In order for Compound to effectively offer these services it requires to have an immaculate data analytics system. Data analytics is critical in the DeFi  because it allows users to make better decisions, discover patterns, and optimize their tactics. Participants in DeFi can receive significant insights into the performance of their assets by tracking and analyzing key data such as liquidity, trading volumes, and market sentiment. Furthermore, data analytics assists in identifying potential dangers and possibilities, allowing for proactive measures to reduce losses and optimize revenues. Data analytics helps DeFi protocols enhance their efficiency, transparency, and overall user experience, ultimately contributing to their customer acquisition and customer retention.

Subgraphs are an essential requirement for any DeFi project  to maximize the potential of decentralized data. Subgraphs makes it extremely easy for developers and consumers to access and analyze complex data sets by offering a fast, efficient, and scalable solution to query and index data from many blockchain sources. This is due to the versatile and adaptable architecture of subgraphs, which enables a wide range of use cases, like real-time analytics, data visualization and predictive modeling.

The Compound subgraph is a Messari subgraph, with an architecture that is a cutting-edge data indexing and querying solution, to power the protocol's data analytics capabilities. The architecture is designed to efficiently process and store large amounts of data from various blockchain sources, providing a scalable and flexible framework for data analysis.

Compound’s subgraph is used to track and calculate key metrics that are crucial to the protocol's operation and user experience. For instance, the subgraph is used to calculate Total Value Locked (TVL), Total Revenue, Protocol-Side Revenue, and other essential metrics. These calculations are performed in real-time, allowing users and developers to access up-to-date information about the protocol's performance

The design of Compound's subgraph enables real-time data updates and querying through the robust indexing and caching mechanisms of The Graph. As new data is generated on the blockchain, it is indexed by the subgraph and the data is stored in a highly optimized and accessible format. This allows for the data to be queried in real-time, using a variety of filtering and aggregation options to extract valuable insights.

Some of the key benefits of Compound's subgraph architecture include:

• Real-time data updates and querying

• Scalable and flexible data processing

• Efficient data storage and indexing

• Support for complex data analytics and querying

• Seamless integration with other Compound protocol components

The use of a subgraph by Compound gives the project a number of advantages, such as:

• Improved Data Accuracy and Transparency: The subgraph's powerful data indexing and querying capabilities keep data correct, up to date, and transparent. This allows customers to make informed decisions based on credible facts, this enhances and increases trust and confidence in the protocol.

• Enhanced Protocol Performance and Efficiency: Compound’s subgraph's optimized data processing and storage capabilities have significantly improved the protocol's performance and efficiency. This enables faster and more reliable data querying, reducing latency and improving overall user experience.

• Simplified Data Querying and Analysis: The subgraph's user-friendly interface and flexible querying options make it easy for users and developers to access and analyze data. This simplifies the process of extracting valuable insights, enabling users to focus on making informed decisions rather than struggling with complex data analysis.

• Scalability and Flexibility: Compound’s subgraph's scalable architecture and flexible design enable it to adapt to future protocol updates and growth. This ensures that the protocol can handle increasing amounts of data and user activity, without compromising performance or efficiency.

Despite all these advantages, Compound Finance's subgraph implementation, while robust and efficient, is not immune to potential data discrepancies and limitations. One such limitation is the handling of liquidations, which can lead to temporary data inconsistencies. Additionally, base token positions can be challenging to track accurately, particularly in cases where users have complex borrowing and lending positions.

To address these limitations, Compound has implemented several workarounds and solutions:

• Liquidation handling: Compound has developed a robust liquidation handling mechanism that ensures accurate tracking of liquidated positions. This includes temporary adjustments to user positions and automated reconciliation processes to maintain data integrity.

• Base token position tracking: Compound utilizes advanced algorithms and data processing techniques to accurately track base token positions. This includes real-time monitoring of user positions, automated adjustments for borrowing and lending activities, and regular data reconciliation to ensure accuracy.

