The Bitcoin landscape in Africa is about to experience a major transformation with the arrival of Civilization Kit (Civ Kit). Since the shutdown of the Paxful platform, thousands of users have been unable to exchange peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies. Civ Kit presents itself as the solution for P2P exchanges on the African continent and in the rest of the world. But what about its offers and prospects? bitcoinlinux caught up with Nicholas Gregory, one of the project’s co-founders, to find out more.
Civ Kit: An alternative to Bitcoin P2P payment marketplaces for Africa
On April 8, the Paxful platform announced the closure of its services for an indefinite period. The news fell like a cleaver, Ray Youssef, the CEO, pointing to a tense context. Paxful was, according to Ray, faced with “internal conflicts” as well as to “legal issues” in the USA.
This situation has moreover pushed Ray Youssef to resign as CEOas he announced on April 18 on Twitter.
This was done under the very worst of conditions with a cofounder suing me and the company, refusing to pay salaries, chasing away all top talent with a terror lawsuit and trying to get me in contempt of court. 4 ppl did the job of 100 to make this happen. to the @paxful team
— Ray Youssef (@raycivkit) April 18, 2023
Moreover, shortly before, LocalBitcoins had also packed up. Both platforms were go-tos for buying and trading cryptocurrency in Africa.
However, in a thread to announce the closure, Ray Youssef was already talking about his future projects. Waiting for “reveal all”he offered non-US Paxful users to join a new P2P trading platform named Noones.
In parallel, April 14, the White Book by Civ Kit is publishedpresenting an ambitious vision for “ a decentralized and open source P2P marketplace “.
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An overview of P2P exchanges in Africa
P2P cryptocurrency exchanges are increasingly popular in Africa. Due to the lack of financial infrastructure on the continent, large centralized exchanges are struggling to establish themselves there.
In addition, KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures are often complex for many mainland residents who have never had, in many cases, even a simple identity card.
This is why many Africans are turning to peer-to-peer solutions. Yet, this method of trading can carry several risks, such as fraud or scam.
With this in mind, platforms such as Paxful and LocalBitcoins have quickly understood the needs of African users by quickly adapting to the realities on the ground. They have eased KYC requirements in addition to introducing local payment methods such as mobile money payment.
This is why the P2P exchanges have grown exponentially in Africa, becoming the primary source of supply for digital assets. According a study by Chainalysisthe volume of cryptocurrency transactions reached $105 billion in Africa between July 2020 and June 2021.
Unfortunately, the abrupt shutdown of major P2P platforms has created a void in the African crypto market.
However, the arrival of new exchange platforms such as Civ Kit promises to disrupt the African and global P2P market in the months and years to come. We talked with Nicholas Gregoryone of the project’s co-founders, to learn more.
A censorship-resistant P2P protocol
Civilization Kit is a censorship-resistant P2P platform built on Nostr, the social networking protocol backed by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. It offers an alternative to African Bitcoin users who no longer have reliable options since the closure of Paxful and LocalBitcoins.
Civ Kit’s open source system allows users to trade freely and unhindered. As Ray Youssef points out, Civ Kit embodies all that is needed for a revival of civilization “. He ends what he calls ” economic apartheid “.
Nicholas Gregory told us that the project is still under development and should be launched in less than 3 months. For now, the team is focused on developing the first version of the code. Once this step is completed, the platform should then be submitted to the community for their comments and suggestions.
” Antoine and I are currently working intensively on developing the code for the first version of our project. Given that we’re aiming to do the launch in three months, so I’m guessing we’ve probably got two months left now. »
The full development of the project is expected to take about a year and a half. Meanwhile, the Civ Kit team remains open to suggestions for improving the protocol. By the way, some developers are already implementing other solutions on Nostr.
“Other people are also building marketplaces on Nostr, and we want to consider their ideas. We want to be as flexible as possible to meet user needs. We have received suggestions for improvements from the community, which we are studying carefully. »
Civ Kit or Civilization Kit is a project carried by three musketeers of the crypto ecosystem: Ray Youssef, Antoine Riard and Nicholas Gregory. They embarked on this adventure with a clear vision: to create an open source platform for peer-to-peer marketswhich would allow the community to exchange goods and services without going through a central entity.
