Pleads Not Guilty
The Nigerian government accused Binance of facilitating trades through its P2P platform leading to the fall of the local currency. Binance executives Arjarwalla and Tigran Gambaryan were arrested in February despite a backlash from the cryptocurrency industry.
The county’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) took over the investigation from the National Security Adviser (NSA). The anti-graft agency slammed the exchange and its two executives with five counts bordering on money laundering.
While Arjarwalla remains out of the country, Gambaryan pleaded not guilty to charges with his wife and other supporters calling for his release after several weeks in detention. Meanwhile, Binance has deactivated its naira P2P service following a probe by the government.
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The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.
Cardano Participates in a Funding Round in Kenya The Coin Republic
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Cardano and several investment funds have allocated $11 million to support this Kenya-based fintech company
Charles Hoskinson has taken to Twitter to share that the company behind Cardano, IOG, led by him, had taken part in an investment round of $11 million for supporting a fintech company Pezesha based in Kenya, Africa.
He stated that he is excited to support this company’s mission to improve the sphere of microfinance around the world.
Hilda is one of the great entrepreneurs of Africa and I’m excited to support her in Pezesha’s mission to change Microfinance throughout the world. https://t.co/UcRNYPEOMh
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) August 30, 2022
Cardano supports fintech in Africa
According to Techcrunch, IOG and Women’s World Banking Capital Partners II fund, have led an investment round of $11 million in Pezesha. This fintech company intends to roll out to other countries in Africa – Nigeria, Rwanda and Francophone Africa after the pre-series A equity debt it has just conducted.
The source stated that $5 million were invested by Talanton and Verdant Capital Specialist Funds. The rest – $6 million – came from IOG and several investment funds.
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Pezesha deals with lending, it has created its own scalable infrastructure for digital lending, attracting local financial institutions to offer micro lending to SME in African countries.
Vast market of microfinance open in Africa
Moraa stated that there are plenty of opportunities to solve problems to do with working capital faced by SMEs in Africa. Among other things, Pezesha ensures quality and responsible borrowing of funds by entrepreneurs.
Pezesha’s partners in this business have integrated their credit scoring APIs to help customers get loan offers in real time.
At the moment, the company has more than 20 partners, which are offering loans to more than 100 thousand businesses. By the end of 2022, this number is expected to grow as 10 more companies are waiting to integrate in this lending infrastructure.
After the expansion of this business, SMEs will be able to borrow up to $10,000 at a moderate interest rate to be paid back within one year.
Moraa intends to start collaborating with new local and international financial companies, with wealthy individuals and DeFi platforms in order to offer $100 million in loans on an annual basis in the future.
Helping Pezesha is important milestone for Cardano
Per Techcrunch, Charles Hoskinson believes that investing in Pezesha is a major milestone for Cardano, since initiating flows of finance into developing countries in order to support the growth of their economy and the creation of jobs in the main goal of cryptocurrencies and DLT overall.
For Cardano, it is vital to make it easier for people around the world to take loans and offer them on a regulatory basis. Now, he believes Cardano’s investment in Africa an achievement.
Earlier, it was announced that Pezesha and Cardano had teamed up to build a decentralized financial operating system in Africa.
SINGAPORE, Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — EMURGO – the official commercial arm and a founding entity of the Cardano blockchain – previously announced the launch of a new wholly-owned Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle to invest into early startup and growth stage companies focused on building socially impactful solutions powered by Cardano, through two separate entities with distinct visions, EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures.
EMURGO Africa announced today its vision and plans to position Cardano as the standard tech infrastructure platform for Africa’s emerging industrial innovation and support 100 local startups within three years, which will bring financial empowerment to the continent.
Venture capital investments in African startups is expected to total between $2.25 billion to $2.8 billion in 2021, indicating a large potential for high-growth startups in the local market.
The African startup market already has notable African companies such as Jumia, a NYSE-listed e-commerce platform, and several other unicorns such as Flutterwave.
In terms of Africa’s blockchain market, it is projected to possess a 30% market share of the global blockchain market and grow from a $1.1 billion market in 2020 to a $134.9 billion market by 2028.
The overall mission of EMURGO Africa is three-fold.
- First, establish a sustainable growth model for African startups that balances commercial viability and social impact.
- Second, build financial infrastructure on Cardano to promote innovation and bridge African traditional finance with blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi).
- Third, connect various African and Asian industries to mutually share business resources.
To achieve this mission, EMURGO Africa will launch with a $100 million allocation for a dedicated investment and incubation program.
