In many regions of the world, blockchain technology is becoming increasingly popular. The benefits of blockchain technology have resonated throughout numerous industries, from enhancing healthcare to facilitating cross-border payments.
Today, many tech companies in Africa are utilizing modern technology to provide solutions to some of the continents’ most pressing issues. The majority of Africa’s initial wave of blockchain startups focused on remittance which happens directly on their platforms.
But what if you want to easily integrate a crypto wallet system to accept and process crypto-payments into your products, for instance, you might have to build the wallet system from scratch which can be quite tedious. Some companies like Bitpowr have been working on ways to make this easier. In an interview with Nairametrics, Oyetoke Tobi, CEO of Bitpowr explained how the startup is providing an all in one blockchain wallet and digital assets solutions for businesses.
What Bitpowr does
Bitpowr is a blockchain payment solution and wallet infrastructure that has built the tools to power online payments for online business owners, enterprises, developers, and individuals thereby providing the building blocks for businesses and individuals globally to take advantage of blockchain to access the global digital economy.
According to Tobi, the idea for Bitpowr came as a challenge “I wanted to create a simple blockchain wallet to integrate with some products, I realized that most times I would have to build the wallets from scratch for every project so that is when the idea came.”
“I was trying to make people integrate crypto payments on their website so I created a simple crypto wallet that helps you create and manage Bitcoin wallets and also accept crypto payment. It came out well and made work easier for me so I decided to turn it into a service to help people,” Tobi added.
Bitpowr provides the infrastructure for you to build all the services you need, for example, exchanges, crypto wallets, payments. “We want to provide all the tools you need to build your crypto service. One of the issues with building on the blockchain is that it is complex and time-consuming but we are providing the infrastructure for people to build on the blockchain”.
Bitpowr is built for all businesses including fintech and commerce. The startup makes it easy for fintech companies who want to build exchanges on BitPowr and also retail platforms that want to incorporate crypto payment can utilize their services.
Bitpowr offers Wallet API – a complete suite wallet management solution that lets you create and manage different types of wallets for different blockchain and different use cases. Payments API – that lets you accept crypto payments with little to no setup. You don’t have to worry about implementing the wallet API and managing it and Payouts API – a settlement service that lets you convert your crypto to fiat.
In terms of data privacy and web security, Bitpowr utilizes a wide range of cryptosystem layers of Multi-Party Computation, Threshold Cryptography, and Nacl Box Public Key Cryptography to deliver enterprise-grade keyless wallet vault enabling businesses to benefit from the high level of security, resilience and availability.
Tobi said, “We have added security to reduce data theft. We are also talking to Coincover, a crypto-insurance company to go through all our security protocols to ensure that we are taking the right steps to secure our user data.”
Coincover protects against theft and loss of access to crypto so you can enjoy the rewards without the hassle of worry. Every wallet in Bitpowr is insured by them.
Blockchain in Africa is slowly maturing so like every new venture, there are challenges, Tobi noted that the challenge he faced when he launched was the issue of crypto education. “We surveyed to find people that are interested in using crypto to purchase goods outside the country and we found that many people were not interested because of the notion that crypto is a scam.”
“From the feedbacks gotten from the survey, we planned to partner with people that are already in the crypto communities that are training blockchain engineers. We have fewer engineers in Nigeria,” he said.
Since its launch, the startup has had over 12 employees and plans to launch bitpowr academy in February this year to educate users about cryptocurrency.