YouSaid · the spoken record

Abubakar Nur Khalil

lines on the record: 48
first: 2024-05-22
most recent: 2024-05-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Just be more attention to Africa. A lot of people are confused about exactly what's happening and it's understandable. A lot of fun comes out. So one of the other things I was prioritizing through the last year is writing more about what's happening on the ground because Makes no sense if we know what's happening and then we're reading off of secondhand information from people. So it was cool to get the call from the Forge team there attempt at kind of rebranding Forbes as being more factual about Bitcoin. So I'm happy to help contribute to that. So yeah, if you're looking for Bitcoin info really on the continent.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That, but we're going to get to Steve, I believe, where that's going to play a huge part in how Africa is viewed as a continent when electrification is so ubiquitous as a result of Bitcoin mining, as well as foreign reserves being in Bitcoin. And what that means for their sovereignty monetarily speaking, especially in the Francophone area where they're able to regain monetary sovereignty as well as their actual energy sovereignty too. So those are kind of the dynamics I'm seeing. What would be cool is growing the 1% hash rate that we currently have in Africa something more substantial. And I feel that would likely come in the form of more companies on the mining side as well as hopefully down the line. Who knows? I have a mining pool coming out of Africa as well to compete the earlier, the better. So a lot of those things are kind of what I'm looking forward to. And yeah, obviously the investment to undercursive side and kind of all the tech that's out for entrepreneurs to build.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Regulator without necessarily disrupting all other regulation and all the standard businesses. So it's kind of in a way of building resilience from day one. So a lot of projects around that. And then on the mining side, really, I find it very interesting to see how that would develop with regards to nation states and how they think of it from sovereign wealth fund standpoint in terms of increased sovereignty. Because again, Africa is a majority of decisions that happen politically are kind of at the receiving end of a lot of things, whether it's, you know, IMF debt or, you know, all the other large players in fighting and things like that. So for us, it's interesting to see what the dynamics will be like when we have energy sovereignty. Because again, one of the things for nation states is once they have energy sovereignty, all the other things are kind of more secondary and you're able to bolster actual sovereignty. You're stay at the table when it comes to geopolitical conversations and things like that. So I'm interested to see that dynamic play out. We're still very early where it's like, you know, five megawatts and things.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's interesting. I've been, first of all, fortunate to be involved in a lot of things on the continent that I have seen not only just mature, but honestly just blossom out of nowhere. So looking back from, I say, 2022 to date, I've been very, very interested in seeing the dynamics of the lightning network and how that has shaped up to a point where we have people literally zapping each other without necessarily having smartphones with Match and Kura all the way up to the new project that he's working on actually, which is to get feature phones to actually be Bitcoin hardware wallets, which is going to change not only just the landscape, but the conversation around Bitcoin security and how people can deploy at scale when it comes to self-custody. So that's definitely something interesting that I'm looking forward to seeing how that evolves. Other projects that are more stealth mode that can't get into too much detail, but I firmly believe will likely change not just how the landscape is seen from a regulatory standpoint, but the inability to actually”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Obviously, we are providing capital help and things like that. So that's how I bucketed that segment of the market. Now, if you're an entrepreneur who already has an MVP or something to show on the investment side of business model, then we take you on from the tech side. So, you know, 50 to 100 is typically what we deploy at that point. And then anything after that is more on a case-by-case basis because our main focus is really just on the idea side all the way up to the point where there's traction and there's actually an investment case to be made. That way we're making sure we're not overloading the investments. We're not throwing people and we're not just throwing capital and then hoping that finds a business case in the market, which doesn't happen. So we're trying to be as careful as possible with regards to how we plug in and how we actually provide value as a fund really and not just capital.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Interesting because even when VCs say they're early stage, that itself is ambiguous because it could be entrepreneurs that just have an idea and you're investing in them. It could be all the way from getting entrepreneurs who already have an MVP or maybe they already have some traction. They've bootstrapped and things like that. So for me, it's capturing all of that. in a way that's not disruptive one and two in a way that's sustainable. The way I do that is kind of bucket it out. So if I'm looking at someone who's really early saved, just had a convo, it was really the majority of the bets are really on the people, not necessarily what they're building because you're essentially investing in that person making sure that you're aligned or they're aligned with the goal that you have at the end of the day with like liberation bitcoin and things like that. So if you're really early stage, the idea is to internally bring you in as something we call recursive labs, quote unquote, which