600% growth in a bear market? How did Obiex do it?
2022 was a strong year for the African cryptocurrency exchange, Obiex. From the numbers published by official sources, the company experienced a 200% growth in user base and a 600% growth in transaction volume in 2022 alone.
For context, the exchange wrapped up 2021 with 16,506 users and a transaction volume of $600 million. But by the close of 2022, they had grown their user base by over 30,000 and hit a transaction volume of $3.6 billion for just 2022 alone.
User Growth; 2021 Numbers Vs 2022 Numbers
Transaction Volume; 2021 Numbers Vs 2022 Numbers
Did they make cross-border payments happen or was it just mere words?
One of the significant milestones for Obiex was the launch of their virtual dollar card. The card allowed users to fund their cards with crypto and pay for services anywhere in the world.
According to the Chief Technology Officer, Chidozie Ogbo, “Over $2.7M in transactions were processed with the card feature before it was suspended in the third quarter. But the dollar card is coming back in the 1st quarter of 2023.”
Chief Technical Officer at Obiex
Is Crypto still all about buy and hodl, or has it evolved beyond that?
The company launched their utility feature, which lets you purchase airtime and data and pay your prepaid and postpaid electricity and cable bills with cryptocurrency from your wallet without converting it to Naira or other local currencies.
This allowed users to buy airtime or data from MTN, Glo, Airtel, 9Mobile, Smile and the rest of them. It also allowed them to pay for their Electricity bills with every Disco in Nigeria, from EKEDC down to EEDC.
GoTV, DSTV, and Star Times Cable Subscriptions were also included in the utility options.
Obiex made crypto become not just something you buy, store and forget but something that can be used in our daily lives.
Okay. Okay. All big numbers, but what about social impact?
In addition to these achievements, the company also collaborated with the ChessinSlums Africa Initiative.
The Chess in Slums Africa (CISA) is a nonprofit organisation aimed at using the noble chess game to help children in slum communities realise their full potential by integrating principles of the game with the management of daily challenges in life, enhancing abstract thinking, creativity, and innovation.
Obiex CEO, Ikechukwu Okeke, challenged the ChessinSlums convener Tunde Onakoya to a chess match, promising to donate $2,000 to the ChessinSlums humanitarian project if Tunde won.
The match took place on the 22nd of April, 2022, and although the match was more challenging than expected, Tunde emerged victorious. As promised, Obiex donated $2,000 to the foundation.
Photo Credit: RefinedNG.com
In the words of the Obiex CEO, Ikechukwu, “I’m not actually good at chess. I mean, I played a bit of it in secondary school, but I am not a pro. I noticed the tweet where Tunde said he was open to a challenge for donations to ChessinSlums. The chess game was simply for a bit of razzle-dazzle. We really just wanted to donate, and I guess we all just wanted to know how good Tunde is at chess too. I am competitive, so I took a couple of courses beforehand with some chess masters.
Chief Executive Officer at Obiex
He further said, “Youth and everything youthful is the future of Africa, and we must do everything in our power to empower the youth.”
All Good News. Any Bad News?
The last quarter of 2022 was significantly challenging for the cryptocurrency industry because FTX, a major cryptocurrency exchange and liquidity provider, filed for bankruptcy. For an ecosystem still in its early stages, a collapse of a major company like FTX was a blow to the crypto community.
However, Obiex was unaffected and continued providing trading services to all their customers with the assurance that all user funds are safely stored and matched 1:1.
What about the Humans of Obiex? Who are the people behind all these?
Although in that same quarter, the tech industry saw many layoffs due to a slowdown in business activity; Obiex, however, welcomed new additions to the team and balanced their workforce to a 50:50 ratio of men and women.
In summary, 2022 was a year of remarkable growth for Obiex. The company closed the year with nearly 50,000 users (all time) and a transaction volume of over $4.2 billion (all time).
What is the future looking like for Obiex?
With a dedicated team and customer base, the company is ready to make 2023 an even better year.
Obiex’s vision for 2023 is a lofty one.
In the words of the Chief Marketing Officer, Meziem Desire, “We have plans to launch operations across East Africa, Central Africa and the Southern part of Africa.”
Chief Marketing Officer at Obiex
Meziem Desire went on to add, “The goal is to touch the entire breadth of Sub-Saharan Africa. Establishing in other parts of Africa will significantly increase users’ fiat and crypto transaction options, which is the reason we embarked on this mission in the first place. We also have plans to deliver more excellent products that will add an extra layer of value to the cryptocurrency owned and held by Obiexers.”
You can read the full highlight of their 2022 Year in Review here.