• Data reconciliation: Compound performs regular data reconciliation processes to identify and correct any discrepancies. This ensures that user positions, liquidations, and other data are accurate and up-to-date.

• User position adjustments: In cases where data discrepancies are identified, Compound implements automated adjustments to user positions to ensure accuracy. This may involve temporary adjustments to borrowing and lending positions or reconciliation of liquidated positions.

• Continuous monitoring and improvement: Compound continuously monitors its subgraph implementation and data processing algorithms to identify areas for improvement. This enables the protocol to adapt to changing user behavior and market conditions, ensuring the accuracy and reliability of its data analytics capabilities.

By acknowledging and addressing these potential limitations, Compound has demonstrated its commitment to data accuracy and transparency, providing a robust and reliable foundation for its DeFi protocol.

The Compound Finance subgraph can be seen on The Graph Explorer here

Over the years there have been a lot of improvements that have made the subgraph development process easier

Recently Saihajpreet Singh of The Guild gave a demonstration of the advanced features that are available in the Graph CLI

Enable Autocomplete

In the Graph CLI, it is possible to enable autocomplete. This is an extremely useful and time saving feature that will enable the developer to achieve more in less time

Bootstrap An Example

It is now possible to bootstrap an example subgraph using the Graph CLI. There are various example subgraphs  This is another time saving feature.

Remove all generated and built artifacts

Usually when initializing a subgraph or when a codegen command is run, the Graph CLI provides various artifacts such as schema.graphql, tests etc. In the event that you would rather not have these, it is now possible to remove all the created artifacts using the Graph CLI

Migrate A Hosted Service Subgraph to Studio

A number of Subgraphs are deployed on the hosted service. If your subgraph falls in this category, you can now migrate it to Studio directly using the Graph CLI

Asides from these new features, there are also the following quality of life improvements in the Graph CLI

• Improve validation for manifest

• Retires for etherscan calls

• Provide docker-compose.yml in graph init

• Improved error handling for graph deploy

• Improved debug logs

All in all the subgraph development experience has been given a boost with the advanced features added to  the Graph CLI.

1. INTRODUCTION

2. FUNDED PROJECTS ON CYBERCONNECT

2.1 GALXE

2.2 FLAPPY MOONBIRD

2.3 ASPECTA

2.4 ATEM NETWORK

2.5 HUDDLE01

2.6 WONDERVERSE

2.7 READON

2.8 LINK3

3.CONCLUSION

4.REFERENCES

1.INTRODUCTION

Web3 still has a long way to go before it reaches widespread adoption.A majority of applications being built are primarily focused on decentralized finance, however the problems of the average internet user are more than just financial transactions. If asked on the other hand, the user would mention gaming, media content and social as some of the pain points they experience using the internet.

CyberConnect prides itself as the first decentralized multi-chain deployed social graph protocol, and biggest decentralized social network that enables developers to create social applications empowering users to own their digital identity, content, connections, and monetization channels.

On CyberConnect, users can build profiles on EVM-compatible blockchains to act as the foundation for their decentralized identities. Because users own their social graph, content, monetization channels, and social data with CyberConnect, they may move between different dApps without having to reinvent their network on each one. 

This is being implemented with 3 primary user-focused components:

• CyberProfile : this is a decentralized identification standard which enables a seamless access to Web3

• CyberConnect Social Graph : this  links your digital identity, data, content, and friends

• CyberWallet : a smart contract wallet that provides an easy onboarding experience to web3 social.

2.FUNDED PROJECTS ON CYBERCONNECT

There are currently about 50 projects that are already built on CyberConnect. The projects can be categorized as follows:Content Publishing,Community Management,DID & Reputations,Music & Videos,DeFi & Wallets,Gaming,AI,Metaverse,Professional Networking,Messaging.

A lot of these projects are in Alpha state launches, although they are growing, it is dificult to measure the rate in most instances. For this report we are mainly looking at  the projects in the CyberConnect ecosystem that have raised $2,000,000 or projects with a high number of users.

