Binance Africa is leading the crypto revolution across the continent and how. Bringing about the change through awareness and engaging programs, Olubunmi Fabanwo Affiliate Manager from Binance Africa talks about the plans that are building adoption through its programs. From policies building to its signature Masterclass projects, Olubunmi shares great wins and greater learnings from BA’s journey as its trailblazes the movement.
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Transcript
Binance Africa - Olubunmi Fabanwo
Participants:
• Jason (Co-founder of AdLunam)
• Olubunmi Fabanwo (Affiliate Manager at Binance Africa)
Jason
Welcome. Welcome to Diving into Crypto. This is your host, Token Jay. The program is about sharing insights, strategies, journeys of thought leaders, mover, shakers and candlestick watchers. So let's just dive right into it. But before we begin, here are a few announcements. Hygiene announcements. Views on this program belong to that of the speaker and thoughts shared are meant for educational purposes only. Feel free to use the reaction buttons as you hear gems from our speakers. At the end of the program, we will open the room for question and answers from the audience via our Twitter account. Your questions can be sent across to AdLunam Inc. and we will take them from there. So, thank you so much for joining everybody. We have some fascinating guests today. Olubunmi Fabanwo, the Affiliate manager at Binance Africa, would definitely encourage all of you all to follow him. Doing some excellent work over there.
Jason
He is a blockchain enthusiast, global speaker, founding partner of Ports, and the manager affiliate program for the Binance Africa. Prior to that, he gained traditional banking and fintech experience with Gtalk, PLC and Mono respectively. He has interest in retail marketing, open banking, blockchain and environmental sustainability. He works with Binance. Binance is the world's leading blockchain ecosystem and digital asset exchange. So let's just get started. Olubunmi, would you like to say a bit about yourself and we can get started from there?
Olubunmi
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Jason. Wonderful opportunity to be here. I'd like to thank AdLunam for bringing me on board this fantastic setting and I'd like to say hi again to the entire community. It's always interesting when you want to speak about blockchain, and so I'll just be speaking by myself. I'll not be speaking on behalf of Binance Africa, of course. We'll just be having a very good conversation, I believe. So a little bit about me away from the great things that Jason had said. Let me just probably just go back a bit. So I have a lot of experience in the traditional finance space, but yeah, while working in the bank, I just been an inquisitive person, just tried to look for what exactly could disrupt banking and the financial space and I stumbled upon blockchain technology and it's been great since then. So I first went into the fintech space, I worked with an open banking platform and while doing that I was always sharing my journey about blockchain technology and basically doing some content around blockchain, not necessarily cryptocurrency.
Olubunmi
I wasn't really a big fan of crypto. First I focused on, I mean, I made a lot of connections in the space, met a lot of people, then I joined Binance. And yeah, I would say my knack for crypto came just before then. And yeah, I think it's been great that's a little bit about mean, I love being on Twitter spaces, I love speaking about blockchain technology, about crypto and other very interesting subjects, DeFi, etc. So yeah, I think that's a bit.
Jason
I mean, that's great to mean you said know, you got into crypto just prior to Binance. What was that moment that switch flipped from, hey, blockchain is great technology and crypto is bad to hey, crypto might have some actual real use cases that are worth trying.
Olubunmi
Yeah, so, you know, there's this thing in Africa where people just speak about onboarding people to become bankable. There's so much disparity between the banked and the unbanked. Then if you look at blockchain technology, what can really get a lot of people banked is cryptocurrency. And there I think that's where it really flipped. So away from investing and trading crypto, I sort of saw the golden goose that crypto was presenting to us, especially in Africa. I'm very passionate about my continent. I love my continent so much. So anything that makes my continent better always push for it. So yeah, I think that's where it switched and the fact that crypto people are great people and speaking with them, they're able to show you some other sides, some other philosophies that you never thought would exist and the fact that most of them are really great risk takers.
Olubunmi
I think that I'm a very risk averse person. So crypto sort of like moved me a bit into being able to take calculated risk. Of course, thanks to crypto connect and also cryptocurrency has made a lot of people employed and has kept a lot of people employed, especially in Africa, of course, speaking from that perspective and it has also made people rich. I think that's one that we cannot ignore away from that it has made people broke. But I think that the percentage to people getting generational wealth is smaller. So yeah, I think that exactly that use case of crypto bringing more people into the space. So just before I joined Binance, I had a podcast that would always speak about blockchain subjects and I found that a lot of people really wanted to hear more about crypto. So I tailored it across that. And in my journey, I was able to reach out to people that would usually not interface with banking or financial products and was able to speak with them in the language they understood.
