Zebedee Partnership With Bitnob Sees African Gamers Rewarded With BTC

African users of the bitcoin gaming and payments app Zebedee will now be rewarded in the form of satoshis when they play games or when they listen to podcasts. In addition to being able to convert their rewards into local currencies, African users of the Zebedee app can use it to make cross-border payments.

Converting Satoshis to Local Currencies

Zebedee, a crypto gaming and payments app, has said its partnership arrangement with the crypto on and off-ramp platform Bitnob will see African users getting rewarded with satoshis each time they play games or when they listen to podcasts. After accumulating enough satoshis, the users will be able to convert these to their respective countries’ local currencies.

While this new feature is currently only open to users from Nigeria, Kenya, and Rwanda, Zebedee revealed in its April 12 blog post that there are plans to add more African countries. Besides earning bitcoins, users of the Zebedee app can also use it to settle cross-border obligations.

ZEBEDEE is expanding into #Africa by joining forces with @Bitnob_official! 🤝🌍

Africans in countries supported by #Bitnob can now easily send money anywhere in the world, earn #Bitcoin in tons of games and apps and easily convert and spend in their local currency 🎉 pic.twitter.com/gafCju1KqV

— ZEBEDEE (@zebedeeio) April 11, 2023

The company’s blog post also sought to explain why Zebedee has chosen to grow its footprint in Africa and why the Bitcoin Lightning network is the ideal network for moving funds across borders.

“The integration with Bitnob is Zebedee’s first step into the vast and diverse continent of Africa – but that’s just the beginning. We’re planning to expand our coverage to more countries supported by Bitnob, as well as many others to eventually provide a complete network of entry and exit points to the global economy through the [Bitcoin] Lightning Network,” the blog post explained.

Fiat Rails ‘Too Expensive’

The blog post meanwhile revealed that Zebedee already has opened similar channels in Brazil and in the Philippines. The European Union, the United States, and the U.K. are the other key regions where Zebedee has created such channels, the post added.

Meanwhile, Zebedee’s chief strategy officer Ben Cousens has been quoted in one report explaining why the Bitcoin Lightning Network is the right fit.

“If I’m Activision Blizzard or EA Games and I have 30 million players of my games in Africa, and I run tournaments or giveaways, I cannot pay those players on fiat rails — it is too expensive. I am limited to the U.S., and I lose money from loss of engagement. Try sending $0.01 to these territories on another rail,” Cousens reportedly said.

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Terence Zimwara

Terence Zimwara is a Zimbabwe award-winning journalist, author and writer. He has written extensively about the economic troubles of some African countries as well as how digital currencies can provide Africans with an escape route.