These projects have been able to demonstrate enough traction to be able to garner investor attention and support. In the case of Link3, it is the largest project on CyberConnect

The projects we will be looking at are as follows

• Galxe

• Flappy Moonbird

• Aspecta

• Atem Network

• Huddle01

• Wonderverse

• ReadON

• Link3

2.1 GALAXE

Galxe is a global web3 credential data network. It enables Web3 developers and initiatives to use credential data to create better products and communities since it is built on an open and collaborative infrastructure. Everyone may produce, distribute, and gamify NFTs using unique on-chain data thanks to the protocol. Individuals can issue and claim NFTs backed by their on-chain accomplishments, and developers are free to create their own loyalty programs. One of the most comprehensive collections of Web3 credentials in the world has been gathered by Galxe, which also includes a database of interactions with Web2 applications, on-chain snapshots, governance history, proof of attendance, and subgraph inquiries. Galxe will be able to build a Web3 DID system with Galaxy Credentials that not only offers individuals a multi-chain identification but also enables others to learn more about them through prior accomplishments/credentials.

It debuted in May 2021 as Project Galaxy before changing its name in September 2022. The team's justification for the rebranding "The purpose of this re-brand is to better express where we are and where we are planning to go" in their own words.

Galxe raised $10 million investor funding, led by Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly January 2022. 

The team behind Galxe is led by Charles Wayn and Harry Zhang. Before starting Galxe, the two of them worked together as the co-founders of Lino Network and DLive. The project was eventually acquired by Bittorrent Charles Wayn is co-founder and head of strategy at Project Galaxy. He previously served as co-founder and CEO of DLive.tv. After DLive merged into BitTorrent in 2019, Charles became Vice President of Interactive Entertainment at BitTorrent, managing multiple streaming business units including DLive.tv, DLive Protocol, and Two App. Harry Zhang is Co-Founder and Project Lead at Galxe. He is also a Product Manager, Data Scientist, and Retail Investor. Previously, he was Co-Founder at DLive and Co-Founder & COO at Lino Network.

Galxe's on-chain achievement tokens (OAT) have been adopted by various communities to reward members for various activities. Industry leading projects such as Optimism Foundation, The Arbitrum Foundation, Polygon Labs have opted to reward members of their communities on Galxe. This has caused the amount of transactions on Galxe to grow tremendously. Towards the end of June 2023, Galxe reported that over 50 Million NFT rewards have been minted on Galxe.

2.2 FLAPPY MOONBIRD

Flappy Moonbirds is a free, play to earn game. In the arcade-style game Flappy Moonbirds, the player controls the bird Owlie. The player must guide Owlie through pairs of pipes with gaps that are randomly spaced in heights while it is moving steadily to the right. Owlie rises when the player presses the touchpad, and it falls when they do. The player receives one point for each successful transit through a pair of pipes and ten points for each successful ether gathering.

Flappy Moonbird completed a funding round of $6 million investment led by LinkVC. This round of funding will be used to fund the development and production of the Flappy Moonbird game series, as well as the growth of the game ecosystem. Moonbirds NFT holders made personal investments in the angel round of fundraising.

Flappy Moonbird was created by the firm Helix Table in collaboration with the casual gaming giant Voodoo. Following that, the studio will concentrate on the field of Web3 casual chain games, expanding the vertical field and introducing more inventive revenue methods to ensure the game's long-term growth.

2.3 ASPECTA

While LinkedIn is useful for presenting people's educational and professional accomplishments, there is a universe of self-taught digital genius whose skills are not readily apparent on the networking site. Instead, their knowledge is hidden in the lines of code they create.Aspecta is attempting to fill this need by offering an AI-powered profile builder for developers who want to construct LinkedIn-style identity pages for themselves.This is accomplished by employing big language models to assess the quality of code in projects to which they contribute. The platform also considers social endorsement and uses network analysis to determine whether a programmer's work has been "liked" by other acknowledged specialists.