Olubunmi
About cryptocurrency and getting on boarded and finding out that the process is even waste in less like onboarding to such financial product like crypto or financial space like cryptocurrency compared to the traditional financial space. So yes, I'm a fan of cryptocurrency but I'm also a fan of taking calculated risk and education, knowing exactly what you're going into before getting into it and not just because every other person is getting into it.
Jason
Sure. So it sounds like you sort of approach crypto from the unbanked perspective in terms of how do you bring all these people that are kind of outside the financial system? How do you sort of bring them into this beautiful world where everybody is transacting? It's almost like if you think about freedom, one of the biggest freedoms that we don't really think about is just the freedom to be a consumer and the freedom to choose what we want and how we choose to spend funds and also basically becoming part of modern society. I think if you're unbanked, if you don't have access to banking, you're missing out on a fairly large amount of the human experience, it sounds like. Right? I'm curious, just a bit of context. I used to head an exchange called XREX, and the affiliate marketing and affiliates started creating the affiliates around crypto.
Jason
Exchange usually comes in the form of things like copy trading or people setting up little trading clubs where they share trading discounts and things like that. What is the best strategy that you found in terms of growing affiliates and growing, let's say, an exchange via using the affiliate model?
Olubunmi
Okay, so away from the regular affiliate marketing model, what we use or what we've come to be able to use is especially for Africa, is more of education. So basically, maybe I just give you a brief idea of what exactly the affiliate program for us is. So we basically use these guys as partners, most people that have large communities, individuals, or institutions, so we basically partner with them to be able to put out educational campaigns or educational projects, master classes and things like that in places where we ourselves cannot reach. So sometime last year, I think June or July, I went to the inside of northern Nigeria. There are certain places that nobody ever wants to go because of a lot of things I don't like to get into. So most of these places are rural areas, and I was able to go there along, thankfully for an affiliate that led us and was able to translate everything that we're speaking about.
Olubunmi
And we're able to educate over 10,000 people in the space of four or five days. And all of all these guys are people that you would never, ever think would have or do not necessarily have access to financial services or very little, and people that you would never think have that liquidity to get into the space, like we always say. So, like an affiliate of mean made that possible. So it's more of education on our side. The goal for the organization for Africa is basically getting people educated about not just cryptocurrency, but like the use cases of blockchain technology. And this has really revolutionized the way that we've been able to get people on board. And so these guys are very key to the project in itself. So, yeah, we have the copy trading part of it where people teach people how to trade, but then for you get to know how to trade and all those things.
Olubunmi
We expect you to be able to teach a community about everything crypto, like the history and how you can. I mean the other use cases like remittances what crypto really brings then a notch eye is now coming to trading and we always encourage athletes to do master classes on trading. Copy trading is fantastic, but let them first know the rules and everything that has to do with it, the tas, the fundamental analysis and all of that, so that we can actually bring individuals who are very vast in the crypto space rather than just people that want to gain something of it and just step out. So yeah, in terms of affiliates, that's how we've been able to build it. So I would say to anyone trying to build out projects and you're trying to look at how to infuse affiliate marketing to be able to develop your project or improve the viability and maybe revenue at the end of the day, I think that education is one very important part you should consider.
Olubunmi
People are willing to get paid to educate other people, so you can just put a peg to it and say, okay, you know what, if you're able to push out this and that and that to your communities, I'm willing to do this for you. Because the moment people start getting education, there's more interest. Educate first, you get more interest and you're able to bring them on board so long as of course your project has that viability and it also has that very good use case. I feel like you'll just be on your way, especially if you're able to get fantastic and very knowledgeable affiliates that are also interested in your project. I don't know if I'm able to answer that question. Hey Jason, are you there? Jason, can you hear me?
Jason
Yeah, hi. I was having some technical issues so I had to join from another user. From another username. So I'm just curious, you mentioned community, just wondering what you think sort of effective strategies for building and nurturing a strong community and how crucial would you say community support is for the success of a project? Whether that be a project that launches on Binance or perhaps let's say Binance itself, the exchange, how sort of important is the community to it? And to the extent that how much of that community transfers to projects that Binance launches.
Olubunmi
I think Binance is definitely community focused, user focused, I mean that’s the most important part for everything that the organization has always done. And I'm speaking from a perspective that is the affiliate program not necessarily representing Binance in itself, but what we've been able to do is ensure the importance of community and also speak it out. We let people know that everything is user focused and to be able to reiterate that point, you have to stay transparent. So I would say that it's one of the most transparent organizations that you find. And every other week, or I would say every other day, there's something that is community focused. Like for us on the African side, we get to host Twitter spaces like this and we get to communicate, I mean have interactions with our community directly away from that. We get to have events like we have events on almost a daily basis.
