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UID:pretalx-bitfest-2026-DNXKCY@pretalx.bitfest.uk
DTSTART:20261121T100500Z
DTEND:20261121T102500Z
DESCRIPTION:Goats are the preferred store of value for Malawi’s rural poo
 r. Just a few years ago\, they sold for around 15\,000 kwacha (the local m
 oney) but now fetch well north of 100\,000. They are Africa’s answer to 
 Saylor’s mantra that There Is No Second Best.\n\nBut this store of value
  destroys all value\, leaving a goatpocalypse of destruction in their wake
 . When the staple food maize is in the field\, these stomachs on legs are 
 kept well out of harm’s way. But for the rest of the year\, they ravage 
 the land\, picking off every fresh sapling that tried to replace the trees
  felled for firewood and brick kilns. With nothing left to hold the ground
  together\, the annual rains now tear through villages\, splitting roads i
 n two and washing away the topsoil. This in a country where 85% depend on 
 agriculture to survive. \n\nBut what do you do when the money gets devalue
 d overnight\, most recently by 44%\, when prices of essentials rise more t
 han 30% annually\, and when the interest rate on savings is capped by the 
 central bank at 4.3%? \n\nLike most African nations\, Malawi marked its in
 dependence with a central bank and its own currency. The new bank notes ca
 rried portraits of freedom fighters and images of indigenous heritage. The
 y promised a new era of prosperity\, confirming sovereignty even to those 
 in the most remote villages. Malawi’s kwacha means ‘new dawn’ and be
 gan life at 2:1 against the pound. But this period coincided with the dawn
  of the global fiat money experiment\, and there is nowhere where its fail
 ings are more apparent than in Africa. The kwacha now exchanges for around
  5\,000. \n\nI’ve spent more than a decade in Africa watching experts je
 t in for cocktail launches of their latest targeted interventions that\, d
 espite all of this\, will somehow transform Malawi into an upper middle-in
 come country by 2063. In this talk\, I will argue that anyone who truly ca
 res about economic development in Africa should begin with the institution
  that drives it - the money – and that a return to sound money might off
 er some hope of turning the continent (and the world) around.
DTSTAMP:20261108T161201Z
LOCATION:Cotton Theatre - Freedom Stage
SUMMARY:Goatpocalypse - how fiat money destroyed Africa - Ian Foster
URL:https://pretalx.bitfest.uk/bitfest-2026/talk/DNXKCY/
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