For innovators and beyond, Aspecta creates an AI-generated identity called Aspecta ID. By tying together accounts from Web2 and Web3 places, like GitHub, Twitter, and wallet addresses, it allows people to show, interact, and explore. An AI-generated website, a soulbound token, and metaverse twins are all included in the Aspecta ID set. Holders of Aspecta ID can access unique DAOs, ecosystems, and applications, connect with like-minded peers around the world, and provide insights on 8000+ skills aspects and hundreds of experience spotlights. Aspecta envisions an informative and engaging identity ecosystem allowing people and other parties to store, transport, and use data across Web2 and Web3. This ecosystem will start with Aspecta ID. Serial entrepreneurs from Yale, UC Berkeley, and Tsinghua founded it, under the direction of Dr. Steve Liu, a former Tinder Chief Scientist.

The co-founder of Aspecta, Zongjian He, has always been an innovator. Whilst still a student at Yale he founded the Yale Venture Club,in November 2021,the first student-run ecosystem for both current/future entrepreneurs and venture investors of Yale students, faculties and alumni. 

He has also held the numerous positions, including the position of Investment Analyst and North America Representative for ZhenFund prior to his foray into entrepreneurship

2.4 ATEM NETWORK

Tokenizing content and fostering web3 communities are the goals of the decentralized content creation technology known as Atem Network. 

Atem Network is a multichain Web3 social platform that combines social transactions with decentralized communities. Users in the decentralized community of Atem can enter different group spaces based on the tokens or NFTs they own, talk, and conduct P2P NFT exchanges. Group spaces will be automatically produced based on on-chain data in Atem. Atem supported all NFTs on the Ethereum Network during the beta launch.

The beta launch was combined with an airdrop of Atem Passport NFT, which allowed participants to free mint the currency in order to test the beta version. The goal of this NFT, according to Atem Network, was to act as a pass for early adopters to trial the company's product during the beta test and provide the team with honest input in order to improve the product before its public launch. The network connects numerous users to one another by forming group spaces under NFTs that are held by users on a mutual basis.

Atem Network announced its $3 million Series Seed investment on February 2, 2022. Among the investors are Mask Network, GSR Ventures, A&T Capital, and Mirana Ventures. The money will be utilized to create a multichain Web3 social network that combines social transactions and decentralized communities. resulting in the development of a closed community for followers of cryptocurrency and NFT.

2.5 HUDDLE01

In the words of one of the co-founders, Huddle01 is a people powered communication network.

Huddle01 offers a web3 video meeting platform that offers web3 native features for a seamless user experience. It is created specifically to give an improved web3 video conference experience for Web3 Builders, NFT communities, and DAOs. Users of Huddle01 can sign in using their wallets and create tokens. Recently they have launched "Huddle01 Spaces", a new way for people to interact via "audio" using the web3 primitives.

Susmit Lavania and Ayush Ranjan are the brains behind this wonderful innovation

Susmit Lavania is the Chief Technology Officer at Huddle01.

Ayush Ranjan is the CEO of Huddle01.On his LinkedIn page he describes himself as "Startup enthusiast. Generalist. Love building stuff and creating impact using technology."

2.6 WONDERVERSE

Wonderverse is a native DAO solution that integrates key components to control DAO participation. It primarily functions as a project management platform built within cryptocurrencies and intends to serve as a one-stop shop for all requirements related to DAO membership.

Currently DAOs are still using a mixture of private Discord channels, Airtable, Notion, and Google Sheets to manage distributed teams and projects worth billions of dollars.

Wonder’s task management system allows DAOs to intuitively organize projects, pay contributors with their native token, and onboard new members with ease.The belief of the team behind the project is that  DAOs will change the future of work and pave the way for the cooperation economy.