Olubunmi
It's crazy. And that in itself helps a lot of helps with trust. So your community begins to have that trust for you and they're able to interface with everything that you're bringing on board in terms of campaigns or goodies or what have you. And I would say that for projects that launch, of course a lot of internal processes have to go for you to get partner, have your project launch on Binance. Of course I don't think I'm equipped to be able to speak about that. But I would say that for you to have your project in partnership with finance, definitely community has to be one of your biggest strengths. In fact, community is like the biggest strength of any web3 projects or blockchain projects be crypto or non crypto. So individuals, institutions, I'll say you have to have that viable community and you make it the entire focus away from the fact that whatever project you're building has viability and has a very good use case.
Olubunmi
You have to bring on your community up to date with it. I think community support is very crucial to the success of any project because it's a proof that the project actually works and is a proof that the project itself was made for the people. And if these people don't participate, or if they can't participate, or if they can't get a level of support, then it means that your project has actually failed. So projects, any project that is properly thought through or properly put in place would definitely beneficial to its user. So the major sell of the entire thing is getting your community on boarded and making sure that they focus of whatever it is that you're pushing out.
Jason
Okay, fantastic. What I was saying is I'm curious if you think that there is a magic number the size of the community that the community needs to be that's likely to make a project massively successful. Because I know when it comes to stocks and shares and things like that, when a project kind of launches, it seems like around the 10,000. If you have about 10,000 people that own your token or they own your shares and you pretty much have liquidity across exchanges, I'm curious whether there's something similar when it comes to community. Like what's the magic number for community? How big is the community to be for it to be successful? And is there any sort of divisions between more people on Twitter, more people on Telegram? How do you sort of determine that?
Olubunmi
I don't think I have answer to the magic number, but of course, if you've been in the Web3 space, you know that you have to have a sizable number. I think you can just think of a number in your head and question yourself, is sizable or not? So of course, Twitter very important. Three, I'll say Discord have a very strong community on Discord. Those guys, they are geeks, so you have to get those geeks on board. I would say those two are the major ones. Telegram too is very important, but I'll not put it on any level. Three of them are equally important. But I would say that build out your Discord, Twitter organically. By the time you start having Twitter spaces like this, you get to onboard ambassadors or affiliates or influencers, not to shill or anything, but to educate the community on things that I mean, things about the project in itself.
Olubunmi
I feel like you're on your way to building good community, but in terms of the numbers, I really don't have a number.
Jason
Understood. So let's move on to sort of projects themselves. Right? There seems to be a set of seasons. You might have Metaverse season and then subsequently you might have AI season and there's these narratives that sort of shift over time. And I'm curious if you think what would be the next successful narrative? What do you think the next Hyped project or set of projects? Which area do you think that they would be in? I'm just curious because we talk about AI a lot. It seems like almost every panel I'm on these days, there's a question about ChatGPT or how AI will influence it. I was on a Twitter space yesterday and AI was like one of the main topics. So I'm just curious, what do you think of that? For example, let's say the rise of AI as a narrative in the crypto space, and what do you think the next sort of rise will be?
Olubunmi
Yeah, so I would say that it's still AI season and I think that it's going to be AI season for a bit. People are just beginning to get that AI knock and all of it. And I think decentralized, I think DeFi, yeah, we've had DeFi season. I think DeFi season is probably going to subsist for a bit. From my own knowledge or sorry, from my own predicting, I think DeFi is going to be next for DeFi project and all of that. I would also think that educational, or maybe educational research project. So I think the project recently just put out on Launchpad as Binance Launchpad. I don't think I want to shoot a project. I will not mention the name. You can easily find out it's educational and content type of project. So it's one that rewards people that put out content, that content creators and all of that.
Olubunmi
So I think something like that, maybe in the next few months we'll start seeing an uptake. More projects are going to be launching in terms of being able to reward all these guys because there are now a lot of people that put out content for blockchain content, crypto content, and they probably do not get as rewarded as they should. So projects that seem to look to that part would probably get more visibility or more focus and we are really getting into it. I think there's the Picasso project that launched on Binance NFT. So I think that partnership or that handshake between NFTs and AI may probably just be around for a bit. And yeah, I think that's what I would say now, I mean, there are a lot of other things that I would have thought, but I'm not going to be giving financial advice or anything on here.