is kind of this informal structure we have of walking entrepreneurs from ideation all the way up to MVP stage where”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure, that I'm not kind of balancing out making as much noise to get the right entrepreneurs in terms of my visibility on the map, as well as making sure that I'm seeding all the development I need and the infrastructure. Because again, one of the passions obviously for me is just developer education as well as getting more developers. And that also plugs into the entire value chain as well as the pipeline of recursive capital because the more developers I'm turning through all these other initiatives, the more beneficial it is for the VC space because again, more developers, more companies that are a lot more focused, a lot more competitive than other parts. So again, on the regulation side is making sure I'm not going, hey, Bitcoin VC. I have a huge target on my back and I was being more strategic, annoying what to say, how to say, how to present and always making sure that I'm ahead of the regulation.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been interesting because there isn't, we aren't regulated, obviously, because recursive isn't structured as a Nigerian company to begin with. So technically we are yes, I am domiciled here and all that, but I'm not an actual Nigerian company. So regulation doesn't actually, there's no regulation really for what I'm doing. And just for context too, for the listeners and folks in general thinking about the investment space in Africa is the one thing to realize is there's no Bitcoin African VC except for cursive capital. So a lot of the work that I'm involved in is not only just running the fund, but making sure that I am having the right conversations with people that are actual regulators on the ground, not just people that are in touch with those people, but the actual folks on the ground. So for me, it's balancing out ensuring that all the investments I'm making are strategic plays that with or without the regulatory clarity will still be clear enough and will still outperform other ventures, either globally or within the continent. And specifically what that means on the ground is make”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of will this be just as competitive as if someone wants to put into Bitcoin? And so far, we've minus to be not only just competitive, but in some instances a lot more better of a bet than just getting to Bitcoin or just mining. So that's kind of how I perceive from that. And in general, just to optimize for that over time, whether that means doing even further investments on the Bitcoin side. So we kind of internalize the metric or even holding some of the capital. Additional returns relief from the investments we get into.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I'm trying to out compete Bitcoin itself, which makes a lot of sense because that is the benchmark, there are also other things that proceed from that that are also benchmarks, like on the mining side. The way I think about it is would you rather invest in Bitcoin itself? Would you rather invest in a mining operation that yields Bitcoin? Or would you rather invest in recursive? So for me to outperform all of that would be to ensure that the company that we're getting into are at the infrastructure level because that's the only way we can compete right now. Anything above at those higher levels are either too early or they're likely not going to win out eventually because we're too early in the space. So it'll likely be like the third generation of that type of company that would win out. So for me, the way to stay competitive is to ensure that we're plugging into the infrastructure. There's on the mining side, on the actual development of some of these protocols in the Bitcoin space, I'm making sure at each part of these investments, we're looking at it from kind of a standpoint.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's interesting. My thoughts have definitely changed over time, and I've had to synthesize a thesis over and over as I've been proven right and wrong in a lot of things. And for me, the thinking is, one, I'm definitely very, very grateful that all the LPs on recursive capital are folks that share the same level of intrigue and insight into exactly what I feel is how this space would evolve, but also folks that do have the ability to think far and long enough to the point where they understand exactly what the play is that we're actually engaged in right now. And in terms of how I balance out some of the performance on whether it's like outperforming other funds or Bitcoin in general, it's really tied into directly how I think about the investment strategy on the ground with recursive, which is why I tend to look at it as like different themes that I'm investing as opposed to just investing in exchanges or end user wallets for a variety of reasons. Again, volume constraints and things like that. So for me,”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Place where I feel that would be the most truest definition of what it means to be a Bitcoin company. A lot of that is kind of how the conversation have gone to a point where now it's like, okay, not only is it, what am I seeing the Bitcoin space, it's what's happening in the African Bitcoin space, which is also crazy to think that there is an African Bitcoin space because when I got into the space, that concept was not even possible to discuss. So it's been interesting to see kind of the dynamics, obviously, with how that has evolved and obviously our investments on the ground and the LP convos.