- Yele Bademosi left medical school to build crypto tools for underserved communities in Africa.
- After the FTX collapse, he pivoted Nestcoin toward user-focused Web3 products like Onboard and Breach.
Amid the noise of the global crypto market, often dominated by big names from the West or Asia, one Nigerian name has emerged and turned heads: Yele Bademosi. Not because of the hype, but because of his consistency in fighting for fairer access to digital economic opportunities—especially for Africans.
Yele Bademosi: From Doctor-to-be to African Crypto Influencer
Yele didn’t initially dream of becoming a crypto influencer. Instead, he was pursuing a medical degree at King’s College London. But it turned out that the operating room wasn’t where he wanted to spend his life.
In between his busy schedule, he taught himself design and coding. Yes, he really taught himself, like someone who tinkers with computers until the early hours of the morning out of curiosity. That’s where his path began to turn.
After returning to Nigeria, he immersed himself in the world of tech startups. One of his most notable early moves was founding Microtraction in 2017, an early-stage investment firm that helps African startups—especially those in the tech Web3 space.
But his big move came when he became the first director of Binance Labs Africa, with a big mission: to drive blockchain adoption in a continent that is often just a market, not a player.
Bundle, Nestcoin, and Bigger Dreams
Yele is not just an investor, but a builder. He co-founded Bundle Africa, an easy-to-use crypto-based social payments app. But after two years, he chose to step down to pursue a broader project: Nestcoin.
Nestcoin is not just a startup. In Yele’s hands, it has become a major vehicle for building a variety of crypto-based products targeting users in developing countries. From a non-custodial wallet called Onboard, to educational media Breach, to the gaming platform Metaverse Magna, Nestcoin is not just about money—it’s about inclusion.
However, the road has not always been smooth. When the FTX exchange collapsed in 2022, Nestcoin was affected because some of the company’s funds were stored there. Many startups might choose to shrink or lie low, but Yele did the opposite.
He and his team pivoted quickly, focusing on building a product that could stand on its own, without relying on third parties. Furthermore, they managed to secure $1.9 million in new funding to continue the Onboard wallet project.
Yele is not one to wrap up a social mission in fancy jargon. For him, blockchain is only useful if it can help ordinary people buy groceries, send their children to school, or simply send money to their families in the countryside. His perspective may be simplistic, but that’s where it’s powerful.
Meanwhile, Yele continues to actively share his insights on social media. He posts not just his wins, but also his failures and lessons learned. It’s no wonder that many young Africans consider him not just a startup founder, but a relatable digital mentor—not from a podium, but from a smartphone screen.
In hindsight, Yele’s story is like someone who originally wanted to be a doctor but instead chose to formulate a digital economy formula. Not a cure for physical ailments, but a solution to structural economic wounds that have been left untreated for too long. And so far, his concoctions are getting more and more attention worldwide.
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