Jason
No, for sure it's not financial advice. Yeah, we did that in the beginning of these Twitter spaces we always go through. This isn't financial advice. But anyways, I was just curious, what are your thoughts on the whole bitcoin ordinal thing that's something that's massively blown up. Traditionally speaking, NFTs tend to be launched on chains where you have massive ethereum. One of the reasons why ethereum, even though it's considered like the granddaddy chain ethereum, tends to not have a whole lot of the gas fees involved. But now you see bitcoin ordinals and it's like one of this massive, massive hot topic, but it's sending bitcoin transaction fees through the roof. So I'm curious how you think that will resolve. Do you think bitcoin ordinals will die out or die down as sort of a hot, sexy topic or do you think that somebody's going to figure out a way to solve the problem in such a way whereby the bitcoin ordinals NFT situation is not causing massive increases in fees?
Olubunmi
Okay, so I'm not sure, I don't know to say if that we're going to be seeing the growth in that or there's going to be a solution to it. But what I know is that ordinals are really changing the world of the blockchain app world and providing a whole new way to store information on bitcoin transactions. And I think that we are definitely seeing an uptake from communities and it's just giving us extra utility because we've had more bitcoin addresses. Now bitcoin addresses are actually at an all time high, I believe. I'm not sure of the numbers but I think, yeah, at this moment and it's a unique period in history, the bitcoin history. So I would say that for now, I don't want to be seeing a very good update arise in it. And I don't know if going forward there's going to be a solution to the issues that is being posed.
Olubunmi
But in the moment feel like till the end of the year I would bet on it that they will continue to grow like ordinals will continue to grow and there will be several branches to it like start seeing use cases like investment and monetary transfer. It won't continue to increase. But yeah, that's what I can say about that at the moment. I'm trying as much as possible not to be very specific because you know that people can't just take this out of context.
Jason
No, for sure. But I'm curious, besides the sort of ordinal and this AI thing, what would you say are the latest trends and developments that are shaping the crypto industry today? I'm curious what your thoughts are on that in terms of that are shaping the future of crypto.
Olubunmi
So I think that we can I would like us to speak more of Africa specific.
Jason
Okay, great. Let's talk about Africa. Yeah, that's fascinating. I'd love to.
Olubunmi
Yeah. So I think that we have a lot of Africans that are just like me, that are risk averse. So a lot of people are beginning to learn to be risk averse and not necessarily good. They think cryptocurrency as a very high risk, sort of like investment. But then I feel like a trend that is going to start growing, considering that we've been in the beer market for a bit, is people getting into crypto investment. So there's a product on Binance called the Binance Earn, just like a fixed deposit relating to traditional financial space where you can still hold on to your stable coins or whatever crypto it is. You definitely do not lose it, no matter if pricing, no matter the fluctuation and volatility of the crypto itself, and you still get to earn on it for a period. So I think that we are going to see a very good uptake in that.
Olubunmi
In fact, I think a lot of people that have been crypto averse are beginning to see this. And because of the inflation on currencies in Africa, people want to get into something more stable. And I think the cryptocurrency space, I mean, stable coins provide that sort of like stability or an edge against inflation. So, yeah, I think that following the trends, people are going to jump more into that. I think that there'll be more use cases for NFTs. I think we've already overflowed that. I'm very particular about the product where people are able to invest and still earn without exactly losing their funds. The next thing for us, I think, would be regulation. So we've seen countries in Africa begin to speak about how, yeah, we need to regulate cryptocurrency and all of that. And there have been some that have been shying away from that subject.
Olubunmi
So I'll say Nigeria, for example, has put out, I don't know if you've seen it, the blockchain policy, which had no mention of cryptocurrency. People find it really weird, but I don't.
Jason
Amazing.
Olubunmi
Yeah, so the government has not said anything about cryptocurrency, but yeah, a sandbox, sorry, a policy has already been put out for Blockchain. So we see a lot of Blockchain projects begin coming to play in Nigeria, which is very good for Africa. So other countries, most of these countries go to Nigeria. Whatever it does, they try to duplicate. So we're seeing other countries are now beginning to look at Blockchain technology and I would say that following that, they are definitely going to start seeing regulations around cryptocurrency. So for Nigeria, again, the securities and Exchange Commission came out last year and we're saying that they are going to come up with a sandbox that would acknowledge cryptocurrency as an asset in the mean that's passing through a lot of scrutiny. But yeah, for that to be said, it shows that these jurisdictions are beginning to look at regulation of cryptocurrency and even exchanges in itself.