EMURGO Africa will first target pre-seed blockchain startups with a market capitalization of $20M or less, and then early-stage startups, with a focus on startup communities in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt, before expanding across Africa.
EMURGO Africa’s investments will focus on blockchain sectors such as DeFi and NFTs, and emerging technologies such as AI, fintech, edutech, agritech, and healthtech.
To mark EMURGO Africa’s official launch and first portfolio investment, it has forged a strategic partnership with Adanian Labs – a successful pan-African venture studio and incubator for more than 15 African startups through its innovative African-specific incubation program and a significant contributor to African industrial innovation by planning smart cities using blockchain in partnership with the Ugandan city of Entebbe.
EMURGO Africa has also announced a strategic partnership with Everest Ventures Group (EVG) – a leading Asian blockchain venture studio backed by a consortium of prominent families and companies including the Rothschild family (Europe), Hanwha Group (Korea), Sun Hung Kai (Hong Kong), etc. – to jointly launch Adaverse, a Cardano-focused acceleration program in Africa.
Via its parent company EMURGO, EMURGO Africa provides four unique value propositions for its portfolio companies and strategic partners:
- Blockchain education content and resources
- EMURGO’s education unit has partnered with more than 20 universities globally and successfully produced 2,500 blockchain-proficient students thus far.
- Tailored blockchain solutions development
- Provide startups with the support and technical expertise necessary to build solutions on Cardano. EMURGO Trace – an enterprise traceability solution – is in live production with more than five coffee companies across the globe
- Growth support
- Leverage EMURGO’s incubation expertise and experience with dLab, a blockchain acceleration program with SOSV, to provide startups with the resources necessary for funding, global marketing, and product building.
- Accessibility to Cardano and industry partners
- Provide direct access to the Cardano ecosystem via Yoroi Wallet, an official light wallet of Cardano with 700K downloads; Astarter, EMURGO’s Cardano DeFi ecosystem project; and a global network of industry partners.
Those interested in applying for funding can submit an application at https://emurgoafrica.vc/
About EMURGO
EMURGO is the official commercial arm of Cardano and provides socially impactful solutions to solve some of the most intricate problems of organizations. As a founding entity of the Cardano protocol, EMURGO is able to leverage its abilities for large-scale blockchain development and rapid solutions deployment to benefit its global clients. To connect and learn more, visit https://emurgo.io.
For further information from EMURGO
Renato Zamagna
Chief Marketing Officer
[email protected]
+65 6978 5823
SOURCE EMURGO
The latest survey by Chainalysis revealed that Kenya ranked the highest on the peer-to-peer exchange trade index, globally. The Global Crypto Adoption Index 2021 surveyed 154 countries to analyze worldwide crypto adoption, where the Kenyan citizens topped the charts with their record-breaking P2P trading stats. Furthermore, Kenya and Nigeria rank 1st and 2nd in Africa, respectively, along with 5th and 6th globally in the overall crypto adoption.
P2P crypto trading rising because of inflation
However, the exception P2P crypto trading stats are unfortunately the result of Africa’s depreciating currency that has led to inflation. According to the Central Bank of Kenya, the country’s currency has depreciated by 6.3 percent against the US dollar since January, this year.
“Many emerging markets face significant currency devaluation, driving residents to buy cryptocurrency on P2P platforms to preserve their savings,” according to the report.
Nevertheless, the African currencies have not witnessed any substantial loss of value this year, yet. That speculates African citizens’ shift to P2P crypto trading as an effort to make affordable and easy international transactions. P2P exchanges help with avoiding the prominently skyrocketing costs of international money transfers in Africa.
“Cryptocurrency gives those residents a way to circumvent those limits so that they can meet their financial needs,” stated the report’s authors.
Chainanlysis has shared that the report does not reveal the absolute trade volumes per country. However, the company has used the transaction data from two of the largest and most popular P2P platforms, LocalBitcoins and Paxful, which should be enough to give a closely accurate approximation.
“While this means that we aren’t capturing all P2P value, we believe these two exchanges are popular enough for their metrics to act as an overall approximation,”, mentioned Chainalysis.
Kenyan adoption of crypto may be inevitable instead of its financial conditions, but it has also given the citizens a chance to change their economic lifestyles. The 26-year-old farmer in Kenya, Emmanuel Kahindi is using the Kenyan cryptocurrency, Sarafu, to sell his produce, along with the purchase of supplies. Kahindi highlights that crypto has enabled him to save his fiat while also earning in crypto.
Disclaimer
The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition. Do your market research before investing in cryptocurrencies. The author or the publication does not hold any responsibility for your personal financial loss.
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