The Bitcoin Bridge: Domineum wants more transparency and efficiency in Africa

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Where are the best opportunities for Bitcoin to prove its data-processing capabilities? It might be in relatively untapped markets in places like Africa. One company that thinks so is Domineum, a “blockchain as a service” (BaaS) firm with projects in Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Find out more about it on this week’s episode of The Bitcoin Bridge.

Domineum Blockchain Solutions Ltd. has operations in Nigeria, U.K., Estonia and Sierra Leone. Most of the projects they’re looking at are based in Africa, where the company sees the most opportunity. Co-founder Mohammed Ibrahim Jega goes into detail about what the issues and opportunities are, and how Domineum plans to tackle them.

We often hear a lot about Africa’s economic potential. It could boom, they say, if the infrastructure were in place. One way to make a data and record-keeping infrastructure easier and more affordable is Bitcoin. It offers a secure, auditable, single “ledger of truth” where anyone can verify a record’s veracity, who made or altered it, and when.

This is not your usual “freeing up commerce if everyone uses Bitcoin as money” solution, one that often makes lofty promises without ever seeming to deliver. BSV is focused more on providing a foundation of good record-keeping, where anyone can access information.

As Mohammed points out, the issue with governance in Africa is that it’s often difficult to know who owns what, and who is where. Putting all that information onto one platform, and making it accessible to whoever needs it at the click of a button, would go a long way to help.

Domineum is currently working on a land records management system in Nigeria’s Abia state. The company is also in talks with the Ministry of the Interior to find a way to put marriage records on-chain, and possibly even academic credential records.

Another issue Africa faces is its supply chains, as goods pass from port to destination and sometimes through multiple countries, people there need a reliable way to track where their goods are and what’s happening to them along the way. That’s the Sierra Leone part of Domineum’s operation, and Mohammed tells us all about that, as well as some of the company’s future plans, revenue models, and how it plans to expand.

In the end it’s all about increasing transparency and efficiency. BSV does this perfectly well from a technological standpoint, and often it’s a matter of educating and informing potential users. Getting the platforms in place and obtaining those initial clients may be the most difficult part of the job, but Domineum is getting there.

Watch: CoinGeek Zurich panel, Blockchain and the Future of Africa