From War-Torn South Sudan to Kampala's Trading Floors: How One University Student Beat the Odds to Build a Forex and Bitcoin Empire

KAMPALA — When gunfire erupted in his hometown of Abyei in South Sudan, 19-year-old Johk Biong had two choices: flee or perish. He chose to flee — and in doing so, set himself on an unlikely path to becoming one of Uganda's most talked-about young entrepreneurs in the digital finance space.

Today, at just 31, Biong runs a thriving forex trading and cryptocurrency consultancy from a modest office in Kampala's Ntinda suburb, managing a portfolio that he says has grown to over $200,000 (approximately UGX 740 million) — a figure that would have been unimaginable when he first crossed the border into Uganda with little more than a phone and a borrowed SIM card.

Escaping the Bullets

Born on January 16, 1993, in Abyei — the contested border town straddling South Sudan and Sudan — Biong grew up in a family of teachers. His father, a secondary school headmaster, instilled in him a love for mathematics and problem-solving from an early age. But the renewed outbreak of civil conflict in South Sudan in 2016 shattered any semblance of normalcy.

"I watched our school burn down. My father's library — years of books — turned to ash in one night," Biong recalled in an interview with Chimp Reports. "We had nothing. My mother took me and my two sisters and we walked for three days to reach the Ugandan border."

The family settled in the Bidi Bidi refugee settlement in Yumbe District — at the time one of the largest refugee settlements in the world. Life was hard. Food rations were irregular, and opportunities were scarce. But Biong refused to let the circumstances define him.

A Phone, YouTube, and a Dream

It was in the settlement that Biong first encountered the concept of forex trading — through a cracked smartphone screen and a patchy internet connection. A YouTube video about currency markets caught his attention one evening, and he spent the next several weeks consuming every piece of content he could find on the subject.

"I had no money to trade. But I practiced on demo accounts for months. I treated it like school — I studied charts the way other students studied textbooks," he said.

In 2020, Biong secured a partial scholarship to study Business Administration at Makerere University Business School (MUBS) in Kampala, facilitated through a UNHCR education programme. He relocated to the capital, sharing a single room with three other students in Wandegeya.

The First Trade

With UGX 50,000 (roughly $13) borrowed from a classmate, Biong made his first live forex trade in early 2021. He lost it all within a week.

"I cried. That was a lot of money for me. But I went back to the demo account, studied what went wrong, and tried again three months later," he said.

His persistence paid off. By mid-2021, he had turned a small consistent profit. He reinvested every shilling, lived frugally, and began trading Bitcoin and Ethereum alongside forex pairs. By the end of 2022, his account had grown to over $5,000 — enough to rent a proper workspace and begin taking on clients.

Building a Business from Scratch

Word spread quickly among the South Sudanese diaspora community in Kampala. Biong began offering informal training sessions, teaching fellow refugees and students how to navigate digital financial markets. He charged modest fees, which he ploughed back into growing his own trading capital.

"People trusted me because I was one of them. I wasn't some distant expert — I was the guy from the settlement who figured it out," he said.

He registered his company, Nile Digital Investments Ltd, with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) in early 2023. The firm now offers forex signal services, cryptocurrency portfolio management, and financial literacy workshops targeting youth in refugee communities across Uganda.

Recognition and Challenges

Biong's story has not gone unnoticed. He was recently shortlisted for the Uganda Youth Entrepreneurship Awards and has been invited to speak at financial inclusion forums organised by the Bank of Uganda and various NGOs.

However, he is candid about the challenges that remain. Regulatory uncertainty around cryptocurrency in Uganda, limited access to formal banking for refugees, and the volatility of digital asset markets are constant hurdles.

"Bitcoin can make you rich and break you in the same week. You have to be disciplined. You have to have a strategy. Emotion is your biggest enemy in this business," he warned.

He also acknowledges the scepticism he faces — both from Ugandan authorities cautious about crypto, and from within his own community, where some view digital trading as gambling.

Eyes on the Future

Despite the obstacles, Biong's ambitions are clear. He plans to expand Nile Digital Investments into South Sudan once the security situation stabilises, and is in talks with a Nairobi-based fintech firm about a potential partnership.

He is also set to graduate from MUBS later this year — a milestone he says will be dedicated to his father, who never made it out of Abyei.

"My father believed education was the only weapon that could not be taken from you. He was right. But in my case, the weapon was a phone, the internet, and the willingness to learn something new every single day," Biong said.

"I came from war. I came from nothing. And I am still here — building, growing, and proving that where you come from does not have to determine where you end up."

Chimp Reports could not independently verify the exact figures cited by Mr. Biong. His company, Nile Digital Investments Ltd, is registered with the Uganda Registration Services Bureau.