Excerpt
I interview Langa, a Bitcoin educator from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. He shares how he’s building grassroots Bitcoin education through local meetups, book clubs, and the Crack the Orange scholarship, helping Zimbabweans understand money, avoid scams, and find financial freedom through Bitcoin.
Transcript
Today I have met with Langa. Langa is a local Bitcoin educator here in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. And we were discussing the future strategies how he can start and prolong his Bitcoin education work here. We’re going to cooperate on the Crack the Orange scholarships. He’s going to start the book club where we from Bitcoin for Fairness will donate books to that club and he will meet with the local learners on the ground here and they will discuss the different lessons in the crack the orange course and we also did an interview with him which you can see now. Hello Langa. Hi Anita. I’m so glad to see you and now, it’s been a while. It’s been a while but we saw each other recently. Oh yes. Yes. Tell me about the Bitcoin meetup we had this weekend. Oh yeah, like the Bitcoin meetup came out very well because there were a lot of people. I I didn’t expect to have so much people but anyway like it came out very well especially in the sense that in just a short space of time we managed to teach people about the basics you know the principles that of Bitcoin and a lot of people were interactive asking questions and um I feel it’s a very good start to start having those people coming for more meetups and learning more about the Bitcoin. Absolutely. I mean, I’ve been here now five or six times in Zimbabwe. It’s the first time, not the first time that I’m in Bulawayo, but the first time working with Bitcoin educators and sharing knowledge here. And I was also very glad and very fascinated that we had like 30 people in that sessions and I think it’s a great foundation for your future work here. Can you tell us a little bit about why Bitcoin is so specially important in Zimbabwe? That’s a very good question. That’s I think for as Zimbabweans there are people these are people understand the value of having a currency that is stable and bitcoin is the superior. It’s the currency that maintains its value long term. So I think Zimbabweans they need to learn consciously because most of Zimbabweans they know about inflation and money but they’re not really conscious about it. They don’t really understand what exactly the problem is and what needs to be done. So with Bitcoin education, it will bring people into that kind of awareness that will help them to really put hands on exactly what they need to do, which is buying bitcoin or producing work where you can be paid in bitcoin and then saving for the long-term. So I believe that’s really what is the crest of why Zimbabweans will need education for Bitcoin. Yeah. And I feel education is also so important here because everyone knows about Bitcoin but everyone believes it’s a scam because there have been so many scams that are exploiting the fact that people don’t know about Bitcoin but they have heard you can get rich quick with it and then they put all their savings into it and get ripped off and that’s also I think one of my missions and also yours to stop people from losing money actually. So there will be a lot of people who say, “Yeah, but Bitcoin is so volatile. You can’t save in Bitcoin because the value goes up and down and it’s insecure.” And what do you say to those people? Yeah, I think first to answer the question about especially the scams people take advantage that in Zimbabwe people now they do not have low time preference because I think it’s because you know the high unemployment and or you know so we need to like change. What do you mean with low time preference because a lot of people don’t know what that is? Okay yeah I think it talks about like thinking long term. Yeah, that’s exactly, it’s the easier way to say. It the easier way to say. They’re thinking long-term. So that because even we’ve got our slang that says, you know, it means going in there, getting money, and get out. You see, so that’s the culture that has been building and that’s the buzz word, you know. So we need like to teach people that these games, they come because they take advantage of that culture. But if you think long term and if you educate yourself and you know what you are doing, the research they’ll those games will just you know they’ll be reduced they’ll be heavily reduced and then when it comes to the second part a lot of people ask: “It goes up should I sell or it goes down should I buy and should I trade this asset?” and then I’ll be like no the volatility is because the value that Bitcoin is priced in is the one that is volatile and the value of money it goes up and then some point it like you know it keeps fluctuating and then it just reflects on the price of bitcoin as if bitcoin is the one that is going up and down. So what it means is you need to buy in dollar-cost-averaging. You need to buy like every month buy something next month buy something the other month. If you’re able you can even buy like in week, in a week time, you know, or if you are able monthly that way you get to average your price of Bitcoin that it starts going in a like a line that is slowly building going up and then you find that even if the price goes up and down the volatility won’t affect you. Yeah. And even