Bitcoin recorded its highest surge in over a year on Monday to maintain the growth that started in March.

The crypto coin gained 4.4% to $12,424, its highest since July 2019, marking its strongest performance in the year. Reuters attributed the growth to plummeting interest rates and huge bond-buying programmes by central banks across the world that have boosted demand for the digital currency.

Analysts had urged investors to invest more in Bitcoin back in March when it suffered a massive crash.

Jehan Chu, co-founder of Kenetic Capital, an investor in blockchain startups told CNBC then that the digital currency has become known for its volatility but it presents an opportunity to long term investors.

“For those who have long term investment horizons, bitcoin is absolutely a buy during these dips. We can expect more of this volatility sparked by macro health and financial shocks, but ultimately long term investments in the digital future and its key asset bitcoin will be a winning strategy,” he said.

Investors have been looking for an investment to save them from the troubles of coronavirus. While Bitcoin was struggling to meet the expectations of investors running to it for refuge early in the year, gold was performing well.

But in March, the cryptocurrency started to show signs of recovery from the plunge, following governments’ stimulus packages, and its growth has been consistent after the Bitcoin halving in May.

Bitcoin jumped over $12,000 on Tuesday amidst US dollar falls. Winklix, a Blockchain development platform that provides analysis for markets said adjustment of interest rates on US Treasury bonds and substantive easing policies contributed to the growth.

“These policies were instrumental in the selling of large amounts of US dollars, resulting in the fall of dollar index. Going by the brand new data, the US dollar index has taken a beating and it is languishing below 93,” it said.

Global hedge is expecting further erosion of the value of the US dollar. The betting pegs dollar downfall to approximately $5.3 billion this week to reach $24.5 billion. From the perspective of association, the connection amid Bitcoin, dollar and gold decreased, at the same time, the interconnection between Bitcoin and gold strengthened. This has made gold and bitcoin realize their potential in the light of a tumbling dollar index. The analysis said.

The interconnection between Bitcoin and gold was strengthened at the peak of COVID-19 crisis, as they became safe-haven options for investors.

However, Bitcoin was plummeting while gold recorded an increase, until the dollar started showing signs of weakness. Investors hurried to save funds in Bitcoin as gold had become expensive.

“Despite a huge sum of USDT going into exchanges, data from Glass node indicates that the USDT amount is diminishing since April. During the same time, the Bitcoin equilibrium of exchanges has risen. Based on this, we can infer that the USDT going into exchanges were utilized to purchase Bitcoin,” Winklix said.

Bitcoin became the alternative while gold was climbing the roof in the face of dollar weakness. The cryptocurrency will likely continue to surge as long as the dollar remains weak.

However, the record surge has been induced by a couple of other factors which includes the use of cryptocurrency as alternate means of financial transactions that is globally not hindered by regulations.

WorkPay, a Kenyan digital human resource management and payroll solution provider startup, has raised $2.1 million in seed funding to accelerate its development.

WorkPay was founded in 2017 by Paul Kimani with the name TozzaPlus, but was rebranded in 2019 through a $100,000 funding round provided by YCombinator, P1 Ventures, Soma capital, Musha Ventures and Kepple Africa which oversaw the funding. The investors are adding $2.1 million to the purse of WorkPay to accelerate its growth.

Having participated in a recent three-month YCombinator W20 accelerator programme in Silicon Valley, where it raised $150,000 at the end of the programme, WorkPay is focusing its services on human resource management solutions via enterprise resource planning (ERP).

Each month, it processes transactions worth millions of shillings for small and medium sized businesses. Through an intuitive easy to use solution, WorkPay offers employee management with Time Tracking, Human Resource Management, and payroll processing with bulk salary payments to employees’ bank accounts or mobile wallets.

The co-founder and CEO of WorkPay, Paul Kimani said the fund will be used to expand its services in East Africa.

“This new investment will give us the opportunity to scale our human resource management and payroll processing tools to SMBs and expand to enterprise clients across East Africa. We are fortunate to have the backing of some incredible people on our mission to make it easy for businesses to manage and pay employees across Africa,” he said.

WorkPay currently processes payrolls for over 25,000 employees, covering more than 300 SMEs in Kenya.

Ryosuke Yamawaki, general partner of Kepple Africa Ventures said WorkPlay gave them a positive impression in their first meeting on a pitch day in September 2018, which made them stand out from others.

“They’re different in the way they define their key customers, understand their real pains, and design specific solutions. It is no surprise that they have come this far. They will surely become one of the most successful startups in the continent and drastically change the way the workforce is managed,” he said.

WorkPay operates a cloud-based system which allows small and medium-scale enterprises to integrate their payment systems and manage their payroll functions.

The company’s cloud of digital data is stored and processed on a network of remote servers hosted on the internet rather than on local servers or personal computers, according to Technext. It therefore makes payment transactions flexible, allowing enrollees to access its platform at their convenience no matter where they are.

As part of its services, the platform offers a calculation tool for businesses to estimate hourly, weekly, monthly and other forms of wage payments, to help workers monitor their salaries.

The African fintech ecosystem has continued to defy the odds of a coronavirus pandemic to secure funding for startups, and Kenya is ahead of many other African countries, including Nigeria, in spurring the growth of its tech industry.

While most of the startup funding has come from foreign investors, the Kenyan government has moved to save the country’s tech industry from being totally dominated by foreign investors.

The National Information Communications and Technology Policy Guidelines 2020, encourages Kenyans to invest in startups while stipulating 30 percent Kenyan ownership as a criteria for ICT services Licenses in Kenya.

“It is the policy that only companies with at least 30 percent substantive Kenyan ownership, either corporate or individual, will be licensed to provide ICT services,” the regulatory policy published by the ICT ministry said.

Kenya ranks second, behind South Africa in the African startup ecosystem, and the government has designed a developmental frame with the new policy, which proposes a government venture capital fund that will invest in startups for a portion of the equity on a first-loss basis in case the startup fails.

However, while the policy is anticipated to create 20 Kenyan multinational ICT companies, 300 mid-sized firms, 5,000 SMEs and 20,000 startups, low participation by Kenyans will likely hinder the growth as most of the investors in African startups have been foreigners.