More local entrepreneurs will find use cases for Bitcoin to solve economic problems in Zimbabwe says Sinclair Skinner, CEO of Zimbabwe-based startup BitMari.

BitMari is a pan-African Bitcoin wallet which allows users to send and receive money in a transfer process charged as Bitcoin and initiated via the company's mobile app or website.

With an estimated three million Zimbabweans living outside the country and remittance of up to US$1 billion in the eleven months of 2015, according to figures from the finance ministry, there is a clear opportunity for startups to tap into the sector.

Skinner said: "High mobile penetration, highest literacy in Africa, multicurrency regime and cash crisis make Zimbabweans very open to Bitcoin. Africans are open to using Bitcoin. The problem is that there needs to be more ways to use Bitcoin, which is a global issue. If Europeans bought commodities using Bitcoin, Africans would be more willing to try it."

Another challenge facing these startups is general scepticism around digital currencies.

Aside from an environment in which traditional remittance services are entrenched, the digital currency has no form of government control and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has warned citizens of the risks associated with using it.

But Skinner doesn't believe African countries always have to wait for their economies to worsen before they realise the potential within the digital currency.

"Keeping it real, most African economies are still controlled by neocolonialism," he says. "The West has more to say about African financial markets than the finance ministers of these African countries. World Bank, IMF along with large multinationals don't fund serious research and development in Africa. So innovations like Bitcoin aren't a priority to these powerful African influencers. It's gonna take the local indigenous business persons and farmers to see the value of Bitcoin and overthrow the legacy of the oppressive colonial financial system in Africa."

According to Skinner the answer to greater awareness lies in educating African developers, funding more indigenous African Bitcoin startups and inviting more African developers and entrepreneurs to speak at events. "...instead of Europeans who study Africans speaking."

In the last quarter of the year BitMari plans to launch a Bitcoin-based accelerator project aimed at the agricultural sector to improve awareness around the practical value of the digital currency.