Tapswap exchange exists in Kenya in beta for a little over one year now. The Tapswap platform enables users to buy/sell bitcoin in Kenya shillings using Mpesa. The KYC process is pretty standard, you will need national ID verification to signup and start buying and selling. The platform currently only supports bitcoin and USDT. Since the exchange is in beta it says bank deposits and withdrawals as well as on-chain withdrawals are coming soon. In June, it announced a new milestone of reaching over 30,000 users.
Tokenomics
Taps token has a total supply of 100,000,000 tokens.
54% of the tokens are allocated to the- ecosystem treasury = these are the funds that will be distributed via rewards, marketing
The team has designed a carefully structured vesting schedule that goes up to 48 months. This would prevent immediate token dilution especially for large holders.
Note: percentages rounded off and maybe subject to change
The deflationary pressure on token will also be driven by transfers, swaps and on-ramps. The whitepaper also shows they will undertake token burn and buyback once company achieves certain profitability metrics. This would potentially increase scarcity and reduce inflation which could push the value of #TAPS higher.
The roadmap outlines that the token sale will take place in late Q3/early Q4 thereby followed by token generation event.
To ascertain #TAPS future potential we also have to look at features and rollout. It lists the feature rollout in the following sequence:
- Spot trading
- Staking
- Launchpad
- Payments
- Institutional clients
Tapswap revenue model will be mainly from exchange fees from trading on the platform. Furthermore, the exchange says it will charge deposit fees on mobile money deposits, airtime sales and withdrawal fees on crypto and bank transfers. Additional fees will come from listing of tokens on the exchange with Africa focused projects receiving a 50% discount.
Launching in Nigeria is also a strategic importance. Being a large population, there is potential of reaching over a million users after the exchange is fully launched in Nigeria.
Part of the marketing strategy includes on ground activations, online education courses,
Partnerships
Tapswap has undertaken some partnerships to help prepare for token sale and ready the platform for scale. One of the partnerships is with Sumsub is a leading KYC identity verification platform. Another is Hashlock a leading smart contact audit firm. Labrys is their smart contact development partner.
Learn & earn
Tapswap key focus has been on educating the public on blockchain technology. This seems to be a major pillar to their growth efforts. Given the crypto space is prone to scams and lack of awareness, Tapswap has developed a comprehensive curriculum to educate users on key aspects of Tapswap and crypto ecosystem as a whole. They have a Learn & Earn section on the website where a user can click on various topics learn about it and then answer a few questions about what they have learnt. There are various topics ranging from Tapswap exchange, bitcoin fundamentals, crypto concepts, foundational concepts, trading basics among others. Once you complete the quizzes you are ranked in a leaderboard among other learners.
Tapswap regularly conducts weekly quizzes on their telegram community.
Tapswap is leveraging the learning centers to enable users earn their native TAPS token when it launches later in Q4 this year.
There is also an ongoing campaign where interested users can earn rewards by completing various quests. It’s a good way to accumulate $TAPS token before launch. https://zealy.io/cw/tapswapexchange/invite/NaR0MWhc09qF-aEavvulm
Future
Currently, the key focus is on the token sale later this year to see how the market receives it. The company is also planning to expand to other countries in Africa starting with Nigeria. The crypto space in Africa has grown in the last few years but we have little growth in new exchanges. The exchange space has largely been dominated by global exchanges such as Binance, Bitget among others. The legal landscape guiding the way exchanges operate in Africa has been a grey area. On one hand, countries like Nigeria have had crackdown on crypto exchanges. Some like South Africa seem to be making progress in regulatory framework that will guide how exchanges operate. In Kenya, last few years have seen mixed signals from regulatory authorities about crypto exchanges. On one hand, Kenya Revenue authority (KRA) wants to tax crypto trading while central bank and capital market authority maintains an unclear stance. Nonetheless, the developments in the space such as ones we are seeing from Tapswap continue to pick steam.