Wonder is building the necessary infrastructure for DAOs to win:

• Intuitive task management: Build task workflows, configure permissions and coordinate transparently across teams. We are building task management not just for product/engineering teams, but also for designers, community managers, and writers.

• Ease of collaboration: Whether it’s a group of friends starting a new project or DAOs working with each other, we make it easy to launch new joint initiatives.

• Payment and incentives: Not only should contributors be compensated, but the value attribution to different tasks should be transparent to ensure fairness. We also want to encourage great, timely work through tipping and time decaying rewards after deadlines.

• Seamless onboarding: Very often members join a Discord, introduce themselves, and are then left wondering what to do next. We help members and contributors onboard by setting onboarding tasks.

• Gamified experience: Through token rewards and social mechanisms we want to make work and project management fun. Contributors should look forward to completing tasks, posting updates, and engaging with our tools.

  Wonderverse raised $2,500,000 in a funding round led by Chapter One

2.7 READON

The first Web 3.0 application in the world with a read2earn model, ReadON, enables users to receive token incentives for learning and information sharing. Based on the user's reading habits, it introduced the Read-to-Earn concept, which incorporates GameFi and SocialFi interactivity. Its distinctive concept decentralizes the assignment of distribution rights and content ownership, and it enables advertisers to deliver adverts in its app using the $READ token. It aims to solve the problem of excessive "Ponzification" that now plagues GameFi.

ReadON features built-in external incentives that influence user behavior, making it a perfect X (as in X-to-Earn) scenario. At the same time, the Earn model may also readily take the user's reading habits into account. Gyroscopes are used in ReadON's anti-cheat technology to precisely measure the user's reading time. Additionally, consuming or producing material encourages people to form virtuous habits. The user retention of Web3.0 is still quite robust when the rate of return goes back to being sensible. The circle could be broken by Read/Create as a general situation, though. It transforms Web2 users to Web3 through the straightforward Read/Create usage scenario, considerably raising the product's limit.

2.8 LINK3

Link3 is currently has more than 1.2 million cyber profile registered, with over 900,000 active monthly users and is undisputedly the largest Web3 social community 

There are numerous reasons for the growth of Link3. Asides from innovative features that cater to the needs of Web3 users,it genuinely addresses numerous of the pain points of web users in general

People frequently use more than one social platform in today's online culture since each has diverse functions and may suit people's different social needs. Instagram users prefer to share updates of their daily life through images and videos. Twitter makes it possible to share opinions and ideas on a variety of topics. Although a user can have accounts on both sites, the communities created on each platform are independent of the other. It is not feasible to move the contents or the communities to another platform in the event that a user decides they no longer want to utilize it. As an illustration, many users of Twitter stopped using the service as a result of the recent ownership change and they found some of the new changes put in place by Elon Musk unbearable. As a result, they had to create new profiles on other platforms, like Mastodon, and the content they had created for over ten years as well as the communities they had established during this time are now irretrievably lost.

On most social networking sites, it is very simple to create an account with any name, especially the name of a famous person, and then use that account to mimic that person for fraudulent purposes. Instagram and other social networks provide profiles of well-known persons with a verified status in an effort to fight fake accounts and fraudulent activity. Before a recent policy change with regards to what verification entails, Twitter operated in this way, and not all social media platforms, including the hugely popular TikTok, have an account verification procedure in place.As long as the name is available, anyone can now establish an account with whatever name they choose. Tegan Kline, a co-creator of the Graph Protocol and the current CEO of Edge & Node, most recently complained on Twitter about how TikTok canceled her account while countless other profiles with her name and images are still active on the platform.

These issues are not a problem for Link3 users.

A huge problem for Web3 has always been how to verify accounts while at the same time protecting the privacy of the user. The focus has been primarily to create sybil resistant systems, preventing one person from creating multiple accounts on the platform. The advent of the CyberProfile takes this a step further. The process of creating a CyberProfile eliminates the possibility of impersonating another Web3 user.