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My standpoint. So the point for me is okay, I'm here. I understand the space, the landscape, I'm developer, all of that. What is going to take for Africa to get to the point where we technically do dictate, one, the development in a positive way of making sure that Bitcoin still has all these assurances of it's your money, no one can touch it, censorship resistance and all of that. It has to do from a geography where the people on the ground naturally have all these problems. So I feel two things are recursive, which is the thesis itself is for Banking of Africa because one, the developer base is just trying to be talented and I think it's going to be at the forefront of development in general. We're already starting to see some of that with needing developers coming out of the continent. But two, I feel the definition of Bitcoin company will continue to evolve and mimic exactly the company's outcome out of Africa because of the problems that we have because Bitcoin uniquely solves those problems. So naturally it would reflect in the companies that come on the ground. So for me, if I'm investing in a Bitcoin company, I feel when I invested.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I'm going to invest in anything, it has to be something else that will be around in a decade, in 20 years, 50 years. And that's going to be just Bitcoin. A lot of people have started to realize that over time as some of these conversations have gone from why Bitcoin took what are you seeing in the Bitcoin space? So a lot of that has shifted. And specifically with Africa, the idea for me was if I am going to provide value to the investing space, I can't obviously compete with the larger funds on the financial side, you know, with the limits on capital and things like that. One thing I can do is to look at where the asymmetric bet can be the largest. Wouldn't require much infrastructure, which is Africa.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One would be why Bitcoin. And it's understandable. Initially, when we started, it was, again, 2020, a lot of things were up for a question like, what the hell is a Bitcoin company or why Bitcoin went on crypto? And at the time, even funny enough in the article, I did describe the whole thing as Web3 into two specifically financial sovereignty through Bitcoin and then online sovereignty through privacy protocols and all that. Obviously, I lost the naming wars. I'm excited to rebrand in 2021 as fully just the Bitcoin VC just to make it crystal clear. But the convos have been interesting to see evolve over time. So at the time, a lot of people are like, you know, why Bitcoin doesn't make sense is one of many. And I was arguing, no, there's only an illusion of one of many. The truth is it always keeps proving itself decade after decade that it is the only thing that you can bank on when your life is in danger, when you're looking at actually getting the job done and not just talking for talking's sake. A lot of people always revert back to Bitcoin, which is why I”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recursive is okay, if we're seeing we have to keep funding to a point where the base case essentially here is Bitcoin being ubiquitous on the continent and really more generally globally. So the idea of the curve is we're providing the seed funding as well as the infrastructure to get to a point where we reach this base case, which is Bitcoin being ubiquitous for people to use ensure that the app financial sovereignty and things like that, which is ties into, again, how the logo looks and the name essentially. That's why I decided to go with that.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in general, the reason why I narrowed it down to recursive was I felt first and foremost I made the logo kind of a recursive sign. And it's more of a play on programming, actually funny enough where the idea is like you keep repeating a function until you reach a base case and then everything kind of stops there. So the idea was, okay, if I'm providing capital, because the whole idea of buying recursive was based off a convost in 2018, my older brother were like, okay, a ton of stuff is going to be developed. We need efficient capital allocation. It can't be from the outside because then a lot of different incentives will happen and people likely not get products and services that match the local geography. So for us, I was like, okay, you need to have capital allocators on the ground that understand the geography like us. So how do you position for that? And that really crystallized and then turned into an article essentially in 2020 where I just dropped it. My thinking was even if I don't get to do recursive, at least it's out there, someone else can take it up. So in general, the thesis is pretty much straightforward in terms of the reason why.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. It was, so I had a short list of VC names. One of the criteria obviously was to make sure it doesn't sound too childish or too nerdy so folks would still consider, oh, you know, if they see you, they're like, okay, this seems legitimate. Because obviously, again, I don't have a decade in the VC space or anything like that. So I had to make sure I'm not straying away too far”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the ability to re sit down and think through clearly what the objectives are, the problems, and then how you could actually meaningfully kickstart things that would yield results towards that goal at the end of the day.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Just against the same infrastructure, but in general, the idea is minus to get this info going. We've managed to provide support for developers, creating developer groups locally around different cities in Africa or providing grants to actual people doing Bitcoin core development like workers and other grantee as well as Vlad was working on Bitcoin the Bitcoin development kit. So in general, all that you what to expect really from B trust is in the next five to 10 years The reason why you would have a ton of excellent developers out of Africa will be because of B trust. And at the same time The aim is for us to sit back into the background of just core infrastructure that allows for this ecosystem to flourish. That's pretty much it.