AN EAST AFRICAN MONEY PERSPECTIVE
Enterprising young Kenyan have figured out they can use bitcoin as a payment mechanism to take part in global online commerce . They buy bitcoin from a peer to peer market (here) and use it to pay for stuff online. For as little as 200 KES, they can purchase $ 2 worth of Bitcoin to make micro payments to their favorite sports bet pickers.
A couple of days ago I perused the Kenyan NATIONAL PAYMENT SYSTEM ACT (No. 39 of 2011)THE NATIONAL PAYMENT SYSTEM REGULATIONS, 2014 (pdf). My interest was the legal stance on issuance of P2P exchangeable assets, such as loyalty reward points in Kenya, on the bitcoin blockchain – a decentralized network. At Umati Blockchain Ltd, we are exploring using the coloured coins protocol (for now) for issuing freely exchangeable loyalty points, with all the ease, nifty features and security of the bitcoin blockchain.
It seems, to me, digital currencies such as bonga points, and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, fall in a gray area. They do not fit the strict definition of E-money under Kenyan law. Perhaps why, late last year, the Central bank of Kenya admitted via a public notice ‘Virtual currencies such as Bitcoin are forms of un-regulated digital currency not issued or guaranteed by any government or central bank.’ I subsequently wrote a rebuttal to this notice.
