Right in the middle of time when Africa’s Web3 startups are getting their brightest-ever spotlight from investors in and out of the continent, I just hopped a flight to drop by a 2-day Web3 event in Cape Town hosted by the Swiss blockchain-focused venture capital CV VC.

A bit cooler, but It’s a beautiful harbor town with the Table Mountain rising high behind. About 20 mins from the airport by a cab, here I got to the event venue. Let’s go inside and check it out.

Event staff are busy sorting out name tags for hundreds of attendees of today’s summit, named the CV Summit Africa.

Monica Singer (dressed in red) is here. She is Senior Strategy and South Africa Lead at ConsenSys, the developer of the global digital/crypto wallet, MetaMask. New York-based ConsenSys last month unveiled that it has expanded its service in Nigeria through a partnership with MoonPay, the Web3 infrastructure firm.

Shogo Ishida (Left) just arrived in time. He is the Co-CEO and director of EMURGO Middle East & Africa (MEA), which was launched in 2021 as a part of EMURGO’s initial $100 million Cardano ecosystem investment vehicle. Ishida has over 15 years of experience in venture capital, and is responsible for the investment decision for the EMURGO MEA as an investment committee member. Here, he is speaking to Sebastian Stent, a renowned Web3 mentor and marketer.

Gideon Greaves will be a busy man today. He is Managing Director of CV VC Africa. As the host, Greaves is expected to speak on a number of topics as well as moderate a panel, so this organizer is setting up his lapelle microphone to make sure the world can hear him clearly.

Day 1 Just Started

While Greaves is now at the podium to kick off the event, he introduced Cayla Murray, a member of Parliament at Western Cape Provincial Parliament (Right).

Murray makes a much needed announcement in such a forum: A crypto regulation resolution has been passed the South African parliament with 53 votes, this is the first ever announcement to be made by a government official publicly.

Next Yosuke Yoshida, Co-CEO of EMURGO Africa, is up on the podium. Yoshida made an ambush announcement saying that EMURGO Africa is partnering with a small African country to make it a blockchain hub. NODO News will dig out to report on the details of it.

It’s time for the panel discussion on cryptocurrencies and the decentralization of finance. With Greaves moderating the session sitting the furthest on the right, Ian Putter, the head of Blockchain Centre of Excellence at Standard Bank (Left wearing glasses) joined as a panelist.

Next to Putter, Kofi Genfi, Co-Founder at Mazzuma, Chris Becker (Middle), Managing Executive at TymeBank, and Jason Eisen, Founder & CEO at UTU Technologies are there.

Financial inclusion is for sure the one big goal to achieve for Africa with a large chunk of 1.4 billion population on the continent still unbanked.

Jason Eisen challenges African banks’ lack of entrepreneurial spirit and their reluctance to join the Web3 industry, asking them to be more innovative in creating products of the future.

“In the last 10 years no bank has created a solution that I can use,” he says amid applause by attendees. But soft, Greaves says, the fierce discussion of banks versus Web3 startups is yet to come, that’s when Eisen’s comments will be much more needed. But he has set the tone, hasn’t he?

OK. Time to grab some drinks in a 30-minute break!

-Edited by Shigeru Sato
-Reported and Photographed by Faustine Ngila
-Top Photo: The African penguin, also known as Cape penguin or South African penguin confined to southern African waters/ NODO News