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, in regards to B trust acquiring Gala was to have the pipeline of creating actual Bitcoin developers because we had already run for like a year or so so far up until the point where it got acquired and what we were able to successfully do is get people interested in Bitcoin and then at the far end of the output, because we have different parts of the program, you have an actual Bitcoin developer. So that plugged in perfectly with the mission of B trust where we have this machine that's churning out African developers and then higher level at the B trust level we have grants that we're giving out to these people as well as grants that we're giving out to conferences like the Afro-Bitcoin conference here in Africa as well as starting to explore other parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem to kind of see so again like I said the initial idea was Africa and India and now really it's a case where it's Africa initially and then the rest of the global south so we are dipping our feet into other projects in the global south”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's very straightforward. So, the idea is we're trying to narrow in to have as much necessary machinery as possible to pump out developers, as well as having a streamlined pipeline for them to go all the way from, I don't know anything about Bitcoin to meaningfully contributing to the Bitcoin space, specifically, you know, the North Stars, Bitcoin Core, for example, but every other Bitcoin open source product is kind of like the other things that it could spill into from that pipeline. So the idea was initially getting a few principles in so that the actual structure of the trust maintains its integrity over time, and subsequent board will have to adhere to that. So we did all of that. We set up an actual entity or control the Bitcoin, and we started deploying. So what that looks like on the ground is we acquired a program called Gala, which I was one of the co-founders as well as Bernard, Carla, and Tim, a guy who opened the first pull request here in Africa, which was also surreal to get to work with all of them. And what that infrastructure was”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot of the things in that piece has been achieved already through the trust with all the work that we've done. So since launch to date, we've managed to do is set up actual principles for the fund itself. So the idea is just to break it down for people. BTrust is not aimed to venture invest in the Bitcoin space. The idea is for us to be the infrastructure for us to increase Bitcoin development where it's not as common. So specifically Africa, given the makeup of the board, we're all Africans on the board.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was like, yeah, that's one of those things you just do. And then, like, months go by totally even forgot about the fact that I applied. And then they got back saying, oh, I've been moved to the next step. And then like, okay, that's very interesting. So like, you know, I definitely will not make it obvious. So let me just try as much as possible to be honest with the process, document everything, all the responses that I'm giving so at least even if I don't make it, I could just make a large article and people could just read it and see my thoughts. So I kept progressing through, you know. had a bunch of responses where you had to write and then obviously all the way up to the interviews and each process obviously that this belief kept increasing all the way up to getting the email warehouse selecting i'm like okay this is insane maybe i'm getting spammed so we did all of that and what was interesting at the time was for me again documenting was very very important so i did end up releasing a whole long ass article about you know the process my thoughts about it and”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For sure. And Utrus was very interesting. It came honestly out of nowhere. And that was roughly around, I think, 2021-ish. So just a tweet from Jack, honestly, announcing that he saw that he's looking for board members to run this trust. It's trying to increase Bitcoin, not only adoption, but like education and just the Bitcoin drive and the development of Bitcoin in Africa and India initially was what the two was seeing. And funny enough, it was my older brother that sent me the tweet. He was like, bro, have you seen this? You should apply. I was like, bro, like, the hell, like look at all the OGs are playing. Who am I? I just got into the space and he was like, yeah, but worst case scenario, you don't get it. Like, there's no loss. And I'm like, okay, you know, that's a fair argument. So I did, you know, I applied and then honestly.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a bunch of other developers also in the south, so it's a lot more distributed. It's getting a lot more evened out, both in terms of the developer focus, the actual bit education on the ground, as well as on the entrepreneurship side, which is why I'm very, very bullish when it comes to Nigeria as a whole, because I've seen the dynamics kind of shift irrespective of the differences when it comes to either religion or tribes or things like that.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I say maybe in the last 18 months, where because of the work from Beatrice Builders and some of the bid devs that have been happening and the grassroots movements that have been taking place and also being funded through the Geyser Fund is a lot more people in Nigeria specifically are starting to pop up with their own clusters of Bitcoiners. So that is also affecting in a positive way actually the distribution of the activity across because previously there are only maybe I see three hubs arguably maybe you know Wyoming Kaduna, you know, Abuja, Lagos, and then everywhere else is kind of like roughly around the same level. But I see now it's very, very different where you have another Bitcoin co-contributor actually who's all the way up in another state up here in the north.