Cape Town, South Africa – November 20, 2025 – Mamadou Kwidjim Toure, the founder of Ubuntu Tribe and one of Forbes’ Top 10 Most Influential Men in Africa, will speak at Cryptofest South Africa, where he will explore how blockchain and artificial intelligence can drive inclusive growth, transparency, and sustainable prosperity across the continent.
According to Ubuntu’s newly released Gold for All Report, tokenized gold could unlock $50 billion for Africa’s unbanked within five years. The comprehensive analysis examines structural transformation in global gold markets and makes the case for Africa’s leadership in creating more transparent and accessible financial systems.
For Africa, the report identifies both a crisis and an opportunity. Over 400 tonnes of gold are smuggled out of the continent each year — more than 10% of global output. The report refers to this as the “elephant in the gold pipe” and urges on-chain traceability to curb illicit flows and return value to miners and local economies.
Toure brings a unique perspective to the conversation. Before founding Ubuntu Tribe, he spent over a decade in development finance, working with multilateral institutions in Washington, D.C. He left that sector after recognizing that traditional financial infrastructure often fails the very communities it claims to serve.
“I worked in development finance because I wanted to level the playing field,” said Toure. “But I realized we were pushing on a string. The system was designed in a way that perpetuated exclusion. That’s when I knew we needed to build something different.”
Ubuntu Tribe launched $GIFT Gold to address a fundamental problem the report identifies: while gold has served as a store of value for millennia, buying physical gold typically requires significant capital — a standard gold bar costs approximately $65,000.
$GIFT Gold breaks down this barrier through tokenization. Each token represents one milligram of physical gold stored in audited vaults across Zurich, Stuttgart, Copenhagen, and Dubai, with tokens available from $0.10. This fractional structure opens gold ownership to investors at any level.
The platform operates under European VASP licensing and aligns with MiCA regulations. Every token is backed by allocated, serialized, and insured physical gold. Ubuntu Tribe is part of the Ubuntu Group of Companies, which has processed over $300 million in precious metals transactions across five continents over the past decade.
At Cryptofest, one of Africa’s largest cryptocurrency and blockchain conferences, Toure will explore how blockchain and AI can unlock new opportunities for economic empowerment in Africa, promoting financial inclusion, restoring trust in systems, and enabling broader access to assets and technologies that have historically been concentrated among the wealthy and institutions.
Ubuntu Tribe will be actively engaging across Africa’s major fintech and blockchain gatherings to strengthen its presence and partnerships across the continent. The team will attend the Africa Stablecoin Summit (Johannesburg, Nov 12–13) to gather market intelligence and map the local crypto ecosystem; participate in Africa Tech Week (Cape Town, Nov 12–14) to explore innovations in fintech and digital transformation; and join Crypto Fest (Cape Town, Nov 14) for panel discussions and brand activation within the Web3 community. Later in the month, Mamadou Toure will represent Ubuntu Tribe at the G20 / Global Policy House Forum (Johannesburg, Nov 22–23), focusing on high-level institutional dialogues with central banks, regulators, and multilateral organizations.
About Ubuntu Tribe
Ubuntu Tribe is the Web3 fintech arm of the Ubuntu Group of Companies. The platform provides tokenized access to physical gold through its $GIFT Gold product, making precious metals ownership accessible from $0.10. Ubuntu Tribe operates under European VASP licensing and serves customers across 95 countries.
