Faced with liquidity crunch, a group of Zimbabweans will be holding a seminar on Bitcoin over the weekend to educate the public on the advantages of using the cryptocurrency.

Liquidmoney Biz, a South African-based bitcoin consultancy, confirmed its participation.

"We are in an evolution of money era, digital currencies are already here. The seminar being hosted in Zimbabwe is merely a drive of awareness of the digital currency era we are in. We are witnessing the next phase of money, of which already most governments are looking to create their own digital currencies," said Shireen Ramjoo, Founder of Liquid Crypto-Money.

Similar seminars are being held across Africa, including South Africa, which remains at the forefront of this trend says Ramjoo. "As Africans we actually need it more, as it is our people that are poor. If Europe and Asia are amassing these appreciating currencies, they will continue to create wealth, while we miss on this opportunity."

In Africa, Tunisia's government was the first to issue a national digital currency, the eDinar. In Senegal, the government is looking to roll out the eCFA, which, if successful, will be rolled out to all other francophone countries. The South African government is also looking to create its own digital currency, as per an announcement by the South African Reserve Bank in February 2017.

Bitcoin operates independently from any central authority, but is regulated in some countries including Switzerland and Japan.

"That means governments are also benefiting from them approving it as it is taxed," notes Ramjoo.

Zimbabwe continues to experience a shortage of cash despite its Reserve Bank introducing bond notes, issued with the same value as the US dollar, as a corrective measure.

Economist and former Economic Planning minister Tapiwa Mashakada says the problem in Zimbabwe is not about which form a currency takes. "It is about where the value is derived. A currency is a derivative of the economic base of the country including its forex reserve. It there is no sufficient production to increase the GDP and its monetary value, there is no basis for a currency. The fundamentals that collapsed the Zimbabwe dollar have not changed. Bitcoin is a financial engineering which does not apply in our case"