Regulators Need to Regulate Africa’s Crypto Market

Africa’s growing cryptocurrency market is an exciting new frontier for investors, but it is also a minefield.

Regulators in Africa are struggling to keep up with this fast-moving market, which has seen the rise of a wide range of digital currencies. The region is home to many blockchain startups that are using cryptocurrencies to raise capital and power their operations.

The challenge is that regulators haven't yet figured out how to deal with these new technologies. Blockchain technology itself has been around for years and has been used in industries ranging from banking to healthcare, but it only recently reached the consumer market when bitcoin was launched in 2009.

Now African regulators are trying to figure out how to regulate cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum within their own borders — and how they should relate to traditional financial institutions like banks and mobile money providers that already exist on the continent. There's also no single authority that regulates cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or ethereum: each country will have its own rules regarding what types of exchanges can operate within its borders, who gets licensed as an exchange operator and who doesn't, etc., according to Bloomberg News.