Olubunmi
So I would say that's going to be another trend on the general space. I mean, globally we are going to start seeing discussions about climate change and how crypto is able to affect it. A lot of crypto enthusiasts, we just jump over that. But we've seen countries in later Latin America and even North America begin to start speaking up that, oh yeah, let's start speaking about all this mean, how bitcoin mine and all of all these things have an effect on climate change. And you see that Ethereum was quickly able to align itself and get like an upgrade, remember the merge and able to align and speak about this cotton energy use as the focus of the entire upgrade in software. So I think that's also going to be like a trend going forward because more countries are going to start speaking up about these things and I think a lot of projects will start adjusting and I think it's just a very good outlook for cryptocurrency.
Olubunmi
But in terms of giving the bear market, I mean, I can't wait for this bear market to be over, but we don't know what the following months are going to say. But yeah, I think that's where I'll stop. In terms of trends.
Jason
You’re 100% right, we're all waiting for the bear market to end. But it's so cyclical. A lot of us that have been in the industry for many years, we've just seen it come and go. When it's down, you never think it's going to come up again. And when it's up, you never think it's going to go down.
Olubunmi
Right.
Jason
But it happens and then life goes on. But I'm curious, you mentioned Africa specifically and the African continent. So I'm curious, do you think there are any good case studies that sort of highlight the role of Binance Africa in the African continent? And do you think again, I know you won't speak for Binance on here, but I know that you would sort of have some pet projects that have massively been successful over there and yeah, what kind of projects are successful? I'm just curious.
Olubunmi
The masterclass project. Damn. Trust me, that project has been a huge success. We've been able to educate I can't give you a figure right now, but I would say that's been a very good project. It's still ongoing. I think I mentioned that we have online and offline Master classes and a lot of people seem to prepare to attend the offline Master classes. In fact, people travel kilometers when they find out that there's a finance masterclass going somewhere because people are willing to really learn. It could be for inquisitiveness or it could be for the fact that they are trying to get another means to earn income and they know that crypto is going to provide that to them. But all in all, I think the Masterclass project has been a very good one. Then I would say that we have the Binance X and the Binance Labs that keeps looking out for projects in DeFi.
Olubunmi
So we've seen a number of African projects that have been up to this, trying to bring up DeFi projects and all of that. So I would say that's a growing concern and that's also been successful. The next one would be, let me see, I think charity, of course. I think we've had a lot of charitable projects by Binance charity that inclusive of also training people to become blockchain developers, to become cryptocurrency traders, to become day traders and all of that, even to become influencers in the crypto space. I would say that has been a very good highlight for Africa. The other thing would also be bringing yes, bringing mainstream actors. So they have been setting mainstream top influencers that we've been able to bring into the blockchain and crypto space in Africa. I'm sure if you look through, you see a number of top high ranking individuals there.
Olubunmi
And these guys have been able to teach their communities on their own. I mean, from what they've learned, they've been able to use their languages, they've been able to use their own knowledge that they've gained from us to be able to educate their community alongside. So I think we've treated most people as getting into the space, not just as influencers, but also like actors and active people. I think we brought on a 65 year old who had no idea of what Web3 was or crypto. Yes, Betty Rabo. She's very well known in Nigeria and she was just very excited and she would come to our event. She had just one month of knowledge and I don't know, she became very enthusiastic about it and she set up a group where she was speaking to people just like in age grade and maybe a bit below.
Olubunmi
Both celebrities and non celebrities are friends. And she was able to tell them all of all these things about blockchain technology, about crypto. So I would say that. Sometimes we just look back and find out that these are some of the huge successes in terms of projects that we set out to do that we've registered. Yeah, I think I can stop there. I don't know if it's a good time to also mention some of the huge events that I've called.
Jason
It always is.
Olubunmi
Yes. So we had the African Nations Cup. I think finance was a key figure in that. We sponsored that, I don't know if you heard about it, in fact that was a very good one. So it's a football competition for all African countries and we're able to sponsor that and that helped a whole lot in onboarding so many people. In fact, I will tell you that my parents who are retirees are six years above when I told them, oh yeah, do you know about Binance? They're like, oh yeah, of course I know about Binance was AFCON and they're like, oh, they know his blockchain. So something oh fantastic. That's a very good way to push for adoption, I would say. And also, I think the Nigerian Idol season 7 that happened last year, we also able to sponsor that. And all of all these things are just to bring people into the space, get them aware of the use cases of blockchain technology, not just limited to cryptocurrency, of course, but also tell them about crypto.
Olubunmi
So we found that a lot of people get attracted to Binance because of cryptocurrency. Then coming into it, they start relating with several other use cases and yeah, I think that those are the use cases and case studies I would be willing to align.
