Crypto city gets $6 billion funding, is this type of ecosystem a foretaste of what is to come?

The singer and song writer Akon has finally received thumbs up for his 2,000 acre Crypto city in Senegal in Africa. Ako has been given the land by the Senegalese President, which is close to the sea and only one hour’s drive from Dakar’s new international airport.The city itself will be tax-free and enjoy tax incentives to encourage others to invest

The US based firm KE International have been given the initial $4 billion contract and phase one of the city is due to be complete by 2023, which will have, homes, offices a hospital, hotels, a school, a police station, a waste facility, and a solar power plant. The intention is this new city will be powered 100% on renewable energy and it will be the 2nd of such cities in Africa, the other being Mwale’s Mwale Medical and Technology City in Kenya also built by KE International.

Ako is also intending to launch a Digital currency, Akion cryptocurrency, which will be run on the Stellar Blockchain. Akion will be the method of payment in this new city and it is hoped that using Blockchain technology there will be more transparency and less opportunity for corruption and fraud. Akoin will be traded on exchanges and via atomic swaps i.e. Peer2Peer without the need to go via an exchange, thus enabling people to swap Akions like they do with pre purchased phone minutes. This Peer2Peer trading is common in countries like Nigeria due to high inflation rates and a lack of traditional backing services.

The intention is Akoin to be available in all 54 African countries, thus acting as a currency making payments faster and cheaper across Africa, which could rival national currencies.

Will the likes of Google, Tencent( from China), Apple, Facebook or the global petroleum firms like Shell or Esso be looking to replicate this type of ecosystem either building their own eco crypto based city physically or on-line. Many multinational firms already have customers and suppliers spread all over the world and by creating their own Digital Currency and using it as a method of payments could potentially help improve the speed of payments and save costs. Furthermore if we see a further loss in confidence in governments or say a run on a global currency such as the US$ or the Euro due to weak economic activity or the huge debt levels they have accumulated some may indeed have more confidence in a corporate currency as opposed to some of the existing national ones?

#Blockchain #crypto #Economy #Environment #Climatechange #money #city #Ako#Africa #Payments #Corruption

Crypto city gets $6 billion funding, is this type of ecosystem a foretaste of what is to come?

Bought to you by Digital Bytes if you would like to receive Digital Bytes weekly please email Jonny.Fry@Teamblockchain.net to receive your copy

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 50,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully we can share your story too and reach our global audience. We are agile, responsive, quick and talented, we look forward to working with you!

Irish Tech News

---

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at Simon@IrishTechNews.ie or on Twitter: @SimonCocking