Despite a vibrant and young population—with 60% of Africans under the age of 25—the continent’s share of investments into Web3 startups has fallen from $474 million in 2022 to $122.5 million in 2024. To help reverse this trend, some industry players, including the Hashgraph Association (THA), are working to build a blockchain infrastructure that will not only boost crypto businesses but foster decentralized finance (DeFi) and fintech projects.

According to Kamal Youssefi, co-founder and executive chairman of the Hashgraph Association, the hackathon which the Swiss-based organization launched in May is one of the ways it hopes to bolster Africa’s crypto ecosystem. As previously reported, the hackathon, a joint initiative with the Exponential Science Foundation, seeks to empower more than 10,000 developers, students, and entrepreneurs from 15 African countries.

In his written answers, Youssefi told Bitcoin.com News that his non-profit organization hopes to fund 50 or more innovative projects from the participants. THA is also committed to helping the projects on their way to a successful market launch, he added.

“The hackathon will not be a one-off event, but will be expanded every year. It will form a permanent platform for the development of the Web3 ecosystem in the 22 countries we are supporting this year and will even involve more countries and continents in the coming years,” Youssefi said.

At the hackathon launch, THA announced the winning project of the Hedera Africa Hackathon 2025 would receive a $1 million prize, while all participants would get access to training resources from Hedera Academy. The successful teams will be provided with “customized venture building and tailored entrepreneurship programs” that fuse practical business acumen with hands-on technical support for the Web3 space.

Youssefi also disclosed that the initial committed prize pool has exceeded $1 million, and THA expects this amount to increase even further in the coming weeks. Furthermore, the non-profit organization is also working with several African governments and ministries responsible for digital transformation and administrative reform.

“We support them in implementing their strategy, particularly in the areas of Web3 education and professional trainings, as well as in setting up technical infrastructure and developing digital solutions. Our footprints include Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, and Kenya,” Youssefi said.

While THA’s primary mission is to promote the adoption of the Hedera Hashgraph distributed ledger technology, Youssefi said projects building on other protocols will not be discriminated against. To prove this, he said the Hedera Governing Council already meets regularly to identify synergies and look for potential strategic collaboration or joint project engagement.

“We also believe in interoperability and cross-chain solutions, and that in the future there will be different blockchain and DLT platforms that will need to interact seamlessly and be interoperable. We are therefore open to any kind of collaboration in this area,” Youssefi stated.

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