Jason
It's interesting, it seems like the two industries, let's say sports and art, whether that be content creation or NFTs or really anything, it seems to me like these two industries tend to bring a lot of adoption to the space because there's just so many people that are creative and they're passionate. Right, I think it comes down to creativity and passion. So you have people that are passionate about soccer that are just so passionate about soccer that they learn about blockchain almost by accident because they happen to be following soccer and what's going on. And somebody like Binance will sponsor an event and next thing you know these guys are in crypto. And same thing with Art. You have music, like music being such a massive sort of entrance. There are actually musicians that have put out songs just solely as NFTs. Right? And so if you're a fan of the musician, that's a great entry into crypto as a topic because you're interested in the music but you learn the technology because you want to interact with the music.
Jason
Right, so I think it's really fascinating to me how these two sort of industries or interests are so integral to pushing adoption. Right.
Olubunmi
Yeah, I definitely agree with you. I think away from sports and music, I would also say fashion. Fashion too has been very yes, especially for the women. I think fashion has been very helpful in bringing people into the space because you find out a lot of top designers are now saying, oh, we have NFT versions of this particular clothing, this particular bag, this particular watch, and all of that. And you find out, you start seeing people baby boomers, NFCs, and you're wondering how exactly did you get to know about this thing? Yeah, thankful. I just thought to mention that too. So music, fashion spots, fantastic ways or entry points for mainstream guys to get into cryptocurrency.
Jason
Fantastic. So now, just curious, you mentioned regulation a couple of times earlier in the space. I'm curious whether the government has ever reached out to exchanges like Binance to try to help craft crypto registration that is sensible. That makes sense from an industry perspective, because a lot of the crypto regulation, it's like holy. Like, it doesn't make sense from a technological perspective. You know, that the guy who came up with that policy has no idea how crypto actually works or how people use crypto. So I'm curious if that's something that finance is in consultation with regulatory authorities to try to come up with stuff that makes sense.
Olubunmi
Yes, I'm sure you'd have seen in the news a lot of conversations that have become like regulatory mean, different countries, I think mostly Europe and the Middle East, that's been our mean. Binance is always willing to speak with regulators and see how we can move forward for Africa. I can't give you information as of now about what conversations are ongoing, but definitely I think that I would not say they do not have a choice, but thinking governments or governments that really care about their people would want to sit down and see ways to be able to see how we can be regulated. And of course, if you have no idea of what you're regulating, it's very important to reach out to individuals and institutions that really understand the space and know what effect different types of regulation could have for the space in itself. So I think I know a lot of individuals that were involved in crafting the blockchain policy for Nigeria.
Olubunmi
I seem to be close to a number of them. Yes. And they were integral in putting it together. So the government itself did not just sit down and start crafting what they don't know about. So they were able to consult with these guys and these institutions to look through several reviews and before the final policy was brought to for. And yeah, I mean, policy may be lacking of a number of things, but it's not to say that a good job has not been done. So I would say that for crypto in itself, I would say that of course, definitely. I'm very positive about the fact that governments are going to, I mean, they want to sit down with the exchanges or the important players within the crypto space before they can come up with regulation. And let me say that I think as an individual that regulation is going to be helpful, but awful regulation or am full regulation is going to be bad for us in the crypto space.
Olubunmi
I'm quite positive, honestly, that governments are going to liaise with the players in the space and see safe regulations that will also keep its people secure and also allow them to be able to access the services and the potential of cryptocurrency.
Jason
Great. So as a more open ended question, I know you mentioned the Binance Earn product. I'm curious if there are other products either imminently about to be launched or maybe even in the long term plan that might make trading easier for the average person. It occurred to me that what would happen, for example, if we asked ChatGPT-4, hey, here's my finance account, go make me some money, right? I'm curious whether AI, for example, could actually, let's say, trade on somebody's behalf and to what extent that could be profitable. Is that something that you guys are even looking at? I'm just curious.
Olubunmi
I'm not going to give you that information. Even before now, I think that volley has been AI bots. I know a lot of people that have jumped, especially in Africa, people have decided to go into researching on AI bots and getting it to trade for them and all of that. And following the development in AI, I feel like maybe sometime soon you'll be able to give it your leverage and what you can afford, stop loss and all of that and tell it to just go trade for you. Yeah, I feel like that's something that is probably already happening, but I can't say what we are working on. One of the things that we've learned in conjunction with AI is just Decatur for now. I mean, AI is a very useful trend and definitely Binance is anything that helps the users, the community have better relationship with the crypto space and also the elements of cryptocurrency Binance is always willing to do.
