It's like four.
That's how they know he was really recorded at the conference.
Not just he calling him.
Let's see the podcast!
You see the background?
Yes, you do.
Yeah, welcome and Satoshi greetings to you and welcome once again to the Afrinuk podcast.
On this episode of the Afrinuk podcast, we bring you interesting views of people who
have attended the Africa Bitcoin conference and this episode is with Wualali Alija who
has gone through various processes and is now at the second edition of the Africa Bitcoin
conference.
This is going to be a very interesting episode.
Listen up as we take you through the course of the discussion.
Thank you.
I'm Dr. Imaia, the host of Afrinuk podcast.
On this podcast, we talk about different things related to nuclear energy and its applications
to different aspects of human endeavor.
And today, I am with Mr. Wualali, one of the co-conveners of this amazing Africa Bitcoin
conference.
I've never been in this conference before and he's going to tell us interesting things
about how he came through organizing this process and how it interfaces with nuclear
energy and also other aspects of Bitcoin and Africa in general.
So please, let's listen up and see and get the scintillating content that this episode
brings.
So Mr. Wualali, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Hi, like I said, my name is Wualali.
I'm a co-convener of the Africa Bitcoin conference and I'm also the director of operations of
the WSTV League.
So good.
So tell us about this Africa Bitcoin conference.
Why do we have to have a conference like this?
And tell us, take us through the journey on how this came about.
I know Jack Dosey was here last year and that was the first iteration and this year
again it's happening.
So take us through the journey on how this came about and it's been sustained to this
level at this point.
This came about as a simple idea that Africa cannot miss the train of Bitcoin.
Africa can actually be at the front guard of new advances in human rights, technology,
science, culture, education, anything.
So unlike any other sector, Africa needs to be front and center and an active participant
rather than a consumer.
So why a conference in Africa?
Because a lot of conference about Bitcoin has been happening all over the world, Bitcoin
is all over the world organized to understand better, to find solutions, to chart the map
for the future.
And in those circles as well as me being African that traveling outside of Africa, especially
to the Western countries, is not easy.
So the mere fact that there are so many potential in Africa that are potentially excluded from
those venues when there is a conference in New York, a conference in Asia, there's a
conference in Europe.
The challenge is that the common African person without a foreign passport or without a ready
visa and you know when conference.
So meaning that it's not a conference for Africans.
And it's an international conference about Bitcoin that has just happened to be happening
in Africa.
Cool.
And you've like gone through a lot of logistics bringing this to pass.
And in this conference I've seen people from different parts of the world, from people
like that lived in Europe and they have come to localize in Africa, building some great
infrastructure, setting up the mining grids and even building out power plants, you know,
like serving the local communities and producing local, making local products that are even
of export quality.
So this is really an eye opener, a blessing for me.
Like I see it as a blessing for Africa.
So like I am also wondering like this Bitcoin team is not, although I do see it like in
some city in Nigeria, I see some bosses like some taxi bosses having some Bitcoin signs
on them.
Like I see some people are beginning to pick interests in Bitcoin and some people are,
a lot of people, I will not say some, a lot of people don't know about Bitcoin.
So what should somebody who is a newbie or an enthusiast know basically about Bitcoin?
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is money.
Okay, just think about it, that's just money.
So everything you know about money just apply to Bitcoin and you get the answer.
So basically money allows you to transact.
So Bitcoin you can use it to transact.
So as you mentioned on the deal boards, on the cars in Nigeria elsewhere, it's just
pretty much telling people, but yeah, there is a new one, no different than mobile money,
mobile money or a bank advertising.
So just to say what you transact.
It's also a way to store value.
Simply people can buy Bitcoin for its potential future value, just like you would invest money.
You trade money, you trade anything, Bitcoin is not a commodity, but just currency, actually
a natural currency.
And then obviously it can also be used as a to measure quantity.
So we know 21 million possible Bitcoin.
You know, if I owe you a dollar, you know how much I owe you.
Bitcoin is spam or scan.
How is that supposed to be taken and how do you dispel that view if need be?
