Cryptocurrency exchange set up by two students in a dorm room has transacted almost $ 2 billion

Yellow Card, a cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2019 by two students, has become the largest centralized exchange in Africa in just 5 years. To date, the platform has completed $ 1.75 billion worth of transactions. Chris Morris and Justin Poiroux launched Yellow Card while they were still at university. The first office of the crypto exchange was their dorm room.

Yellow Card offers users to buy cryptocurrency for fiat currency, which can then be sent through cross-border payments. Unlike centralized exchanges, where customers hold their tokens for a long period of time in the hope that they will increase in value, Yellow Card customers hold their assets on the platform for just a few minutes. «It literally goes like this: I invest a million francs in Cameroon, buy USDT or BTC, and then send it,» explains the company’s co-founder Chris Morris.

The exchange allows users to send money to 16 African countries. The platform has also simplified the process of converting cryptocurrencies into the state currency of the mainland countries. Yellow Card has now grown into the largest centralized cryptocurrency exchange in Africa. With about 220 employees, the exchange currently boasts 1.4 million users across the continent.

According to Maurice, on a good day, the platform typically conducts transactions worth about $ 5 million. On bad days, this figure is closer to $ 1 million.

The Yellow Card crypto exchange itself is currently valued at $ 200 million. The company has also raised $ 57 million from investors, including Jack Dorsey's Block. However, Maurice aims to turn Yellow Card into a billion-dollar company by expanding the service to the whole of Africa. «I realized very early on that there are a lot of opportunities in all these countries and that we should be the first to be there,» the crypto exchange co-founder said.

Cryptocurrency experts suggest that it is the problems with the African banking system that have led to the success of the crypto exchange on the continent. Earlier, we told you that the African country of Nigeria has become the country with the highest interest in cryptocurrencies in the world. Many Nigerian citizens prefer to keep their savings in tokens rather than fiat currency, due to the constant devaluation of the Nigerian naira.