The world’s biggest Cryptocurrency Exchange, Binance commenced trading in October in Uganda after announcing the company’s first fiat-crypto trading supporting the Ugandan shillings in June. The move makes it the first country in Africa for the exchange to operate.

It was a bit unexpected since Uganda is not among the countries with a high adoption rate of Crypto usage in Africa coupled with its central bank’s aversion to Cryptocurrency. When it comes to Crypto penetration in Africa, Uganda is far behind countries like South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana.

Why Uganda?

However, Wei Zhou, CFO at Binance differs entirely and has explained Uganda is a great place for the Cryptocurrency Exchange to launch its first fiat-crypto exchange in Africa and in the world.



According to Zhou, nowhere will blockchain impact sustainable economic development more than in Africa. He told CoinNewsLive in an exclusive interview Uganda is a young and developing country that is embracing technology and innovation as drivers of economic growth, and Binance hopes to work, learn from, adapt and replicate its success in the East African state to other parts of Africa.

Zhou said:

Since announcing Binance Uganda, we have been flooded with support and positivity, and nowhere more so than from our Ugandan Binance Angels. Their optimism and commitment to bringing crypto to Uganda – and Africa as a whole – have helped solidify our views that we are in the right place.

He informed CoinNewsLive the business model is fairly simple as the Exchange will allow trading of BTC and ETH with the Ugandan Shilling (UGX). Also, they will charge a commission for the trading activities and all Binance Uganda users will get a month of zero trading fees as soon as trading comes online.

Besides, he considers Uganda as a country with strong support from its government and regulators and it has truly embraced the potential of blockchain and crypto on economic growth.

Harnessing Awareness of Cryptocurrency

Zhou concurred Binance’s entry into the Ugandan market is going to harness Blockchain education and boost the crypto adoption drive in the country. He revealed his outfit already has an active Binance Uganda Telegram group and new members are joining the conversation daily.

“We also have new members reaching out to us on Facebook, who are passionate about crypto and want to learn more about the exchange,” the CFO pointed out. “We launched an education portal Binance Academy a few months ago and plan to continue helping empower individuals and educating the global community about the blockchain.”

Africa Market Expansion

On whether the company will expand their operations to other African nations, Zhou indicated the short-term plan is to focus on building-up the operations in Uganda, but going forward, they are definitely going to expand to other African markets and are open for discussing with local partners in the region .