Thus Link3 accounts are verifiable. Now if you are following an account on Link3, because you enjoy the content they create or because of their reputation, you are 100% sure they are who they say they are. 

Also, all assets and content created, and the community built by the users from other platforms using the CyberProfile that is being used can be transferred to Link3. 

Since its release, Link3 has become increasingly well-liked by top communities and projects, including BNB Chain, CoinList, MaskNetwork, Galxe, Multicoin Capital, Zapper, STEPN, Coinvise, LiveArt, Hashflow, ZetaChain, TreasureDAO, Zerion, LearnWeb3DAO, and Snapshot, among more than 800 verified projects on the platform.Link3 has held over 1,561 events on its platform so far, with a total of 1,254k attendees. Furthermore, 680k W3ST(Web3 Status Token) tokens were created and awarded to AMA attendees for their contributions to the community and participation in various events.

3.CONCLUSION

CyberConnect as a platform is undoubtedly very robust as evidenced by the plethora of different types of applications being built on it. Bearing in mind that the CyberConnect was founded 2 years ago, one can only imagine what the future holds for this dynamic and growing ecosystem. 

4.REFERENCES

1. General

   1. https://cyberconnect.notion.site/CyberConnect-at-a-Glance-9851e88aa0154804a12d424e29c05ce5

   2. https://link3.to/buidlerdao/post/396ec824583968b92f728296347d4e437bbfbf4fb1fba979e24e5011f204d9e6

   3. https://link3.to/cyberconnect/post/0e6e31fc4c4b5d68fc7f2f6ea45643628bf5b4c6e225056b796cd79b0e1e3edb

   4. https://www.rootdata.com/Archives/detail/CyberConnect%20Ecosystem%20Projects?k=NTcz

2. GALXE

   1. https://blog.galxe.com/introducing-galxe-passport-53502725636a

   2. https://medium.com/galxe-news/deep-dive-into-project-galaxy-abd33eceb19b

   3. https://pandaily.com/from-project-galaxy-to-galxe-rebranding-and-evolving/#:\~:text=Project%20Galaxy%20announced%20on%20September,%2Dfledged%20ecosystem%20within%20Web3.%E2%80%9D

   4. https://blog.coinlist.co/a-deep-dive-into-project-galaxy-digital-credentials-for-web-3/

3. FLAPPY MOONBIRDS

   1. https://medium.com/@FlappyMoonbird/flappy-moonbird-closed-series-a-financing-up-to-6-million-434ec4445d63

   2. https://www.chaincatcher.com/article/2091878

4. ASPECTA

   1. https://techcrunch.com/2023/03/21/aspecta-nabs-3-5m-to-build-ai-vetted-coder-profiles/

   2. https://medium.com/aspecta/aspecta-id-leveraging-ethereum-attestation-service-to-empower-the-next-million-developers-3d08ebcba6d8

   3. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220418005521/en/Yale-Student-Startup-Aspecta.ai-Completed-about-2-Million-USD-Fundraising

   4. https://medium.com/aspecta/aspecta-secured-strategic-funding-round-by-spartan-group-to-accelerate-ecosystem-development-9df2ac21242b

   5. https://www.linkedin.com/in/zongjian-he/

5. ATEM NETWORK

   1. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/03/15/2403829/0/en/Atem-Network-Launches-Its-Beta-Version-Combining-Web3-Group-Chats-and-Social-Trades.html

   2. https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/multichain-web3-social-protocol-atem-network-received-3m-seed-round-investment

6. HUDDLE01

   1. https://www.livemint.com/technology/tech-news/huddle01-aims-to-eliminate-centralized-servers-from-video-calls-11637500110424.html

   2. https://medium.com/livepeer-blog/how-huddle01-built-the-worlds-first-web3-meeting-app-c4bc24bb16f0

   3. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/huddle01-raises-2-8m-led-by-hivemind-to-build-the-1st-decentralized-communication-network-301791654.html