The idea for Civ Kit reportedly came from Ray Youssef, who, according to his colleague Nicholas, always wanted to be involved in a Bitcoin-based decentralized market project.
The Civ Kit team has great expertise to design an innovative protocol. Ray Youssef, former CEO and co-founder of Paxful, has a wealth of experience in peer-to-peer marketplaces. Antoine Riard, meanwhile, is a seasoned Bitcoin Core developer. Finally, Nicolas Gregory is an experienced software engineer who has participated in the development of projects such as MainStay and Statechains.
Nicholas Gregory, one of the co-founders of the project, explained to us the origin of Civilization Kit.
” Initially, the idea of Civ Kit was proposed by Ray Youssef. I have known Ray for about 8 years through Paxful and he has always made it clear to me that he wants to be involved in a decentralized version. On my side, I developed decentralized approaches for Bitcoin and I was involved in something called BIP 175. Afterwards, I met Antoine, who is very involved in the Lightning Network. After spending time with Ray and talking with Antoine, we decided to embark on the project. We’ve had several calls over the past few months and we’ve agreed to work on Civ Kit together. »
The various accumulated experiences have led to the creation ofa technological toolbox which can be adapted to various types of trade. Thus, Civ Kit offers a flexible and customizable solution to meet the specific needs of each company.
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How Civ Kit works
Civ Kit is an open source protocol offering an alternative to centralized marketplaces like Amazon or Alibaba. It allows two parties to exchange goods, services and currencies anonymously and in a decentralized way, without the need for the intervention of a trusted third party.
For this, the platform uses two main tools: Nostra decentralized chat that allows ads to be posted on virtual bulletin boards, and Lightning Networka layer 2 of Bitcoin.
The operation of Civ Kit is simple. Let’s take an example, John posts a commercial ad to offer bitcoin exchange services on Nostr, a decentralized social media protocol. It sets certain conditions that the buyer must meet, such as proof of payment.
All John’s subscribers can see the ad. If Bob is interested, he must fulfill the conditions and provide proof of payment. Once they agree, John must lock the bitcoins he intends to sell into an escrow contract to complete the exchange.
As Civ Kit does not use intermediaries such as eBay or Amazon, the platform uses smart contracts (Bitcoin Scripts) to manage disputes. THE conditional payments with Lightning Network based on oracles thus prevent scams and scams.
So the two parties, John and Bob, can communicate safely, knowing that the protocol cannot be corrupted.
What is the Lightning Network?
Maintain a positive reputation on Civ Kit
Civ Kit is an anonymous platform. Each participant in the network is identified by a public key of the Nostr protocol.. Additionally, to reinforce the anonymity aspect, Civ Kit uses THE scrambling to Onion of the Lightning Network. Thus, users can perform transactions discreetly, without having to reveal their identity.
This privacy is an important feature of Civ Kit, but it can also cause issues, such as spamming of commercial advertisements to gain visibility. Civ Kit has taken steps to address this, as Nicholas Gregory explains:
« Civil Kit uses newer concepts than those currently presented in the media. (…). Perhaps what makes our solution different is that we use the Lightning Network as a reputation system, as well as to hide and publish transactions. (…). We also work to protect the privacy of people who post jobs using the Lightning Onion. »
Civ Kit: The open source toolkit for the peer-to-peer commerce of the future?
Civ Kit leveraged previous research conducted by Antoine Riard on the channel jamming to develop a toolkit aimed at solving problems related to peer-to-peer trade.
This solution is still in its early stages and the development team needs the help of the community to provide support in terms of liquidity, orders and moderation.
Civ Kit being open source, anyone can use it as is also the case for Bitcoin or Linux. Nevertheless, the protocol will still have to overcome many challenges before reaching maturity. The team said they are aware of these challenges and are looking for solutions to address them.
Despite everything, the adventure has only just begun for Civ Kit. Who knows, maybe this innovative solution featuring cryptocurrencies will one day be able to compete with centralized markets such as Amazon?
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