KuBitX, a new cryptocurrency exchange, is scheduled to launch in September 2018 and its founders believe their in-depth knowledge of Africa market requirements will give them an edge over international competitors.

Eric Annan, CEO of KuBitX, said the go-to-market strategy to differentiate the offering from global exchanges operating in Africa is based heavily on awareness – and that it is a 'wholly African' service that will have up to 15 coins on offer.

The exchange has established a Global Ambassadors Programme to engage directly with consumers and inform them of the opportunities and realities of joining the global cryptocurrency community.

"Most exchanges offer only online education on their websites that ends there. Also the medium of language on these exchanges is in English, so remote people across Africa might not get a chance to understand cryptocurrency in their own dialect. Data rates in Africa is currently one of the highest in the world, this already causes a limitation for a lot of people. We aim to curb this by providing grass root education and that has already started happening with seminars, conferences and meetups by global ambassadors in flagship countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana and South Africa. We currently already have about 28 global ambassadors across Africa."

Annan said KuBitX is conducting an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) ahead of its launch.

"We are currently doing internal acceptance test, and before the end of August we will be doing beta testing by engaging some of the people from our community to test the exchange. As a result of this, we cannot give exact dates but we are confident that by end of September our exchange will be up and running."

He added that the technical team at KuBitX have set themselves a goal of achieving 12 million transactions per second (TPS) on their platform.

KuBitX is in discussion with what it describes as "a leading payment technology firm" to offer customers the opportunity to buy cryptocurrency using fiat currency across Africa. The cryptocurrency exchange is also considering various value-added services including airtime top-ups, bill payments, fund transfers directly to bank accounts and mobile wallet services.

"There would be no need to use traditional forex options, as this type of partner on board would also solve current trader problems, which would see payments for goods and services settle instantly to places like China and Europe," said Annan.