more if you live in Zimbabwe and you are obliged to use the national currency like the Zimbabwean dollar or now the Zimbabwe gold which are both the last six currencies here so you changed currency for the last 40 years I think six times and people were totally ripped off because the money loses value all the time and very fast and in that sense Bitcoin is actually the better option. That’s true. The absolute better option. That’s right. Because over time you win, value gain value in Bitcoin. Yes. And so the inflation here is so high. Yes. That the volatility in Bitcoin actually doesn’t reflect for you. It’s even better. It’s still better here. And even better because no one can take it away from you. That is true. That has happened a lot of times here. That is very true. Like the last time I think in 2019 when they reinvented the Zimbabwean dollar one is to one so I think it’s the same thing. It happened in I think it’s Argentina with pesos it also happened here in Zimbabwe so you find that all companies were selling in US dollar right and then there was introduction of bond note and then they said the bond note is one is to one US dollar so what happens is give us the US dollars and then just use the what the bonds the bonds lost value within just a short space of time. They lost their value. So now that’s where Bitcoin comes. You see, you have got your money that you use every day which is US dollars and then there’s also the Zimbabwean gold and then you can save what you are able to keep like what you won’t need for the next 5 years and then you find that all these currencies compared to what you have saved bitcoin will be just going up in price official average every month every year bitcoin is going up in what like 19% like? It depends. 14-19% on average you see. So it’s not really like volatile. It’s going up. Yeah. It’s only for short-term traders volatile actually. Exactly. Exactly. So let’s speak a little bit about the challenges that businesses face here, like if you have a business and you need to import goods, you have big trouble getting the money out of the country or even acquiring US dollars. Can you speak about that? How Bitcoin can support or help business owners here? Right. I think especially in Zimbabwe there’s a lot of places which you can’t even even like just to send money you can’t they tell you your IP code without the Zimbabwean regulations just international regulations and also in Zimbabwe the ZiG only works here in Zimbabwe it doesn’t work out there you see so with Bitcoin you just don’t need a bank, you don’t need an intermediate, you don’t need any third part. Just the bitcoin you have in your wallet. You just get the address from your supplier or whoever is your customer that needs to send you money and you just get an address and then you send just like that. A lot of people ask me how does it work? I’m like if you have used EcoCash. Just think of EcoCash without a middleman, EcoCash without a bank, EcoCash without… just money moving from mobile to another mobile you know. Exactly. Exactly. So I think it helps a lot of businesses to understand that they cannot still say they are held behind by transitioning money internationally or even locally from another city to another city. With Bitcoin you can do it anywhere at any time. It never sleeps. It never shuts down. There’s no weekend for Bitcoin. There’s no holiday for Bitcoin. It’s always up and it’s every time new tech comes that works better and convenient always takes the space and swallows every other tech and then it becomes the tech to use. So speaking about that financial space you know in crypto cryptocurrency, I know you’re doing Bitcoin-only education why is that because there are so many other cryptocurrencies out there why don’t you teach about those two what’s the reason what’s the difference for you between those altcoins or like I say casino coins and Bitcoin for you? Well, the difference is um those other currencies they’re just you know someone says wow that’s what central banks do can I just be the central bank, you know? So it doesn’t like change from exactly what we are going from it’s just someone wanting to be a central bank and does exactly what central banks what they’ve been doing even at a much larger scamming scale but with Bitcoin, Bitcoin is decentralized. There is no company behind Bitcoin, there’s no government behind Bitcoin, there is no one that controls Bitcoin it is as decentralized. It is immutable. You cannot temper with Bitcoin. We cannot come and change and say okay today we feel you know we need 2% interest rates, you know we need this, you know adjust here and there Bitcoin just runs on its own and it is you know like the whole person people who are in the community they are the ones who who vote and agree on what Bitcoin needs to do and everything. So everyone plays a role. It’s people’s money it is owned by everyone and is owned by no one. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Very right. What you saying about self-custody versus custody? What are the like there are no exchanges here I believe? Right. