Dakar Bitcoin Days IV (Dakar, 27-28 November 2026)

Dakar Bitcoin Days comes back for a fourth edition on Friday 27 and Saturday 28 November 2026 at SEANEMA, the cinema of the Sea Plaza centre in Dakar, Senegal. The first day is about how states and central banks handle crypto-assets; the second is about cross-border payments. Talks run in French, English and Wolof, according to the official site, and a day pass costs 9,900 CFA francs, or €15.09 at the euro peg. Students get in free.

The forum is small, about 350 people per edition by the organisers’ own count. Its timing is what stands out. The central bank of the CFA franc zone calls crypto-assets unregulated and refuses to treat them as money, while a committee it set up is still drafting the region’s first dedicated rules.

Day 1, Friday: regulators, CBDCs and bitcoin reserves

The site labels the institutional theme “Day 1”, and the day tickets on Luma sell Day 1 as the Friday and Day 2 as the Saturday. Friday’s list covers regulatory frameworks, central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and the strategic bitcoin reserves that some states are studying, meaning bitcoin held on a public balance sheet. The organisers say the day will bring together policymakers, regulators, financial institutions and experts. Luma adds compliance and risk management.

As backdrop, the organisers cite a recent “international conference of the BCEAO on crypto-assets”. The BCEAO is the Central Bank of West African States, which issues the CFA franc for the eight members of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (UEMOA), Senegal among them. Its conference on crypto-assets and digital innovation was held in Dakar on 8 May 2026, with African central bank governors and people from the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements, according to an analysis published by Financial Afrik.

The CBDC topic is not abstract here. The same analysis says the BCEAO is exploring an “e-CFA”, a digital version of the franc, but that no decision to issue one has been taken and no date set. Neither the forum site nor Luma says whether anyone from the central bank or the Senegalese government will speak on Friday.

Day 2, Saturday: cross-border payments and remittances

Saturday turns to decentralised cross-border payments. The official site ties the theme to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA, ZLECAf in French) and to the cost of moving money for trade, entrepreneurs and diasporas, with Bitcoin and blockchain networks as the tools under discussion. The Luma description names diaspora remittances, business payments abroad and new financial services.

Mobile money is close to that debate in Senegal. Wave, a mobile money operator, is one of four sponsors, and one announced speaker, Modou Sall, is billed as a mobile money expert. There is no hour-by-hour agenda yet. Luma promises conferences, panels, workshops, demonstrations and networking, for entrepreneurs, students, developers, bankers, lawyers, policymakers and investors.

Dakar Bitcoin Days speakers announced so far

Thirteen speakers appear on the official site, none of them yet attached to a session. Their roles, as the site gives them:

• Abdoulaye Cisse, executive director in charge of risk management and IT security at CGF Bourse.
• Charlene Fadirepo, founder and CEO of Mango Digital Strategies.
• Mouhamadou Kouta, senior project manager and entrepreneur; he is also listed as host of the Luma page.
• Colonel Aly Mime, director general of cryptography and information systems security.
• Dr Abdoulaye Ndiaye, economist and professor at NYU.
• Serigne Mouhamed Ndiaye, Eclipse Holdings, Yoonu Leer programme.
• Antoine Ngom, director general of GSIE and president of OPTIC.
• Sébastien Ramos, entrepreneur.
• Modou Sall, mobile money expert.
• Idrissa Seck, trainer at Xamlé Bitcoin.
• Dr Michel Seck, PhD in cryptography, professor at EPT.
• Karim Sy, founder of Jokkolabs.
• Ndongo Samba Sylla, economist.

The call for speakers on Sessionize closed on 18 October 2026 at 23:59 UTC. It asked for talks of 30 minutes at most on Bitcoin, monetary questions or cross-border payments in Africa, so the list may still grow.

Tickets: 9,900 CFA francs a day, about €15

The standard pass costs 9,900 FCFA per day, the figure on the official site and in the Luma listing. The euro price is exact rather than an estimate: the CFA franc is pegged at 655.957 francs to the euro, a rate the BCEAO restated in 2022 when it denied rumours of a devaluation. 9,900 divided by 655.957 gives €15.09. The pass includes lunch and a snack, the talks and workshops, and the partner stands.