   4. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjan18/

7. WONDERVERSE

   1. https://mirror.xyz/wonderversedao.eth/nQxl9KAYEmOL6GRTkCnLILHZYl2XIXMjE1Gr4ps_dqA

   2. https://www.daomasters.xyz/tools/wonderverse

   3. https://www.alchemy.com/dapps/wonderverse

8. READON

   1. https://whitepaper.readon.me/what-is-readon/overview

   2. https://mirror.xyz/0xed111Cf8C23AEafe12286Fd60EE670007457Bf87/Wj7-6Nyw23MVLG9a_FZycRxs_XdFBbLMt8A_kC0qdpk

   3. https://medium.com/coinmonks/how-to-earn-while-reading-in-the-web3-project-readon-571df2f8b9e5

The "dark" continent has missed out on so many developments enjoyed by the rest of the world in the past. The failure of the continent to largely industrialize is evident in the dilapidated infrastructure and the ever increasing poverty rate on the continent

The Blockchain has rekindled a hope in the next generation of Africans as such, that their adoption of it has been at a phenomenal rate. So many reasons are posited for this adoption, many believe it is the characteristics of decentralization that has spurred this growth

In 2020 Nigerian youth took part in their first ever “decentralized” protest, the anti police brutality protest popularly known as EndSARS. For the first time ever, the protests did not have an organizer or convener, who can easily be silenced by the government. This lack of a single point of failure for the protests was one of the reasons it was difficult for the Nigerian government to stop the protests.

The protest encapsulated all the promises of decentralization for the new NIgerians. One of the innovations of the protests was that cryptocurrency, primarily Bitcoin, was used to raise funds during the protests as the Central Bank was clamping down on bank accounts. The youth witnessed in real time the powerful effects of decentralization as the government could not stop the movement of money no matter what they tried to do.

Aside from fueling protests, decentralization holds a lot of promises for the continent.

It is believed in many quarters that decentralization and open data could go a long way in enhancing quality of life in Nigeria and Africa. Elections are still extremely contentious. The most recent election in Nigeria was so farcical there are still numerous litigations surrounding the process, months after the election and it places a huge question mark on the legitimacy of the incoming government.

The electoral body promised an open election, with the use of Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS)  for voter accreditation and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), all which should have made it impossible for non-accredited parties to participate in the elections and allowed the electorate to monitor the election results in real time, and for the collation of the votes to have been in an open and transparent manner. Needless to say all that did not happen

Over voting and other irregularities which has been the bane of elections all over Africa marred the election and the election results were not uploaded to the IReV portal as was promised. This failure of delivering an election that was promised to the people is due to the centralized nature of the design of the system. Once the Independent National Electoral Commission failed, the whole enterprise was doomed to fail. This would not have been the case if a public ledger approach had been adopted for the elections.

Government budgets and public expenditure tracking is another area decentralization can assist in ending the woes of African nations. Transparency and accountability, core tenets of decentralization and open data will undoubtedly ring the death knell of the unbridled corruption which is the hallmark of literally every country in Africa.This transparency allows citizens and civil society organizations to monitor government activities, detect corruption, and hold public officials accountable. By shining a light on government actions and spending, open data helps to prevent fraud and misuse of public resources. A decentralized public ledger would ensure that the system is resistant to manipulation. This would go a long way to improving the confidence of the citizens in the system.

Improved confidence will undoubtedly increase citizen participation, as open data actively empowers citizens by providing them with accurate and timely information about government policies, services, and performance. Having such information encourages citizens to make informed decisions, engage in public debates, and actively participate in the governance processes. Citizens can use open data to contribute to policy-making, or collaborate on community development initiatives.