The saying in Bitcoin is no trust, verify.
And I think Bitcoiners build the wrong confidentiality and only meet the but not even trust verification
is more important than trust.
And it's for the purpose that currency cannot build without trust.
So if you consider, as we were saying that Bitcoin is currency, it's money, if you treat
Bitcoin as money, you protect your Bitcoin the same way you protect money, then I think
we will not have it.
I'm going to ask you for a big favor.
Are you okay for us to continue this conversation in the car as we head to the airport?
Sure, sure.
You can.
Okay, you know, it would be so funny if you treat your money, you don't give your money
to someone you don't trust.
You don't use your credit cards on terminals you don't trust.
You don't invest in businesses that you don't trust.
So Bitcoin, pretty much, should go through the same level of scrutiny.
Every day people do lose money for any reason.
It doesn't make the head.
True, true.
Every day people get scammed for any reason.
It doesn't make the money.
And this is the same view people have about nuclear energy, you know.
People die from just like going home, like even by walking in their homes, a lot of domestic
accidents claim more lives than what nuclear accidents have done.
So yeah, I think it's the same concept that people are having towards Bitcoin.
I mean, like people fear what they don't know.
So which the conference is about adoption is about understanding, it's about education.
Yeah.
So this is not a conference of trading Bitcoin or selling Bitcoin or anything, it's a conference
of knowledge, being power.
Yeah.
Power being carried through information.
Nice.
That's fantastic.
Bitcoin takes a lot of energy to mine and when I came to this conference, I have the knowledge
that Bitcoin can use the energy that nuclear energy provides.
Can you take us through the kind of energy?
Like we have had a minor training, Bitcoin mining training yesterday and I kind of saw
the human, like the sound it makes at some points and we are told that one typical MS
31, MS 31S kind of Bitcoin miner consumes about 3.5 kilowatts of power.
So this tells me that Bitcoin mining consumes a lot of energy.
So how do you meet this large energy vis-a-vis what nuclear energy can also provide and maybe
all that for mentioned as well, how do you go about meeting your energy needs?
Well, definitely it's about energy and it's about something new.
So with everything new improvements come over time.
So pretty sure the first car was not as efficient as the cars that we have today.
Pretty sure the first bike or the first TV is not as efficient as what we have today.
So efficiency comes over time one way or the other.
But it's presented in terms of, well, we could use this energy elsewhere.
We had some maybe background noise in the previous discussion is because we've been
at the venue of the conference and so we interact with people and activities going on there.
So continuing our discussion, I want to talk more about, we're talking about the energy
requirements and for Bitcoin mining and Walla Li has quite well explained that it gets efficient
with time and nuclear energy also kind of comes into play because it has some parallels
with Bitcoin mining.
So Walla Li, Ghana is quite advanced in their interest in small modular reactors and this
is like a way of having a decentralized source of energy for Bitcoin mining.
But I know that there are some feelings and some kind of nuances about nuclear energy
in Africa, but it's going to come whether we like it or not.
So what are your kind of, does it present a new hope for you or kind of expectation
for your community and what kind of thoughts do you have about this?
This is quite interesting because when it comes to energy, the discussion should be
had in the context of serving people.
And Bitcoin being money, it's also serving people.
Just happy that it takes Bitcoin for our government to realize that energy is something
that they have to figure out to provide to the people and that the Bitcoiners, because
they are needing so much energy, are willing to invest in an area where the government
has not, then Bitcoin is a good thing.
The centralizing is allowing people to mine.
And small modular reactors gives you the opportunity to go, you can go off the grid,
go to a place, to a community where they need energy, you build it there and then Bitcoin
mining being also a decentralized way of making money can also cash in into that structure
as well.
Yeah, and definitely, I'm just happy to see regulations or ideas losing up to allow
private investors and private entities to get into that.
And Bitcoin miners are the one opening the doors.
I'm pretty sure other areas of investment are also going to come in.
Otherwise, Bitcoin will be mine and it will just mine elsewhere.
