As one of its action plans for accelerating blockchain adoption on the African continent, Jelurida Africa has launched a blockchain-backed certificate-issuing platform called MyDigiCert. The platform allows issuers to store certificates on the blockchain, and equally give requisite access to intended recipients of the certificate(s).

MyDigiCert equally provides an option for certificates to be verified on the blockchain through the use of a unique hash which would be allotted to each certificate that is duly issued by the platform. According to the Managing Director of Jelurida Africa, Adedayo Adedajo, MyDigiCert was primarily created in a bid to curb the widespread certificate fraud in African institutions and universities. With blockchain-backed certificates, the risk of forging would be little to none, as one of the most prominent features of blockchain technology is its immutability.

To upload or create blockchain-backed certificates through the platform, users can sign up with telephone numbers across several African countries, and subsequently verify issued certificates from anywhere in the world. Asides creating certificates, recipients of such certificates may equally apply to receive them, provided that such recipients possess the unique hash code which is allotted to each certificate at the point of issuance.

Due to the fact that MyDigiCert operates an immutable system for creating, issuing, receiving an verifying certificates, issues such as certificate loss, certificate fraud or unnecessary delays in certificate issuance which often embattle the African educational system can be adequately curbed. Similarly, the product’s payment plans are specially tailored according to individual needs. As such, every person would be able to find a reasonably affordable payment plan to suit his or her needs. Payments can be made through a debit card or bank transfer, all powered by Paystack. The product is offered as a subscription-based SaaS platform, and there are equally provisions for institutions that may be seeking to fully run to product through their own servers.

An in-house testing was conducted on MyDigiCert on the 6th of May, 2021. The official date for the launch of the product has been slated for June 13, 2021. In commemoration of the official launch, a blockchain workshop will be conducted for African universities.

MyDigiCert is one of the several products which Jelurida Africa is set to launch this year. In addition to its pipeline of prospective blockchain products, the company is set to launch the first Europe-Africa blockchain bootcamp for European and African developers and policy makers across both continents. For partnerships on any of Jelurida’s products or the upcoming blockchain program, you may send a mail to info@jelafrica.com. 

Ardor’s innovation in blockchain is not one that can go unnoticed. Its child chain platform allows anyone from individuals, startups and large corporations to easily build their own Blockchain service. This blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) framework, that incorporates several blockchain uses asides crypto, now has a new and improved third version that promises to serve developers better.

What is Ardor?

Launched in 2018, Ardor is an open source multi-chain platform that seeks to make blockchain services available to anyone. Ardor brings a unique level of scalability and security to blockchain. 

Like Ethereum, Ardor works on smart contracts. Uniquely, it offers blockchain solutions that can be easily deployed at very low-cost, high level scalability and security. 

Ardor’s child chains allow for the trading of any other asset, and also Decentralize voting and governance systems.

Phased transactions is also one feature present on the Ardor platform. Phased transactions are transactions that allow for the creation of terms and conditions before the transaction takes place.

According to the pioneers behind NXT, the platform eliminates the barriers to using blockchain solutions

The Ardor design also meets a large number of market requests. 

A decentralized asset exchange.

Individuals are able to trade assets on any child chain. This means anyone can create and trade a child chain token with the unique Ardor child chain feature. Child chains can independently interact with one another under the Ardor parent chain.

Governance systems and decentralized voting.

The blockchain network is one that offers virtually all block chain services. All child chains on Ardor have a secure and anonymous voting feature. 

Phased transactions

Prior to a transaction, the network will enable users to set conditions for the transaction. Such conditions include; minimum number of votes and transaction time. 

Smart contracts is a key feature of the Ardor platform. The feature comes with a level of ease that requires little level of expertise. This is particularly good for individual users who lack such expertise.

The feature will require users to submit the parameters for the contract and ID the transaction type. The smart contract feature on Ardor, unlike most networks, is completely decentralized, making it arguably the most secure smart contract platform. 

Blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS)

Blockchain-as-a-service became popular in fintech after the launch of Ethereum in July 2015. Over the years, blockchain has been proving that there’s more to it than crypto, several developers and innovators are making it clear that it can bring a lot of ease, security and efficiency to several systems of the world. 

Additionally, it can cut a lot of cost associated with running a lot of systems. A lot of companies are already using blockchain to create more efficient systems such as governance and logistics. 

Initiatives such as Ardor are now making the technology accessible to anyone, making it easy to make easy to customize blockchain services that could lead to blockchain innovations.

Updates to Ardor 3.0

Pruning of child chain transactions is one of the major updates on the Ardor network. This means that a transaction that will affect the calculation of proof of work consensus algorithm, does not need to find a chain with the best cumulative difficulty.

According to the document summarizing the changes in Ardor 3.0, developers who built on version 2 will easily transition to the new version. 

Interestingly, a tweet by NXTER magazine revealed that a mobile phone could easily run an Ardor blockchain, smart contracts, Dapps (DeFi applications) with 0 cost fees. 

No cost to running DeFi applications could be a major competitor for the ethereum blockchain that requires exorbitant fees to run DeFi protocols. 

 However, Co-founder of Jelurida, Lior Yaffe, has said that “While #Ethereum based #NFT projects are faced with high transaction fees, #Ardor and #Ignis based singleton assets are shaping up to be a viable option providing low fees, simple APIs and a decentralized asset exchange out of the box.”

With a use case event coming up on the 25th of February, Ardor could be opening up a new alternative in the world of Decentralized Finance.

It was a shocker to all when the CBN released the circular to all banks and financial institutions to stop facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges, and to close all bank accounts tied to these actions. Nigeria represents the 3rd largest cryptocurrency trading country on a global scale, with a lot of blockchain projects either being pushed out or about to be pushed. The circular has not only attracted a lot of criticisms from business folks and investors both locally and international, but it has also gathered a momentum stagnation for a lot of plans in development, as most fintech payment service providers halted all supports for crypto payment processing. 

Prior to this sudden release of the circular, there have been a number of dialogues with the likes of Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation and even the Central Bank of Nigeria, on creating innovative ways to regulate cryptocurrency. This seemed to be yielding results, as cryptocurrencies were broadly classed as “securities” along the journey.  

Cryptocurrency has, by far, become a means of sustaining the economy of the country, providing an edge against inflation on the local currency for investors, and creating a means of livelihood for a lot of others in a country with high rate of unemployment. This new action of the CBN will, in so many ways, deteriorate the economy of the nation which is currently unstable.

Looking closely into the situation, what they were able to achieve, giving the absolute power in their possession, is to mandate financial institutions to avoid processing any cryptocurrency-related transactions. Ever since, a lot of individuals have kickstarted the process of creating alternatives. Imagine this; a nation with over 200 million population, a higher percentage of which are youths involved in cryptocurrency, now gradually removing themselves from depending on the banking sector. Blockchain technology has the potential to provide banking services for the unbanked settlements. Gradually, we approach a future where the banks become less relevant and are replaced by blockchain innovations such as DeFi solutions. Alas, the required push to get to a destination originally planned by Satoshi Nakamoto was influenced for Nigerians by the CBN.

Jelurida Africa recently expanded its borders of operation into other African countries, asides Nigeria. What a coincidence! Offering blockchain services to Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania, with more expansion plans for regions more open to highly scalable and decentralized innovations. Nigeria is well endowed with experienced techpreneurs, versatile blockchain developers and of course, funding opportunities from private sectors and wealthy individuals. The only major challenge ever faced in the country, as regards innovative development, has now emanated from the supposed enablers of innovations— the government. We can only hope that this is a nightmare we will soon wake up from. Must we learn the hard way from the pandemic, only to move backward when it is the perfect time to embrace innovation?