Go to Africa, go to places where blockchain is needed I worked as a foreign trade order coordinator for six months before entering the industry and was deeply affected. As the name suggests, a merchandiser is someone who tracks orders. What order? a pile! The scary thing is that in the 21st century, paper materials are still needed. To put it this way, all requirements from customs, banks, chambers of commerce, third-party organizations, etc. must be printed, signed, stamped, and sent by express delivery. The process is slow and cumbersome, especially in Africa. Let's sneak in! ⬇️ Don't be surprised, this is today's global trade system, it's quite magical. On the one hand, it has been highly globalized and has been running smoothly for many years. On the other hand, it is extremely primitive, fragmented, and isolated. It is hard to imagine that the global trade of 33 trillion yuan per year is still running on a system established decades ago. To be more specific, the global trade ecosystem composed of paper documents, manual verification, and isolated systems appears somewhat outdated, especially in underdeveloped areas of modern financial technology such as Africa. It's also amazing that the popularization of innovative technology often occurs in relatively underdeveloped areas, while developed regions may miss opportunities. For example, the development of credit cards in Europe and America has caused them to miss out on mobile payments, and the development of fuel has caused them to miss out on new energy... On the other hand, in Africa and other regions, the popularization of blockchain financial technology is extremely rapid. As the saying goes, I have nothing, so I have everything. Which region will lead the next wave of blockchain bull market? I guess many people wouldn't think it could be Africa. In fact, blockchain in Africa, especially in finance, trade, and payment related fintech, is experiencing explosive growth. In this distant and mysterious land, there is a name that is unfamiliar to the mainstream world, and it is quietly planning the future map of world trade based in Africa. IOTA。 / Africa is launching the world's first continent wide, open, and decentralized digital trade public infrastructure, which is built on top of IOTA @ iota. I searched for more accurate information, and the project name is ADAPT：the AfCFTA Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade Initiative， The African Continental Free Trade Area Digital Access and Public Infrastructure Trade Initiative. IOTA is collaborating with the World Economic Forum and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change on this project, with the goal of connecting identity, data, and assets through digital public infrastructure to promote trustworthy, efficient, and inclusive trade across Africa. I extracted keywords: identity, data, and assets, which are exactly the innovative solutions provided by IOTA as the underlying blockchain. For example, IOTA should be building a "digital high-speed railway" on the African continent, with speed, efficiency, collaboration, and unity that will break through many drawbacks in traditional trade processes, including: Digitization of Documents: Transforming paper documents into encrypted, verifiable, and instantly shareable digital assets that are tamper proof and traceable Identity Interoperability: Creating globally recognized and verifiable digital identities for businesses and institutions, breaking down the barriers of national databases Process automation: Incorporate compliance checks and other rules into code to achieve automatic verification, greatly improving efficiency and reducing human errors Asset tokenization: Transform freight, containers, and even individual goods into tokenized assets on the chain, easily track and have financial attributes Upon careful consideration, these are indeed the strengths of blockchain, but who can execute them on the ground, who can choose the appropriate soil to take root and sprout, and who can continue to invest in building, these factors divide the project into different forms. The combination of "IOTA+African Free Trade Zone+World Economic Forum+Tony Blair Institute" should be able to fight a tough battle. If it can really be achieved, IOTA will lead the implementation of the world's largest scale blockchain application practice, which is of great significance. / The ADAPT blueprint is a ten-year plan that estimates processing over $70 billion in trade annually, reducing customs clearance time from 14 days to 3 days, saving $23 billion in new revenue annually, and reducing overall costs from 6-9% to 3%. In fact, IOTA has completed pilot projects in countries and regions such as Rwanda and Kenya in Africa, with significant results. So when looking at problems, we need to look at the tricks, not just the surface. IOTA is not playing meme, nor is there any VC selling pressure, and even... the token has already been pledged 50%. The foundation has been deeply cultivating this layout for many years, so what it really needs to achieve is to use the IOTA backbone network to build a unified financial and trade digital hub for the African continent. Moreover, this is a leading application based on next-generation blockchain technology. Soon, we will see in Africa: Trust embedding protocol layer: When trust becomes the underlying attribute of the protocol, cross-border trade will become faster, cheaper, and more transparent Greatly enhanced liquidity: RWA will become collateral for immediate financing, revitalizing trillion level dormant capital Inclusive finance becomes possible: More small and medium-sized enterprises will easily access global markets with verifiable digital identities and data This is not just an exploration of technology, but more likely a transformation of production relations. Africa is utilizing blockchain technology such as IOTA to achieve a beautiful 'infrastructure leap', directly transitioning from a decentralized and inefficient system to the world's most advanced digital trade network, feeling like it has fast forwarded from primitive society to capitalist society. Don't believe it, maybe by then the European continent's order clerks will still use printers, fax machines, postal packages, stamps, and signatures for trade. Although the black guys don't speak the same language, they have IOTA, and they have already started one click trade on the chain. / Author: Anymose | A Soft Core Science Popularization Writer This article is for educational purposes only and does not constitute any investment advice. Always remember DYOR!