Making a Difference in Africa: Paxful Unveils Bitcoin Donation Fund to Overcome Coronavirus Pandemic
Nicholas Otieno May 05, 2020 05:01
Paxful aims to provide support in Africa to address the coronavirus outbreak.
The global peer-to-peer Bitcoin marketplace Paxful has announced its mission to launch the “Africa Fund” that seeks to utilize Bitcoin donations to enable Africa to overcome the current COVID-19 crisis. The fund will utilize Bitcoin donations to buy essential resources for the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
In other words, the company is expanding its #BuiltWithBitcoin charitable initiative in Africa with the launch of the “Africa Fund.”
Paxful Leading Through the Crisis
With coronavirus on the increase in Africa and cases rising at a high rate, the #BuiltWithBitcoin Africa Fund aims to offer a solution to mitigate the supply gap of necessities provided to the Africans. The “Africa Fund” campaign seeks to use Bitcoin donations to buy food packs, personal protective equipment (PPE), and even provide high-risk individuals with handwashing and groceries.
Paxful is kickstarting the “Africa Fund” with an initial donation of $15,000 and seeks to match other future crypto donations by up to $15,000 in Bitcoin. With such an initial injection of funds, the company intends to focus on the most crucial problems facing Africa that include medical supplies, water, and food.
Paxful intends to provide 8,400 meals across South Africa, with GROW EDUCARE Centres facilitating the donation program. It will also organize the delivery of 6,100 masks for frontline workers in Kenya’s Kibera slums by SHOFCO.
Zam Zam Water, which is a humanitarian organization committed to poverty eradication, is also a partner to the #BuiltWithBitcoin Africa fund. The humanitarian organization plans to provide supplies including carrier bags, face masks, sanitizers, vitamin C, diapers, and food to over 1000 people in various states of Nigeria. This includes Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Adamawa, Kwara, Kaduna, and Enugu.
Zam Zam Water is also assisting the 341 families in Rwanda whose children attend Paxful’s #BuiltWithBitcoin schools. The initiative seeks to benefit a total of 1,873 people with access to clean water, health insurance, and provide school supplies and books to continue learning through the COVID-19 epidemic.
Yusuf Nessary, the executive director of Zam Zam Water, identified these as a direct response to the pandemic and by using the power of Bitcoin, the humanitarian organization sets to serve thousands on the ground in a positive manner.
Ray Youssef, co-founder and CEO of Paxful, said that the company established #BuiltWithBitcoin around creating positive social change. He stated that Paxful was the first to look at Africa and saw the opportunity to make a difference through Bitcoin. He identified the “Africa Fund” as the latest initiative in an ongoing commitment to offer relief and serve resilient communities in Africa during the present time of their need.
Kennedy Odede, the founder and CEO of SHOFCO, mentioned that with Paxul’s assistance, his organization is able to offer essential services and protection, which set the firm to assist in saving lives among most vulnerable urban slum communities in Kenya.
Paxful Ready to Build on Its African Market Success
Paxful believes that the world has a lot to learn from Africa about the future of the crypto economy. The US-based company is actively looking to join forces with African-born cryptocurrency players as it seeks to grow market share on the continent. The company is very bullish on the continent. It believes that Africa has tremendous potential. The company sees people of Africa as teaching the rest of the world about the true use cases of Bitcoin. According to Paxful, the continent presents an opportunity for greater financial inclusion of the unbanked and underbanked.
Apart from Africa, India is another targetted market for Paxful as Paxful has recorded over $3 million in trade volume in India this January. Recently, Paxful's initiatives to reach the unbanked has faced a new challenge, as Cyberreason detected an Android malware dubbed EventBot. This malware can harvest crucial information and intercept SMS messages sent to a victim's phone using the two-factor authentication (2FA) method, and Paxful is among the list of Android cryptocurrency wallets targetted by EventBot.
Image via Shutterstock
Image source: Shutterstock