Jason
You know, as an exchange. It sort of behooves all exchanges, I know because I was at an exchange for a while myself. And so it sort of boos everybody to try to figure out easier ways to trade because there's just so many people that have no idea what they're doing. Retail investors that are just sort of jumping into the market and then they'll go buy something like, I don't know, shibu or Dogecoin because those are just so massively hyped. They think that's some sort of solution. I've got a couple of questions from Twitter wanted to run by you. Do you think that crypto is actually a solution for Africa? Specifically, do you have any success stories in terms of companies that have just massively blown up or really made a difference, made a dent in Africa, Would you say?
Olubunmi
You mean crypto projects in Africa?
Jason
Yes. So what I'm saying is so I'll rephrase that. Is crypto actually a solution in Africa? So, for example, is it something that do we have success stories whereby a crypto company has come out and just massively made a dent in terms of making crypto more popular in the like, for example, in India. In India, chingari, there's a company called chingari that is a social media thing that has been used by many people, like, long before crypto became a thing. But then when they integrated crypto, it's like you have all these guys that are now seeing adoption for the first time. So I'm curious if there's an example like that in Africa where there's just been massively successful.
Olubunmi
Oh yes, I think there are a lot of projects that have come up that have been successful. And first, to answer your first question, yes, crypto is solving a huge problem. I think if you go across different countries in Africa, I mentioned the inflation problem on currencies. I would say that I think most countries in Africa are ranking high in terms of inflation on their currencies. That's mostly the exchange rate against the peg currency, which is the USD. You see a lot of countries that have been struggling and crypto has witnessed a lot of uptake because you're able to edge against this entire thing. So you have seen a lot of Nigerians or a lot of South Africans, a lot of Kenyans that have become employed by crypto organizations or blockchain companies and are able to get away from being affected by the inflation of the currencies within their countries away from that.
Olubunmi
So he's been able to provide employment for a lot of people. So you find a lot of young people in Africa have become Degens and have become crypto influencers and I've become crypto enthusiasts and I've been able to create wealth and create employment from that rather than doing other things. People have been able to sit in the comfort of their homes and earn stable income because of cryptocurrency. Away from that being a solution in Africa, it has opened the eyes of a lot of people that there's more to blockchain technology, to cryptocurrencies, to technology in itself that they're probably not getting from the government and all of that. So that decentralization thing has been able to work a lot for us here in Africa. People have become more educated about these things. People have been able to come together to come up with projects that solve a lot of actual African indigenous problems.
Olubunmi
It's been a very huge solution for us. I would say on this side, I don't want to promote any project, but if you look at Kenya, there's this particular project that has solved payment problem and it's very groundbreaking. People has become a popular choice of small and medium scale enterprises to be able to receive and send payments. So it has solved that remittance issue where you have to, instead of waiting for days to be able to receive funds from your customers or from your exporters abroad or importers abroad or trade partners abroad, that particular project has been able to solve that and using blockchain technology to get payments almost in the immediate and that has helped trade. Yeah, that has helped trade a whole lot. So away from that, I think there are just multiple projects, trust me, there are a lot of projects that I probably have not heard of that has helped thousands of people and has had a very huge impact in different countries across.
Olubunmi
I mean, it's been tremendous. I think that is still room for growth. However, there's room for growth in Africa, especially for crypto. But yeah, it's been a great one. We are thankful for it on this side. We are thankful.
Jason
Sure. No, I mean listen, we actually have believe it or not, I think we have quite a few, well comparatively a few team members in our own company that are from Africa. And that in and of itself is just so fascinating to see people that maybe would never really have exposure to something like this. And now they're crypto Degens, they're DeFi Degens. So it's just fantastic to see. I have one other question from our audience that I think is possibly from maybe one of your competitors or something because they want to know how does Binance attract new users? In mean, I'm curious about that is do you find things like billboards useful? Do you think the radio is useful, the television is useful? How do you guys advertise? How do you guys market? How do you guys reach the end user to sign up to buy that?
Olubunmi
Okay, so as a competitor, that person is trying to understand my strategy.
Jason
No, I don't know if it's actually a competitor, but I'm guessing if somebody's asking how do I attract new users?
Olubunmi
I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. So I think I'll speak from my own perspective as managing the athlete. So I mentioned in the beginning that the way we are able to get more people on board is through the affiliate program is we're able to empower our partners, which we call affiliates, of course. And we don't just limit it to individuals. We also go ahead to partner with mainstream institutions. So for example, a few weeks ago we're able to have on the ground activation in markets in the largest markets, some large markets in Africa, across Africa. We're able to partner with a particular mainstream actor who took the crypto message, who took the Binance message and brand and everything that has to do with us to market women, to people within the market, individuals that came to buy, to businesses. Because of course there are solutions for businesses such as Binance pay can become a Binance pay merchant and receive crypto when people want to make payments.
