Guinea is an interesting country. Situated near the tip of Western Africa, they’ve modernized in spurts. They never really had a landline network, leapfrogging it in favor of cell phone and smartphone technology.
Now, with cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies slowly approaching the mainstream, Guinea has another opportunity to leapfrog a less efficient and convenient technology.
There are a lot of advantages to being a western country on the cutting-edge. One of the disadvantages, though, is inertia. Legacy systems tend to entrench themselves and between jobs and investment, there’s a lot of incentive to discourage challengers from supplanting such systems.
For example, despite lower costs and long-term benefits, renewable energies such as solar and wind continue to have a tough go of it in the United States. The financial and political capital of the oil, gas, and coal industries are too immense to ignore while the high-paying jobs are difficult to leave behind.
Similar trenches have been dug in the banking system. Despite credit unions and smaller institutions providing better value for consumers, the large banks continue to wield their considerable political clout to stay ahead.
These banks, or banks of similar size, have been at least somewhat responsible for every financial crisis dating back to the depression. It’s possible that a democratization of such banks could have avoided these problems. And now, with the advent of blockchain and cryptocurrency, such democratization is possible.
Guinea is not under the purview of a large, powerful bank. The opportunity exists to revolutionize their financial infrastructure, and Avesta is taking that opportunity. With our all-inclusive platform that serves as both the currency and the trading apparatus, we’re hoping to bring Guinea beyond the Western countries.
Guinea serves as both our blockchain proof-of-concept, and as a proof-of-concept to the world that a better financial system is possible.