Africa holds about 30% of global mineral reserves and nearly 40% of the world’s gold. Yet extractive economic models rooted in colonial-era practices continue to funnel this wealth to a narrow elite and foreign investors, leaving the vast majority of Africans excluded from the riches beneath their feet.
Mamadou Toure, founder and chief executive of the Ubuntu Tribe company, is determined to fix this through blockchain, the technology behind Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. His company sets out to offer a new way to access fractional shares of gold through tradeable digital tokens.
Democratising access to gold
“Today with blockchain you can tokenise an asset, meaning issue a certificate of ownership of this asset. We have issued what we call $GIFT, which stands for gold international fungible token and is equivalent to one milligram of gold,” he tells African Business.
Toure explains that each $GIFT is backed one-to-one by physical gold. What changes hands is the digital certificate of ownership, transferred at prevailing market prices on the blockchain. “You can still have the gold [in vaults] in Zurich, Stuttgart, Copenhagen or Dubai – like we do – but issue a digital certificate of ownership on blockchain so that people who are in Africa can own a piece of that gold,” he says. Each token represents just one milligramme of gold, so savers can gain exposure for as little as 10 US cents.
Ubuntu Tribe has partnered with local fintechs and mobile money operators to ensure that users of its wallet in Africa can move between local currencies, mobile money and crypto.
$GIFT has recorded more than $100m in trading volume across exchanges since its launch in late 2023, Toure says. He reports serving over 30,000 customers, with more than 10,000 downloads of its digital wallet to date.
“We took two years to build a robust, globally competitive, compliant system,” he says, noting that the company is fully regulated in Europe and is in the process of seeking regulatory approval in Kenya and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
Gearing up for growth
Toure says: “in 2026 we are adding between $1bn and $1.2bn worth of gold into the system to match growing demand.” Much of this demand, he argues, stems from gold’s ability to act as a hedge against inflation when many African currencies – including the Nigerian naira, Ghanaian cedi and Egyptian pound – have depreciated significantly. And “since 2000, gold has gained more than 1,300% against the dollar. In just the past five years, it has surged nearly 800% against the naira, eroding purchasing power of savers. Gold helps correct this unfairness – where you can work as hard as possible, but if you’re in Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Douala or Johannesburg, the fruits of your labour vanish because the currency you saved in has significantly depreciated,” Toure says.
Gold prices soared more than 70% in 2025, the metal’s strongest annual performance since 1979. In late December it (briefly) traded above $4,500 an ounce – up from $2,685 at the close of 2024. This rally has been driven by factors ranging from central banks’ purchases to investor flight to safe-haven assets.
No guarantees
Analysts remain broadly bullish on gold’s outlook, with JP Morgan Global Research projecting prices around $5,400 an ounce by the end of 2027. Yet gold, like any asset, is bound by a fundamental rule of financial markets: past performance is not indicative of future results. There is no guarantee that gold prices will continue to rise.
But do holders of $GIFT tokens really understand these risks – and, more importantly, do they have the skills to construct portfolios that can effectively weather inevitable market corrections?
Toure says the company has embedded several tools into its wallet to help address this. The platform offers exposure to other digital assets, including Bitcoin and a range of cryptocurrencies, enabling users to diversify their holdings and reduce concentration risks.
The company also provides users with educational resources. “We have put a strong emphasis on the Ubuntu Academy, which helps non-crypto natives and those without financial literacy to effectively onboard and grow,” Toure explains. He points to the company’s investment in an AI-powered tool designed to provide bite-sized, conversational guidance on gold, savings, risk and tokenisation – delivered in plain language, tailored to the user’s context and available around the clock.
“Our game is not just to make people rich for the sake of being rich. It is to create a generation of well-informed and well-prepared citizens who can navigate the risks and opportunities of investment,” Toure says.
Optimistic outlook
Toure is confident that $GIFT’s adoption will extend beyond retail users to small businesses, corporates and institutions. He argues that more companies are looking to deploy tokenised gold to hedge against currency depreciation, strengthen purchasing power and enhance financial performance through exposure to diverse asset classes.
Institutional investors, he says, “are very interested, especially because our gold is regulated, so they’re not taking any regulatory risk by buying our token. And it’s audited, which gives them comfort that there is real gold backing it,” Toure says.
The company in December announced a partnership with Global Settlement Network (GSN), a fintech firm developing blockchain infrastructure, to slash Africa–EU transfer times from weeks to seconds and bring more than $5bn worth of gold on-chain. The initiative aims to use tokenised gold as the settlement asset, sidestepping the costly reliance on dollar-based correspondent banking. According to the two companies, the roadmap begins with a 12‑month pilot focused on gold traceability and a cross-border foreign exchange (FX) corridor. This will be followed by programmable gold tokens, stablecoin FX pools and, he says, integrations with government and central bank systems by 2028.
Stepping out of a comfort zone
Before becoming a full-time entrepreneur, Toure spent two decades in senior finance roles, including stints at KPMG, BNP Paribas Investment Banking and the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private lending arm. He later joined General Electric as managing director for investments and project finance in sub-Saharan Africa. Asked why he traded a stable career for the uncertainties of entrepreneurship, the Cameroonian is candid: “Outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens.
“I believed the financial system had reached its limits and someone had to act if Africa was truly to be given a chance. I’ve always had this thing where, when I see something that isn’t working, I feel compelled to fix it,” he says. “The way the financial system is structured today, I can’t really say it works to the advantage of the continent. What I saw in blockchain was the possibility of something different.”
Toure believes that tokenising other natural resources could help Africa move beyond GDP as the central measure of economic might. “There is a contrast between GDP, which is cash value, and wealth, which is asset value. Africa is not poor, just illiquid.”
He adds that GDP is also a flawed measure because it measures production in fiat currencies: “if the paper [fiat currency] that you have loses value against other papers, while you don’t even control it, what does your GDP really mean?”
He admits that trying to rewrite Africa’s financial and economic rulebook has inevitably stirred silent resistance from those who benefit from the status quo. “It has honestly been tough. When I left traditional finance with all the awards, titles and big positions, I became nobody overnight. And worse than becoming nobody, you become someone people avoid, because you’re touching the one thing they told you never to touch,” he says.