And I think it funds out well because there is this, I was discussing with Ryan McLeod
about the business model of having a small modular reactor powering Bitcoin mining and
having to own that mining infrastructure as a nuclear power plant utility or something.
So it pays itself.
You don't have to depend on the community to buy electricity from you as a nuclear power
plant utility.
And yeah, if there is an excess kind of load, you can give it to the community and the main
continuous operation of the nuclear power plant can always run the mining activities.
So I don't know if the Verunga guy who was at the conference describing what he has done,
he tells a lot about how his mining affects the community.
Like he does some value addition to the community.
So like this is really inspiring for me.
Like in nuclear engineering, you have your nuclear power plant supplying electricity.
It's not just electricity.
The full spectrum of the value chain that electricity provides, you can extend that electricity
to manufacturing, providing jobs and everything.
So this is really a very great parallel between Bitcoin mining and nuclear engineering.
So like what are the kind of things that you think new frontiers you think that going forward
should bring nuclear energy and Bitcoin mining?
What are the new frontiers you think these two aspects can kind of operate in the future?
I think definitely they are friends for the circumstances because Africa have been faced
with challenges of power and although the ideas that people are now putting in place
are not new ideas, Bitcoin just provides a reason as to why because Bitcoin being money,
there is a monetary incentive that immediately can be ripped from that.
Otherwise, maybe the consumer base, the property of most area in Africa does not support those
high investments.
The whole idea about decentralizing is central to Bitcoin.
Maybe people have thought about decentralizing nuclear before but they didn't ever get momentum.
So I think there is a lot of strategic alignment between the two concepts.
If we stay forever, I don't know but what I know for sure is that actually breaking
conventions and creating new opportunities.
Ultimately, any excess produce is going to benefit communities and I think it's important
Bitcoin as a tool for freedom, a tool for personal freedom, enabling people to have
access to power.
So can that be done for the people while the investors or the miners are also making a
profit?
That will be something that needs to be demonstrated and that's what is actually being demonstrated.
I'm really happy that out of all the cities in the world, Africa is at the forefront of
those and those are the reasons why the conference is happening here because we are faced with
unique challenges.
That nowhere else in the world people are faced with or some version of some challenges
that everybody faces, that our variants seem to always be more difficult to solve.
So there are solutions happening, there are discussions, there are conversations.
Ultimately we need to continue to facilitate dialogue and interaction between government
players and thinkers and strategists so that way the solutions that are put in place support
both parties and benefit the people.
Nice.
Yesterday when we were going for dinner, the guy who was in the taxi together paid the
driver with Bitcoin.
He didn't know anything about Bitcoin and he took it upon himself to introduce it to
him while we were on the way to our hotel.
He just told him, okay bring your phone, download the app and he got the payments by Bitcoin
and that tells you how receptive we are of new technology that will help us get better.
Africa is hungry for progress.
We are hungry for energy, we are just hungry to be better than what we were before.
So this gives me hope that something we are going to get better in Africa.
So in conclusion, I would like to ask or get from you what are your expectations from this
conference and you've said quite a lot about it but what are the things you want every
participant in this conference being a co-convener, what do you want every participant to go home
with, what are the things and if you are just open to anything, what would you want them
to expect in the upcoming one?
The upcoming one is everyone, especially the African Athenian conference, needs to go back
to their community and join a meetup or if there is no one, create a meetup and talk to
someone about Bitcoin, word of mouth and each one teach one.
Like you say, get in the cab, the guy says, you don't know anything about Bitcoin, do
in the car ride, let's have a little conversation, by the end we have something concrete, a wallet
that is downloaded, money that is transacted, that person can teach another one.
How interesting would it be when we just tell him, oh you've just gotten a Bitcoin that
is generated by nuclear energy at the same time, now we all together are very interesting?
Yes, exactly, so it would be very interesting for them to know that the power is coming from
that and on and on and on.
Okay, so thank you very much.
Thank you so much.
It's been very educating and scintillating listening to you and I hope we will have some
time to talk like in the near future.
Thank you very much.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Thank you Jerry.
Yeah.