When African digital transformation narratives meet truth-challenged prosperity

A CRYPTO entrepreneur posting as @ goodalexander on X recently offered some disconcerting observations about powerful people and truth-telling.

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His cynical take - that Warren Buffett's folksy investment wisdom and Peter Thiel’s contrarian innovation insights might be theatrical misdirection - feels particularly relevant when applied to how we discuss Africa's digital transformation.

These musings come alongside @ goodalexander's promotion of Post Fiat, a blockchain project that reimagi-nes XRP's consensus mechanism with Al-driven validator selection. Whether his X handle reflects genuine identity or careful branding around "good" intentions, his scepticism about curated reality deserves journalistic scrutiny.

Sidebar: XRP is a cryptocurrency created in 2012 by developers David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. Unlike Bitcoin, all 100 billion XRP tokens were created upfront, with most going to Ripple Labs—the company that helped develop it. XRP runs on its own blockchain designed for fast, cheap international payments, though Ripple doesn't actually own the network.

Empire fragments

There's something almost poetic about someone called Alexander critiquing the machinery of influence. The original Alexander (the Great) succeeded miserably at conquering the world, dying young after swiftly taking over vast territories that immediately fragmented. Perhaps our modern Alexander's insights about fabricated methodologies and post-truth economics carry similar warnings about the sustainability of narratives built on strategic misdirection.

This scepticism is a handy tool for weighing how we discuss Africa's digital transformation.

tal transformation. We celebrate mobile money penetration statistics while sidestepping questions about whose systems actually power this "leapfrogging.’ We herald blockchain fixes for financial inclusion while rarely examining whether these primarily extract value to foreign tech conglomerates.

Payment rails