Olubunmi
So these mainstream actors have been able to help us get a larger outreach, like get to people on ground, go retail. So we actually do the work like the groundwork. We don't just sit behind our computers and start mapping out numbers and start sending out emails and all of all those things. We actually go outside. And how are we able to do this? We partner with people like that, people that are willing to really understand what crypto and blockchain could help individuals do. And these guys go out and get users, actual users, not just numbers. So I think that's one way. And you ensure that we are always in people's faces because we are really, I mean, it's just been ad. Call it's just a finance element. Is that Ad core getting the result, doing the actual work, like I mentioned before?
Jason
Sure.
Olubunmi
I think that there are several other strategies that definitely be kept internal so that person, you can come out, come reach out, let's see how we can discuss.
Jason
Yeah, maybe he applies for a job at Binance. Maybe that's how he learns the answers to those questions. Okay, great. Listen, we're the end of this. We have just one question more. And what I want to talk to you about is what's your personal philosophy? What keeps you going, what drives you? I know that you said you're really passionate about Africa, you're really passionate about banking, the Unbanked. I'm curious, from a broader perspective, what keeps you going? What's your personal philosophy? And if you have any final thoughts, we'd love to sort of share that with everybody listening.
Olubunmi
Yeah, thanks a lot. So I would say that let me bring it from my traditional banking experience and that has taught me a whole lot. So personal philosophy, just the way mine aligns with finances, very hardcore. I'm big on results and I can be very persistent and I'm very consistent. So I don't set out to do what I'm not willing to finish up on. That doesn't say that I get to finish up on everything. I mean, there are several things I've gone out to do, projects that I leave unfinished, but then I just let that passion driving the fact that I'm going into something. I would have made a conscious decision to want to achieve my goals and achieve results off it. So the next thing would be that as much as I'm in crypto, I'm quite risk averse or maybe very calculated.
Jason
Sure.
Olubunmi
I'm on board about I hardly gets to me or does not get to me. So when every other person is doing something, I do not just jump into it. So there have been opportunities to I mean, that's why I joined Binance. Of course. I've been opportunities to make a hell of money from different projects that I've learned. And every other person is getting money that I refuse to go into because I have personal belief. If it's not right, if it doesn't make sense to me, I'm definitely not getting into it. So, yeah, I'm very calculated when it comes to risk, I would say I'm a risk averse individual and I would say that those are personal philosophies. The other thing would be that I'm very focused on family, of course, family. I love family, love friends willing to impact. I enjoy impacting knowledge, I enjoy speaking with people I enjoy listening to because also you have to listen to what exactly people want to hear, what they need at that point in time, people's needs.
Olubunmi
So I'm a very good listener. I'll probably make a whole lot of money by becoming shrink because I enjoy listening and I think that's very good. You have two years and just one mouth, so there's abundance of things. I mean, there's a reason why you should always listen to people and make your comments afterwards, then final words. I would say that this has been a very good conversation. Most of it have been up top and very trust me, it's been a very good conversation and organic. So don't think that went behind curtains and said we are going to talk about it. Most of all, this conversation has been organic. And I think I enjoy the questions, they've been very revealing. I've been able to learn a few things from even the things I've spoken about and some of the things I want to work on and improve on in terms of my personal project and in terms of the brand I work with as Binance in itself and my work even in Binance.
Olubunmi
So, yeah, fantastic. Jason, thank you so much. I would also like to thank the community. I don't want to seem like I'm closing the event. I think you should be the one to do.
Jason
Sure.
Olubunmi
But yeah, I think, yeah, those are my final statements and final sentences. Thanks a lot.
Jason
No, listen, thank you so much for attending. You're absolutely right that this is practically a totally organic conversation. It's just sort of two people talking about an industry that they love. Certainly we both have a love for this industry and I think one of the best fits for a company is when your personal philosophy is in lockstep with the companies in general. So then you can sort of use the company, in a sense, to achieve aims that you would anyway be focused on even if you weren't there. So I think that's like, Binance is very lucky to have you and we've been very lucky to have you here as well. So we very much, thank you for attending, very much. Appreciate you coming. And thank you, everybody else, everybody, all the listeners, thank you so much for being here. Next we'll be doing this, obviously we do this on a regular basis.
Jason
We look forward to you joining us next week, same time, same place. Thank you so much, everybody. You all have a great day and thank you so much for attending.
Olubunmi
Thank you. Bye bye.
