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Zimbabwe’s leading ophthalmologist who is highly respected globally, Dr. Solomon Guramatunhu has said cryptocurrency has a great potential to address poverty among a majority of citizens in the country.
He made the remarks during a seminar to introduce the invention of the Nzvedaz Big Five Token (BFT) today in Harare at the B2C Co-working Space located at the Batanai Mall in the capital city’s central business district.
Held under the theme “The Roadmap of Big Five”, the technical discussion session was graced by great minds in blockchain and the non-fungible token (NFT) ecosystem. Artists and other sector enthusiasts were also in attendance.
“As I was coming down to this place, I saw many people vending in order to earn a living in this difficult economy. A number of people have also turned to begging but I believe poverty among black people starts from the mindset. The population of one city in Asian countries, like Shanghai, is over 20 million or more.
“Zimbabwe as a country has a smaller population but the country has vast resources with plenty of minerals but the majority are poor. I used the Guramatunhu family trust to be in running businesses like real estate and stock trading. Vengai introduced me to cryptocurrency. I started with US$6 000 and it grew to US$69 000 in 12 months. Our social sectors like health and education are not performing well at the moment. Blockchain can be a way out of poverty. Cryptocurrency isn’t affected by macroeconomic fundamentals like inflation and maybe the gateway out of poverty for many,” Dr. Guramatunhu said.
Speaking during an interview with the media, Vengai Dzvendere, the Chief Executive Officer of Nzvedaz Academy, the organization running the seminar, said he was introduced to cryptocurrency when he was a university student.
“Through networking, I knew about cryptocurrency. I learned about cryptocurrency ways of protecting people from scammers. As the world embraces digital money, the system is also prone to manipulation. Many people lost money since 99, 9% of the people doing this are scammers. Today is part of Nzvedaz’s series of teaching people about cryptocurrency. We have created BFT for Africa,” Dzvendere said.
Israel Mutanhaurwa the Nzvedaz Big Five Token Developer, said through the BFT, Zimbabweans stand a chance to become players in the economy.
“With the invention of Nzvedaz Big Five Token, we are embracing the idea of changing people’s lives. Cryptocurrency is digital money backed by cryptography that is secured by Blockchain – a public ledger of transactions. Through this, people can see or query the transactions via the token. Our purpose is not to make money for ourselves.
“We want everyone to own the Big Five Token. While we are used to regarding entrepreneurship and commerce as difficult, through digital technologies, the world is moving away from such. In the past, in banking, there were no ATMs but now we have ATM cards. We are moving away from relying a lot on central banks that are often impacted by inflation leading to money losing its value. Electronic devices (mobile phones, laptops) make people control their own money. The value of currencies is being eroded worldwide. When you have your money electronically you have control over it. People can pay for goods and services through the Nzvedaz Big FiveToken and I call everyone to come on board,” Mutanhaurwa said.