Students pay nothing but must register through a form and show valid proof of status. A Premium pass, limited to 20 places, covers both days, the VIP room and balcony, breakfast, a catered lunch, the closing cocktail and goodies. The ticket data behind the Luma page prices it at 100,000 FCFA (€152.45) and stops sales on 22 November, though the figure is not displayed in the page’s ticket box.

Payment fits the subject. The site lists Banxaas for bitcoin, Guichet.com and Gnudem.com for mobile money and Luma for bank cards, and its FAQ asks participants to pay in sats or in CFA francs, with the stated aim that everyone understands how bitcoin wallets and transactions work. Banxaas is also one of the sponsors.

Venue, hours and the stale November dates

SEANEMA is the cinema of Sea Plaza in Dakar. No street address is published; Luma gives map coordinates and the plus code MGVG+95X. The official site gives no daily hours. Luma’s event data runs from 08:00 on Friday to 16:00 on Saturday, which may be a placeholder, so Coindaro lists the forum as two full days until a schedule appears. Dakar is on UTC all year, one hour behind Paris and Rome in winter.

The Luma day tickets still describe themselves as valid for Friday 6 and Saturday 7 November, an older date. The official site, Sessionize and Luma’s own event data all give 27 and 28 November.

Three editions since 2022, by the organisers’ count

The forum has changed venue each time, and the site lists no edition in 2024:

Organisers claim an average of 350 participants per edition, plus hundreds watching live on YouTube; the Luma page speaks of nearly 1,000 across the first three. Coindaro found no independent count. Attendees have come from Senegal, Mali, Kenya, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, India, the United States and France, among others, the organisers say. This year’s forum is a day shorter than in 2025.

Sponsors are Btrust, Wave, Banxaas and Eclipse. Partners are OPTIC, SenStartup, Alliance Fintech UEMOA, Bitcoin Sénégal, Yité Technologies and Afro Group. The site’s footer still reads “Dakar Bitcoin Days III” and its FAQ speaks of a third edition, leftovers from 2025.

Bitcoin in Senegal: a forum in a regulatory grey zone

The UEMOA has no complete crypto regime yet. Presenting the BCEAO’s 2025 annual report in Dakar on 22 July 2026, governor Jean-Claude Kassi Brou put it in three short sentences: “Ce n’est pas une monnaie. Ce n’est pas réglementé. Donc soyez prudents” (it is not money, it is not regulated, so be careful). The quote comes from an analysis by jurist Péléni Jonathan Aimé Koné in Financial Afrik, which lists the risks he named: volatility, the anonymity of often cross-border transactions and exposure to cyberattacks. The author stresses that this is a warning, not a formal ban on holding or trading.

Some rules already reach the sector. A uniform anti-money-laundering law adopted on 31 March 2023 brings virtual-asset service providers into scope and makes them get prior approval, but the details of that licence have not been set, the analysis says. A committee called C-CRYPTO, presented at the May conference, is drafting crypto rules for the monetary union. The BCEAO has declined to give a date for them.

A Dakar forum that puts CBDCs, bitcoin reserves and mobile money in the same programme sits in that gap. Readers new to the asset can start with our beginner’s guide to Bitcoin.

Why European readers might follow it

Bitcoin events in French-speaking West Africa are rare, and this one is mostly in French. The Saturday debate on remittances concerns transfers that families in France and Italy send home to Senegal. Prices are easy to read in euros because of the fixed peg, and Dakar time is only an hour behind Paris and Rome in winter.

Africa has several crypto dates this autumn. The Nigeria Blockchain and AI Week in Lagos runs on 6-7 November and the Africa Stablecoin Summit in Cape Town on 12-13 November, both before Dakar. The Africa Bitcoin Conference in Blantyre, Malawi is the other Bitcoin-only gathering on the continent.

What is not known yet

No timed agenda has been published, and no speaker has a slot. Daily hours, a street address and the name of a legal organiser are missing too. The organisers give no attendance target for 2026, and nothing says whether the BCEAO or the government will take part. Premium sales close on 22 November; the next thing to watch is the programme on the official site.