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that? Well, here in Zimbabwe we might not really have the problem of people leaving money on exchanges because we do not have exchanges but still people find ways. Yeah. But still people they might put money in a wallet that is a custodial wallet. So we teach self-custody so that people learn there’s a difference than keeping money on a wallet that says we are going to take care of your Bitcoin. But what if the company goes bankrupt? What if anything can happen? You know you cannot be like certain about future. So people should learn to self-custody and get the seed, the 12 seed phrases that they store in a very secure place away from the world, wallet and where people cannot just you know find the the secret 12 words and then they can secure their bitcoin where no one can take them away from you. This is the first invention in humankind where you can keep your property and no one can take it away from you. Your house can be taken, your land can be taken. Or you can’t move with your house if you need to go to another country. Exactly. You cannot like pick up your house and say I’m leaving. But with Bitcoin, with those 12 seed phrases, even if you memorize them, you just go across the border and then you get your hard wallet or you get your mobile phone, you download the wallet, you enter 12 seed phrases and that’s it. This has been proved and it’s happening. It’s not something that is a pie in the sky. It’s something that people can see and feel. Yeah. Yeah. Completely right. So, we also just met in that sense today we were talking about the future how we can cooperate in the future and also support your work here on the ground because that’s actually my personal mission or or goal to train the trainers to support the people on the ground because that’s the way how we can scale good education and we spoke about a couple of things maybe you want to tell the audience what we or you especially here have planned in Zimbabwe? Okay, education because it’s about the mindset you see for someone to completely understand how Bitcoin works and the future you know because people think maybe Bitcoin is something that is coming and is it to go you know in in the near future it people have to understand how evolution of money happens and how Bitcoin is the future. And everything will be priced in Bitcoin. Everything in the world will revolve around Bitcoin. So education is the only awakening that can give to people. Even if they have bitcoin, if they’re not educated, they will lose that bitcoin. People will trade, do all these sorts of things. So the reason why we really want to push education is is the only awakening and also the freedom the real true freedom that people can get and then they stop doing the other coins. They stop thinking about trading but they think in how I can participate in being in the future and having bitcoin and also developing doing other things that contribute into Bitcoin. And to reach that goal you like we will be granting scholarships for your community and then you are going to do offline sessions so basically meet here in the ground in a co-working space and discuss what people have learned and answer their questions, right? So basically there’s Crack the Orange thanks to Bitcoin for fairness. So what we going to do is we will get applicants applying for do the course and then when we get a number of applicants they start self-pacing education where they can be learning on their own and then we put a certain timeline to say after two weeks can we meet where we have like you know close proximity and then we discuss about what you have been learning and if you’ve got questions then we answer those questions and then at times we can even try to go into depth. Yeah and or practice you know like or practice install wallets show them how hardware wallets work and things like that. Snd then they can go back and continue with the what with the online course and then we do it and then we keep on bringing new cohort lessons with different people until we build a community. But we’re not going to stop there. People going to start you know onboarding merchants you know merchants who can also accept Bitcoin and also we do a book club right where we have books yeah we are you know we are so excited about that arrangement where we can book like Broken Money, book from Alex Gladstein. And my book. Yes and also (L)earn Bitcoin. Yes and then so we can have a book club people can borrow a book go and read come back, we discuss about the book and then that way we have a community that is Bitcoin oriented. Yeah. Yes. That’s and not just in for the fast gains or the fast losses maybe. Not just for, Yeah, exactly. Not fast gains, fast losses. That’s a good Yeah. Yeah. That’s great. Thank you very much Langa for all the work you are doing and you what you will be doing in the future and all the best. Yeah. Thank you. So I I want to also thank Bitcoin for Fairness because even for me to be an educator it started with when um I met you online. I met you in Harare. Yes, you came and this the last time you came with the bus to Harare. This time we came with the bus. You know that that’s a very big mileage that so I’m so thankful also for what you’re doing um in Zimbabwe. Not only in Zimbabwe as well but around the world, Africa, Zambia. So we want to also take the button and run on the ground so that you can see what your work is doing. Great also, you know. I love it. Even if you’re helping other people here, we have to be also running with the with education. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. And we hope to see you very soon. And it has to be different from what you left. Super. In a good way. Looking forward. In a good way. Thank you. Thank you so much.