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's across. I mean, Niger is very interesting for a lot of reasons. But in terms of those dynamics, they kind of play in a variety of subtle ways, I'd say, in terms of either when you look at focus or trade or volumes, they're kind of not as uniformly distributed across the country as you might have expected with other parts with maybe less, not necessarily less diversity, but less numbers per se. So I say if you're looking at it in terms of distribution, certain parts of Nigeria have a lot more emphasis on the B2B volume side. So around the parts that I am really a lot of that tends to take that shape where you have a ton of people that don't necessarily use Bitcoin on a daily, but a lot of folks that are engaged in like wholesale B2B and things like that are using Bitcoin on a daily. Then you have other parts that focus more on the entrepreneurship side. So you're looking at maybe a Lagos, the capital, Nambuja and place like that. And what's interesting is I've seen a shift in the dynamics of”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's the first African country where the government is actually pioneering Bitcoin mining. I say if you're looking from the government standpoint, it's definitely to look at places like Ethiopia or maybe even other African countries with a smaller population, a lot of excess energy and less bureaucracy really. And on the Nigerian side, if you're looking at a country like Nigeria, it's more so on the bet is on the people rather than the government. So that's how break those two in terms of response.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I'd say the main reasons are kind of twofold. One is just because of the sheer adoption being grassroots will always be at the forefront because again, regardless of what the government's perception or sentiment is, people are still always going to be buying, selling Bitcoin, developing companies, products and things like that and services. And the very fact that Nigeria is still the most mature Bitcoin market in terms of like both adoption numbers, product services and things like that, I still feel we would be at the forefront. The only thing I'd say is maybe on the government side, it'll take them kind of a while compared to other jurisdictions to kind of catch up with the innovation that's happening. But in terms of practical from the government side, I see maybe looking at countries like Ethiopia. Because in 2022, they had the law that allowed for high efficiency computing to actually be legal on the ground, which to translate, that also essentially includes Bitcoin mining because that's considered under that, which is why.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We also had four different narratives in existence like last year or the last two years. So we had the physical notes, which is the oldness and the new nose because they're transitioning between the two as well as the digital narratives different as well as the inera. So in terms of fungibility to that, another thing that they look at. So all the attempts from the government side has been trying to protect the narrow versus the foreign exchange with the dollar. Again, yes, the ETF did help, but it just made them more aware that, you know, Bitcoin's still around and we need to be. Not necessarily that, oh, you know, Wall Street is comfortable well. We might as well be comfortable. That's definitely not what happened.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some of these circles in the government. By the same time, we still have, we just had our election recently in Nigeria. So this new administration is a lot more proactive than the previous one. But at the same time, the proactiveness isn't necessarily super positive or negative. It's just that they're proactive. So if they're going to ban something, I'm going to do it really quickly. If they're going to stop something from happening, I'm going to do it really quickly. And just for context, again, Nigeria, we had the currency issue recently where not only is our currency insanely being devalued, I think probably 70% of the value was lost in the last maybe three years or so.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, it has contributed because I think, so again, just to take it back a bit, a lot of the regulation that we see in some African countries, specifically places like Nigeria, where to a certain extent we also essentially just mirrored a bunch of US agencies like the SEC, we also have an SEC down here. So a lot of the laws that do get enacted, whether it's in Europe through the EU or the UK or the US, some of that does get distilled into our actual regulatory agencies here and kind of the context that they view this and especially the lens. So on the ETF side, yes, it did give legitimacy, but at the same time, what it really practically meant for us is, yes, there's a heightened awareness because, again, that also tracks with the bull, the bull market again. A lot of them are like, okay, so this Bitcoin thing is still around like how do we combat this again or at least for some, since we're starting to have a few more folks that are a bit more positively minded towards Bitcoin in.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“High adoption levels when it comes to like P2P markets and things like that. So it kind of varies. And thus, I guess what the way you could see the general overview is with like specifics on Nigeria as well.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“got retained in the country is probably a good way to put it. I think we still have one executive in Nigeria with like legal proceedings in Abuja, the capital. So a lot of that has been really on the regulatory side. A lot of it has really been activity in Nigeria and to a certain extent some other parts like the Kenyan government as well. They tend to mimic the Central Bank of Nigeria's sentiment in general to kind of regulation. What's interesting on the positive side is other countries that are starting to see things like Bitcoin mining that positively impact the continent. They've started moving towards championing that allowing for that to proliferate. So things like in countries like Ethiopia, for example, I say it kind of varies across where mostly in West Africa is more on the P2P side, kind of like raw Bitcoin markets. So on the East African side is mostly around the mining side. And I say South Africa has been an interesting kind of middle ground where you have projects like Matrin Kuril and for people with phones that aren't smartphones to actually use the lightning network, for example, while still allowing for relatively high.