Lagos’ Eko Convention Centre, famed as a choice location for concerts by some of Africa’s biggest artists, had a different taste of occupancy on the 11th and 12th of October. This time, Moonshot by TechCabal was the event, gathering hundreds of tech players, operators, builders, and regulators into rooms to engage in conversations touching the intricacies of building in Africa and the collective future of technology on the continent.

Moonshot was multidimensional; the event had multiple stages running simultaneously throughout the event. So, for attendees, it was a constant decision-making process on what sessions mattered most in every instant. However, the value packed into all the sessions made it easier to think less of the opportunity cost of being in any. NODO had the advantage of being represented by several of its Nigerian employees, giving us a first-hand experience of TechCabal’s flagship conference.

Building the next generation of African web3 products

A panel session convened three builders in Africa’s web3 space to discuss the trends and future of blockchain technology adoption on the continent. Atypical of web3 and tech-focused panels, this conversation had only women on it, speaking to the growing gender inclusivity of the African web3 community.

Jackie Bona, CEO of a16z-backed crypto payments startup, Valora, spoke effusively about web3 in African settings, highlighting the potential of the technology for African creators. “Ownership is such a big deal in today’s world,” she said, speaking of the ability of creators to leverage NFTs for full ownership and control of their art. Bona’s point becomes more defined when you consider how Afrobeats creators, despite playing in one of the world’s most coveted genres, depend heavily on centralised streaming platforms and record labels to make headway in their careers.

With Music NFTs, however, these creators can fully control their creation and distribution processes while forming strong global communities with their fans. Several estimates put Spotify’s payout at $0.004 per stream, and here’s what that means: for artists to make revenues of up to $10,000 on their projects, they need to rake in about 2,500,000 streams—a near-impossible feat for independent artists. Music NFTs minted at, say, $50, will require only 200 fans to make the same revenue, freeing the creator from extraneous marketing and label bottlenecks.

“The next generation of web3 in Africa will be around ownership and utility. NFTs offer creators the chance to really own their art while products like ours enable users to experience real-life use cases of blockchain,” Bona said.

Another panellist, Uzoma James, the West Africa manager of leading crypto exchange Yellow Card, stressed the need for improved security for web3 products in Africa. Anyone who’s been around crypto for as long as a month can tell that two of the industry’s greatest risks are scams and hacks. Crypto hacks, which have led to the shutdown of several million-dollar companies, have only continued to increase, with Chainalysis reporting 2022 as the biggest year ever for crypto hackers; over $3.8 billion was stolen. The hacks hit home when Patricia, arguably the biggest crypto exchange in Nigeria, Africa’s largest crypto market, disclosed a $2 million hack that led to the loss of customers' assets in BTC and Ether. Since the report six months ago, millions of Patricia users still have their assets stuck on the platform. All they’ve gotten from Patricia are promises.

“We initially weren’t able to build out a really strong security suite for Yellow Card, but we understood how important it was and had to partner with Bitnob, a more experienced company, to build out a fraud-proof system for our customers. Now, we have a more secure platform with tighter protocols, including honeypot wallets that bait hackers trying to gain access to our system,” James said on the panel. She added that a strategy for Yellow Card has been to study the market and avoid the pitfalls of now-defunct crypto firms.

Bitmama’s Ruth Iselema echoed a need for more funding in the web3 space, especially for women-led startups. The CEO told NODO privately that her company was currently fundraising $5 million to scale its products across other African markets. This follows a $2 million round raised last year. Iselema acknowledged the global slump in funding but maintained that Africa needs more funding to tap its potential for web3.

The future of gaming

TechCabal’s editor Muhammed Akinyemi sat with Toyosi Abolarin, founder of web3 gaming platform Awujo, to discuss the future of gaming in Africa, where gaming interest has continued to rise despite infrastructural challenges. Awujo is backed by NODO’s sister company, Adaverse.

Abolarin stressed the need for more local gaming content on the continent. This, according to him, is the win-win strategy that will drive gaming adoption within Africa while providing exportable “African experiences” to the global gaming market, which, by 2030, is projected to be worth $666 billion.

Abolarin’s point is contextualised by the growing global adoption of Africa-centred media and culture. Stoked by the Africa Rising narrative, international investors and global stakeholders are buying into the promise of Africa as the world’s largest population of young people and future global workforce. On October 12, 2023, global group Sony launched a $10 million Africa-focused innovation fund for entertainment businesses, adding to the Afro-entertainment buzz, which, recently, was spiked by the immense success of the Black Book, a Nigerian movie that has remained on Netflix's global top ten for almost a month. Movies and music have proven that Africa is exportable. Abolarin is right to hypothesize a similar trajectory for gaming.

“We have the talents; we just need more infrastructure,” the Awujo chief said, right before commending the team behind Free Fire, a game with over 42 million daily active users, for setting up local servers that have made it possible to play the game in real-time. “Africans have the lag disadvantage when playing against foreigners with stable internet infrastructure. This makes losing more likely for us, but the future of gaming in Africa will see changes to this,” he said.

Abolarin’s discussion further underscored the need for intentionality with increasing gaming adoption among women, which, from anecdotal evidence, appears to be abysmal. “We need to build for them; women should come into games and see environments they are used to in real life—maybe some could be themed around cosmetics,” he said.

The future of African tech is safe

With the variegated conversations across over 60 different sessions at Moonshot, one article may not tell the full story of the vanguard event. But in whatever session attendees found themselves, the sounds of an Africa in labour pangs were heard. The commitment of builders and operators to success was palpable. You could see even with eyes closed, that these players were not going to stop until they placed their solutions on the global map. And even better, regulators were speaking and dining with operators. A rare sight surely, but a promising one still. Nigeria’s minister for communications and digital economy, Bosun Tijani, poignantly discussed 3MTT, his master plan for making Nigeria the continent’s capital for technical talents.

Africa’s web3 ecosystem was not left out of this. Several startups with blockchain-based solutions were on display at the event, preaching the gospel of web3 and its ability to solve complex Africa-native problems including payments, remittances, and verifiable ownership of tangible and intangible assets. NODO was present in its usual fashion, capturing the moments and telling users, experts, and makers (web3 products) how to best take advantage of our 80,000+ community of pan-African blockchain enthusiasts.

As Full Gap’s CEO, Victor Fatanmi, shared in his session themed “Building a Moonshot Brand”, Africa and its players are well primed for global success. What lies in between is the brilliant stories that we can tell with and about our work.