Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has offered free training to 100,000 Africans on careers in cryptocurrencies and blockchain in the past one year.
The Binance Masterclass training is primarily targeted at helping crypto newbies understand the fundamentals of cryptocurrencies, how to identify scams, how to buy and sell crypto – and more advanced concepts around the spot, margin, and futures trading as they get started on their crypto journey.
Experts say with the accelerating growth of crypto adoption, there is a lot to take into consideration when transferring wealth. They say gaining a foundation of cryptocurrency education helps to understand the transition between traditional and decentralized financial infrastructures.
The crypto market in Africa is currently growing and attracting many people looking for assets that give them higher margins. In Nigeria where the economy is struggling with recessive forces, investing in a non-naira based asset is seen as a hedge against the weak local currency.
This is true for crypto as it is for foreign based stocks. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said over 400,000 Nigerians have invested in foreign stocks in the past 18 months. For crypto, the main attraction for many Nigerians has been the surging prices.
Although the price of bitcoin has retreated in the past few days, it has had a bullish run so far from 2020 to 2021 where it rose to as much as $64,000 for the first time ever. The price of bitcoin was trading at $57,142.00 on Wednesday.
Ethereum has also seen a consistent vertical movement since 2021, wiping out the 2018 all-time high by rising to over $4000 on Sunday. At last check, the price of Ether ETH was at $4,296.94 on the Coinmarketcap index representing a 31.58 percent growth in the last week.
Often, the fear of missing out (FOMO) pushes many investors into the market without first getting an education in the market. This could put them at risk of criminals taking advantage of their ignorance. This is also why Binance recently implemented new features and rules on its peer-to-peer (P2P) feature to keep investors safe.
The Binance Masterclass has the goal of bringing education about the market to new investors and ensuring that they have adequate information before buying any crypto asset. The class also prepares them for career opportunities in the market.
“Crypto education is at the heart of our focus in the global market. As a blockchain infrastructure provider, we are committed to ensuring that more and more people have access to the right information about the workings of the ecosystem. Africa is a very important market for Binance because we see the profound opportunity blockchain brings to the entire continent. This is why we launched our Binance Masterclass – to ensure that our people are educated about the things they need to know about the market.” Emmanuel Babalola, Director at Binance Africa
The first Binance Masterclass went live on 24 January 2020 in Benin, capital of Edo State, Nigeria. The six hours intensive seminar included a comprehensive crash course into understanding bitcoin, blockchain and trading.
For the latest masterclass, Binance trained about 1000 blockchain developers in Africa and allocated a $1million fund for African developers. The masterclass series spanned 8 weeks from January to March and concluded with a demo show where 10 groups (comprising 5 developers each) showcased their applications.