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The adoption here in Nigeria and more so across Africa it's grassroots fully. Like the governments or things like that did not put this on the people, which is, again, because we really don't trust the government for a lot of people. So naturally, that wouldn't have even worked. The example being the Inera. So ironically, they did pull off the ban, but then all of us were kind of a bit skeptical because, you know, the government is exactly too excited about Bitcoin to begin with. So taking off the ban, yes, some are excited about it. meaning we're having more regulatory clarity but then now fast forward to me you realize that that was probably for the worst you should have probably kept the ban things were a lot easier at the time because things started happening with you know rumors of abductions of people that actually deal with ptp bitcoin and things like that even folks that are doing you know currency exchanges and things like that a lot of them were shut down finance got shut down their execs came to kind of negotiate with the government and then they actually got well let's say”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even allowed on these platforms, so we already don't have access. So even the idea of spending things through credit cards and all of that, typically we have to jump through different loops or different fintechs to kind of get access to that. But with Bitcoin, it was like instant money at that time since Bitcoin Lightning was already a thing at the time. So a lot of that resulted in people just seeking out P2P through WhatsApp, Telegram, all kinds of channels. And then by last year, December, the Nigerian government realized, okay, we kind of lost the fight in terms of stuff, stifling PTP because at this point Nigeria ranks, I think top five globally for PTP adoption, as well as just overall. But the problem is we're still not a state, obviously, where, you know, people just spend Bitcoin on a daily ad exchange, at, you know, shops and things like that. But at the same time, they already let the cat out of the bag in terms of what it means for people to actually know the value of Bitcoin and just pursue that individually. So the unique thing about”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot of things. One is it made people realize that okay, now that banks can directly tie crypto transactions to some of these fintechs that we're operating, then it means the only option is PTP. So it naturally forced people to go RD into PTP. And then the problem was it's very, very difficult for them to stifle PTP without disrupting the entire value chain or, you know, for currency exchanges and things like that. So instead, all they did was the ban. They released the ENAR, which till this day I've never seen anyone use the ENAR on the ground. I've never seen anyone accept it. I downloaded the wallet and then it required me to rekyc even though I have a bank account in ER. So I was like, you know what, this is not worth it. So a lot of people just continued using Bitcoin. And as soon as people caught up to the idea that, okay, this is actual money that works for us. This is not a failing currency. This is not permissioned because a huge thing for us here in Nigeria is a lot of the access that we have to money in general and just the global financial system is permissioned. And the truth is the majority of the time went.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Will actually take off. But then the problem is, I would argue, having documented this extensively and being familiar with the situation is I firmly believe if you were to attribute the growth of the P2P market, the Bitcoin P2P market in Nigeria, as well as the actual share adoption levels that we've seen over the last few years to one entity, it would likely be the Nigerian government, ironically. Because that ban said in motion”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So a lot of those companies in the early days were pretty much just exchanges. So by like 2019-ish, 2020, the government started understanding that, okay, this is something that we probably need to take a look at. And after a while, they realized, okay, if this is likely going to challenge already the existing currency that's kind of failing at that time, really when it comes to the exchange rate on the forex side, then something I'll probably need to be ahead of. So they decided to bring out, you know, the ENARA, which is the first CBDC in Africa. And, well, some argue this is, I can't really see what the motivations are behind the CBN's move, but did it push the ban Bitcoin outright? Or at the time they claimed it was for reasons around anti-money laundering and KYC AML, things like that. And then some people speculate that the real reason was to stop any sort of propagation of Bitcoin so that the ENRL take up.