The importance and benefits of decentralization to the people of Africa is not limited to the relationship with the government only. Blockchain technology has contributed immensely to Africa’s financial inclusion. For decades making payment for goods and services from Africa to the rest of the world has been a problem. Sending money from Africa via the banks and traditional financial systems is one of the most difficult things to do, and it is still restricted to import/export and in rare cases payment of medical bills and school fees. With decentralization and the blockchain, this is largely a thing of the past. The major bottlenecks of cross border money transfer created by the gatekeepers of the system, the banks, is easily bypassed with the use of cryptocurrency. The aforementioned EndSARS protests were funded by both Nigerians who live in Nigeria as well as Nigerians living in diaspora.  

Asides from these benefits that decentralized systems offer another innovative way decentralization has been of tremendous help to Africans is through decentralized philanthropy. Decentralized philanthropy or DePhi is a growing aspect of progressive decentralization. A model  for this type of philanthropy was recently created by Richie Laburn, the cofounder of Index Africa. The approach adopted involves  staking on a blockchain and using the rewards for philanthropic enterprise. By partnering with a non-profit organization in South Africa, the Good Work Foundation, which has a simple mission: to provide access to world-class education to young learners in rural South Africa. Using the rewards from staking, they provide a year of tuition to numerous children through the Good Work Foundation’s Open Learning Academy (OLA)

All of this does not posit that decentralization is the silver bullet that will cure all that ails Africa, and does not pretend that a myriad of problems that will arise from the wholesale adoption of blockchain technology in Africa does not exist. 

For one, the widespread illiteracy on the continent has been a huge barrier to a large-scale adoption of technology generally. Even though the use of smartphones in Africa has a high teledensity penetration, computer literacy is still extremely poor, which will hinder the adoption of blockchain technology and decentralization in general. This would become a bigger problem with migrating to the blockchain, which requires the management of cryptographic keys and wallet addresses to cite a few issues. All in all, user experience of the blockchain and decentralized applications has to improve tremendously before decentralization can be adopted on a larger scale in Africa

Infrastructure is another area where the adoption of decentralization in Africa will have an issue. The continent is still lagging behind the rest of the world in the area of constant electricity, with most nations in the sub-saharan region lacking this most basic utility that is a stable power supply. This lack of electricity will remain a huge stumbling block for the deployment of a decentralized network locally as blockchain technology requires significant computational power and energy consumption.

Some may even highlight other problems which beset the adoption of blockchain technology in other countries, not just in Africa. As an emerging technology, blockchain and decentralization has a number of issues which are hampering its adoption in various countries around the world. Problems of regulation of the different blockchains has been an issue for numerous governments all over the world, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission recently branding a number of blockchains as securities trading firms and  in essence making their operations answerable to the laws governing the trading of securities in the US.

Then there is the question of privacy. The primary purpose of  blockchain technology is to provide transparency and immutability. Public blockchains store transaction details that are visible to all participants, potentially compromising sensitive information. Although there are privacy-focused blockchain solutions, striking a balance between privacy and transparency remains a challenge.

As well as all of the aforementioned, there is always the threat of malicious exploitation, with various blockchains being victims of security breach,exploitation of weak code and sybil attack, as there will always be malicious players with intentions that leave a lot to be desired. On a continent like Africa currently faced with a number of security issues, this would really be adding more to the existing financial and data security issues the continent is facing

.In all sincerity the problems arising from blockchain technology and decentralization are not enough for it to be discarded as a panacea to the issues it can help Africans overcome. The next generation of Africans can sincerely look to decentralization and a hope for a future much better than that which they currently experience. A future with inclusion in governance and a democratized access to information, which should drive education and literacy on the continent

Transparency and accountability of public officials, to protect the state treasuries from looting and ensure resources are transparently and adequately allocated, eliminating unnecessary waste. Social innovation that is driven by decentralization to find alternative local solutions to local problems, fostering a whole new generation of entrepreneurship, driving economic growth and social development at the same time. 

Greater financial inclusion which is already being enjoyed by African migrants worldwide, with decentralization making remittance of money back home to Africa easy, and eliminating exorbitant charges from traditional channels.