2026-11-21 –, Pendulum - Main Stage
Bitcoin is often discussed in the West as an investment, a technology, or an ideological experiment. In much of Africa, the conversation starts somewhere else: money simply does not work the way it is supposed to.
From persistent inflation and currency debasement to restrictions on cross-border payments, remittances, banking access and economic opportunity, millions of Africans encounter the problems Bitcoin addresses before they ever encounter the Bitcoin whitepaper.
Drawing from my experience as a Nigerian Bitcoin educator and community builder, this talk explores what the rest of the world can learn from Africa’s relationship with Bitcoin — not as a story of a continent “catching up”, but as a source of insight into why Bitcoin matters in the first place.
I will examine how grassroots education, communities and real-world use cases are shaping Bitcoin adoption in Nigeria and across Africa, while challenging some of the assumptions that dominate Western conversations about adoption.
The central question is simple: what if Africa isn’t waiting for Bitcoin to arrive — what if Africa is already showing the world what Bitcoin is for?
This is a 20-minute, story-driven talk about Bitcoin adoption from the perspective of someone who has experienced and worked within the African Bitcoin ecosystem.
Rather than presenting Africa as a passive recipient of Bitcoin technology, the session looks at African users, educators and communities as important contributors to the global Bitcoin story.
The talk will explore three questions:
What problems are Africans using Bitcoin to solve?
Currency instability, cross-border payments, remittances, financial access and the preservation of purchasing power.What does grassroots Bitcoin education look like when the audience is not financially or technically sophisticated?
This includes the importance of language, trust, community and making Bitcoin understandable to ordinary people rather than only technically minded users.What can Bitcoin communities in the UK and elsewhere learn from Africa?
The session will challenge the assumption that adoption is simply about convincing people to buy and hold bitcoin, and instead examine Bitcoin as a tool that becomes meaningful when people can connect it to real economic problems.
The goal is to leave the audience with a different understanding of global Bitcoin adoption — and a stronger appreciation for the people building Bitcoin communities far beyond the traditional centres of the ecosystem.
What’s Haute With Halima (WHWH) — a Bitcoin-focused education and media platform that makes Bitcoin easier to understand for people outside the technical and financial mainstream, with a particular focus on African perspectives and real-world financial challenges.
Halima Abba is a Nigerian-born Bitcoin educator, storyteller and emerging voice in Africa’s Bitcoin movement.
She hosts What’s Haute With Halima, a Bitcoin media platform built around making one of the world’s most consequential ideas accessible to people who were never supposed to be part of the conversation.
Her work sits at the intersection of Bitcoin, money, culture and freedom, with a particular focus on Africa — where monetary instability and financial exclusion aren’t theoretical concepts, but lived realities.
Now based in the UK, Halima brings an African perspective to the global Bitcoin conversation, connecting grassroots experiences of money with the bigger questions Bitcoin forces us to ask about who controls value, who gets access to financial freedom, and what a different monetary future could look like.
She is passionate about turning Bitcoin knowledge into something more powerful than information: agency.