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The big connects, all that kind of stuff. So a lot of people were under the impression that they owned Bitcoin, but they didn't necessarily because a lot of these people were just scamming them off and saying, you know, I'll buy Bitcoin for you. And then when the dust settled after the whole bull run, a lot of people realized, wait a minute, I actually don't have any Bitcoin. A lot of people, obviously, someone went to jail, some fled, things like that. So there was already negative sentiment towards Bitcoin because from the get-go, people weren't necessarily familiar with this concept of full digital money even though, you know, arguably all fiat is digital as well as even the narrow, for example. But that concept of it being just digitally native as well as you can't really physically touch was already a bad taste for a lot of people. So couple that with the scam that was introduced, a lot of people just felt averse to Bitcoin naturally. So by like 2018, we started seeing a lot more companies come out of the African space, specifically Bitcoins and a bunch of other exchanges. And really for them, it was providing Nigerians the ability”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A ton. So, first thing context is very important. So Africa, the way to look at it is as the entire continent of a billion people, thousands of languages, 54 countries, over 30 currencies across. And all of these different jurisdictions within Africa, the sentiment that they have and really the set of, I see maybe regulation is it typically mimics kind of the evolution of how Bitcoin is introduced into that country. So if you take a country like Nigeria, for example, who arguably West Africa as well as East Africa, to a lesser extent, you know, South Africa have been kind of at the forefront of Bitcoin. If you track all the way from like 2017 to date. So in 2017, when a lot of A lot of scams came into Nigeria and really Africa as a whole.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Definitely. And I think what was interesting on the math side, because generally they're, you know, arguably you can code without necessarily having this large depth of knowledge of mathematics, even at a fundamental level. But for me, I'm the type of person that just goes ahead with things that have like an itch pretty much. So for me, on the math side of like programming was more so I like to dig deep into foundations on fundamentals. Like if I can reason my way through something, as far as I'm concerned, I don't know what it is or understand it. So that's what the core motivation is for me to really drill deep and try to understand things from that kind of first principles standpoint.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I felt as much as possible, I need to not only contribute to this but know as much as I can to also kind of equip myself. Because further down the line, I started actually using Bitcoin before I had a bank account. So for me, all information was very useful to actually using it on the ground. So it was more practical as well as just the ability to actually create things that are actually useful.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For me, honestly, I didn't really have a huge interest in money or maybe have any sort of predisposition towards a philosophical reason for why Bitcoin is so novel or interesting or beneficial to humanity initially just seemed like cool tech to me. I felt was very interesting that money could be used in this way where it's like fully digital. It's, you know, a global instant, all that kind of stuff. I mean, obviously at the time there was no lightning network. So it was really more the academic paper. So for me, it was ray what hooked me was on the programming side was just the ability to think about things and then actually bring them into life. For me, it felt like an incredible superpower. And then coupled out with Bitcoin, it was like, it felt like I was part of this underground movement of really a lot of very intelligent people around the world.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the content, arguably. So that for me, I was like, oh, wow. So that is possible. I had no idea you could actually contribute on that level. So I did that and then I got Mars in 2020. And since then, honesty has just been like further entrenched into both, you know, the programming side as well as Bitcoin.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Too technical, to be honest with you, and I have no technical background. So as far as I was concerned, it was just going through my eyes and I forget everything I learned. So by like, see, halfway through that year in 2017, I was like, okay, I really want to understand this and maybe give it a shot since I have all this time before college to end up going, you know, doing more Bitcoin work. So at the time, I was like, okay, I should probably know some stuff about computing and things like that. So kind of walk through the whole rabbit hole of what's a computer programming, things like that. And then by the end of the year, I was just hooked on it, to be honest. Like, that was all I was doing. Anything I could get my hands on, textbooks, articles, videos, everything. And then my 2018, I started teaching myself how to code. So by that time, I started understanding a lot more of the material. And then like 2019, I started contributing to Bitcoin Core. Funny enough, because I saw a pull request that was merged by Tim McKimbo, who was also another Nigerian Bitcoin core contributor. I think probably the first.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the programming side, I'd say just for some context, I finished high school in 2016. So roughly 2017 ish was when I decided, okay, I could go the path of like architecture and all that because the idea then from people was, okay, you're good at math, you could draw then that adds up going to architecture and all that, yeah, you know, kind of aimless. So that about checks, right? So by early 2017-ish, I started reading up more about Bitcoin because, you know, Alberto was, they were trying to get IBM's DNA program into Kaduna state, which is where he was working at the time for the government. And he was like, yeah, you know, do you have any insights into blockchain or Bitcoin and things like that? And I was like, no. Because for some more context, in 2013, he had this obscure video from YouTube. He brought back about Bitcoin. And he was really into at the time, but honestly, I was 14, so really didn't care about Bitcoin or anything like that. Didn't understand what I was watching at the time. So by 2017-ish, we started talking a lot more about it, started reading articles. But the problem was all the articles at that time was just.”
2024-05-22 · We Study Billionaires · BTC183: Bitcoin Investing Opportunities in Africa w/ Abubakar Nur Khalil · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT