Stablekoin

While @stripe is acquiring stablecoin platforms for $1.1 billion to automate global payments, the African last mile is still being negotiated over a WhatsApp voice note. Africa’s Stablecoin Market Looks Like a Forex Bureau. stablekoin.africa/p/africa-s-sta…

Stablecoins settle instantly. But the people who need them most don’t experience that. They don’t want USDC sitting in a wallet. They want mobile money. They want bank balances. They want something they can actually use. The moment that conversion happens, “instant” disappears. If a mobile money network is down or a bank delays processing, the transaction is no longer instant from the user’s perspective. Stablecoins are fast at the protocol layer. But users don’t live on that layer. The slowest part of the chain defines the experience, not the fastest. Read the record; stablekoin.africa/p/the-hidden-c…

If you have Kenyan shillings or naira and want to move into stablecoins, that money has to be collected first. This usually happens through mobile money or bank rails, which already charge fees. On top of that, the stablecoin provider often pays local aggregators or PSPs to collect funds via APIs. In many African markets, that collection cost ranges between 1% and 3%. Some companies reduce this by owning more of the stack. For example, companies like @NALAmoney have an advantage because they operate both local PSP infrastructure and stablecoin rails, allowing them to lower collection costs for their own flows. But even in those cases, the cost does not disappear across the system. Stablecoins are not zero fees! Read the record stablekoin.africa/p/the-hidden-c…

One of the most common claims around stablecoins is that they make payments almost free. @brian_armstrong, Co-founder and CEO of @coinbase , recently said that over $60 billion was spent on remittance fees in 2025 and that this could be almost zero with stablecoins. The statement sounds right, and it has been repeated across the ecosystem. But from what is actually happening on the ground in Africa and other emerging markets, it is not how the system works today. So what is really happening is not that stablecoins eliminate fees, but that they shift where the fees sit. Instead of correspondent banks and SWIFT charges, costs move to local liquidity, aggregation, compliance, and payout infrastructure. The system becomes more efficient, but it is not free. Read the full record; stablekoin.africa/p/the-hidden-c…

A regulated Kenyan bank plugged directly into stablecoin infrastructure this week. When banks stop watching from the sidelines and start building on the rails, the story changes. Read the full record; stablekoin.africa/p/a-regulated-…

Stablecoins are going to change money transactions forever, especially here in Africa. We are being charged more than 15% of the money when withdrawing it, mostly by these greedy telecom companies. Great work @Stablekoinhq 👏🏽

Stablecoins are known for being cheaper, but as they integrate with players like @Visa and @Mastercard , costs may come back in different ways. Will stablecoin cards succeed where traditional cards struggled? stablekoin.africa/p/stable-cards…

Only about 3% of Africans have credit cards. In Tanzania, you can meet a primary school teacher with three cards she has used for years only to withdraw salary at an ATM. Never POS. Never online. But Africa has never been a single behavioral market. In Kenya, mobile money is about 94% of payments. Cards are around 6%. @Uber even dropped @Visa payments in Kenya. But go to Nigeria and you see something else. @InterswitchGRP has issued over 100 million cards through @VerveCard . Same continent, different behavior. Now something is changing, Stablecoins are starting to sit behind cards. @theflutterwave partnered with @KulipaXYZ . @kredete partnered with @Visa . Both partnerships aim to issue stablecoin powered card payments. A stablecoin card starts with dollars. That removes the usual path of local currency going through FX before a payment is completed. But how do you move from local currency into stablecoins cheaply, reliably with compliance? Read the full record; stablekoin.africa/p/stable-cards…

@MoneyGram has already been working with stablecoin partners including @FireblocksHQ and @crossmint . The partnership with @NALAmoney deepens its commitment at a moment when the entire remittance industry is being redefined. On @NALAmoney ’s side, the move looks well timed. The company first raised $10 million to scale its consumer remittance product, then $40 million for @rafiki_api , its B2B stablecoin-powered payments infrastructure. @MoneyGram choosing @rafiki_api is the kind of validation that makes that second bet look right. Read the full record, featuring other companies; @kredete @Visa @juicywayhq @helicodexyz @yellowcard_app @binance @Onafriq @usewewire @FincraHQ @Nectar_finance stablekoin.africa/p/the-80-year-…

Founders and operators running cross-border operations in Africa: Speed, cost, settlement finality; everyone is talking about what stablecoins unlock. So why is your company still sitting this out? We only hear one side. If you are on the other, we are now listening.

“I’ve spent years watching money move slower than the people who depend on it. That should never be the case. Our partnership with @NALAmoney is part of a broader strategy to fix that. Stablecoins as infrastructure. Faster, more reliable payouts to the people and places that need them most” - @anthonysoohoo Read the record stablekoin.africa/p/the-snake-an…

Think of this; @MoneyGram has history of moving money since 1940. Eighty five years of wire transfers, agent networks, and SWIFT relationships built across every continent. This week they have partnered with @NALAmoney , an eight year old African fintech that has never sent a single SWIFT wire and is now betting its entire future on stablecoins. When a company with 85 years on traditional rails chooses a stablecoin partner for Africa, something has changed. That is worth paying attention to. So why are African regulators still watching from a distance? The easy answer is that “African regulators don’t understand modern technologies, are slow, or protecting old institutions”. But there is something more honest underneath. African regulators have internet. They watched FTX Register collapse. They saw $9 billion in customer funds disappear; that is 27% of Kenya’s entire GDP gone in days. If that happened inside an East African economy it would not just be a Crypto headline, It would shake the entire country. Read the full @Stablekoinhq record; stablekoin.africa/p/the-snake-an…

Card payments in Kenya account for just 6% of transactions, while mobile money dominates at 94%. That is why @ADI_Foundation partnered with @MPESAAfrica to bring over 60 million users onchain.

Africa never needed cards. It needed mobile money. Now mobile money is the door into stablecoins.
 stablekoin.africa/p/no-real-mone…

Kenya just set the standard this week. It requires stablecoin issuers to back every coin with cash or central bank reserves. Stablecoin issuers must keep real money behind every coin they issue. At least 30% must sit in a Kenyan bank account that is ring-fenced; meaning it cannot be touched for anything else. The rest must be in safe, liquid assets like cash or short-term government bonds that mature within 90 days. Read the full @Stablekoinhq weekly! Featuring companies @surgepay_io @VALRdotcom @Onafriq @Ripple @NALAmoney @greyfinance @kredete @ThunesPayments @MPESAAfrica @circle @ADI_Foundation stablekoin.africa/p/no-real-mone…

We are seeing two very different kinds of Stablecoin companies in Africa. The first is native builders; companies building crypto-powered payments since day one. @honeycoinapp is the clearest example. The Nairobi-based startup has been building rails for five years and according to TechCabal now processes $150 million monthly in B2B stablecoin transactions. The second is non-native Stablecoin Fintechs layering stablecoins through partnerships. @theflutterwave did not start with stablecoins but is now aggressively adding them; announcing partnerships with @KulipaXYZ for stablecoin cards, @Polygon , and @turnkeyhq . What they are building is Africa’s biggest stablecoin distribution network. Those are different things. stablekoin.africa/p/me-too-stabl…

There are now more stablecoin press releases coming out of Africa than there is infrastructure that has actually been built. Africa’s stablecoin economy moved roughly $88 billion last year. Last week we showed that most of it still moves through WhatsApp negotiations and manual OTC desks. Yet every week there is a new stablecoin announcement from an African fintech. A partnership, product launch, a pivot, and a founder quote about building a different kind of stablecoin platform on the continent. Everyone wants in. The question nobody is asking is what is actually being built? stablekoin.africa/p/me-too-stabl…

From the @Stablekoinhq record: @yellowcard_app spent $57 million and 10 years acquiring 1 million users across 20 countries. Then raised $33 million not to serve them better or reach new ones, but to shut it down and go all in on B2B stablecoin payments. stablekoin.africa/p/flutterwave-…

We just put out the first Stablekoin Weekly, written from inside. This is a record of what actually happened across Africa’s stablecoin economy last week. Africa’s most valuable fintech Flutterwave launched stablecoin cards and a bank in the same week. Other companies building the rails that appeared in the record include; @KulipaXYZ , @mono_hq , @hamilton_labs, @smcdao , @LipaworldAfrica , @paystack , @BitGo , @yellowcard_app . Read it! stablekoin.africa/p/flutterwave-…

When stablecoin companies operate through OTC desks, they naturally prioritize large customers. If you are moving money manually, you would rather do one $100,000 trade than twenty $5,000 trades. African SMEs make up 95% of all registered businesses and contribute roughly half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP.  Most of them make relatively small import payments. A Kenyan trader importing clothes from Guangzhou may send $1,000 to $5,000 per order, far below the ticket size OTC desks typically prefer. That quietly excludes the very people who need this Stablecoin infrastructure the most. A trader in Kariakoo 🇹🇿, Lagos 🇳🇬, or Nairobi 🇰🇪, trying to pay a supplier for a small shipment suddenly discovers that the new financial rail is still built primarily for large players. Read the full story and record! stablekoin.africa/p/africa-s-sta…

I just discovered @Stablekoinhq, a new stablecoin newsletter startup for #Africa. Kudos to @Positivenga1 for leading the charge on this. Im excited to dig in. **Stablecoins account for 43% of all crypto transaction volume in the region. **In Nigeria alone, nearly $22 billion in stablecoin transactions were processed between July 2023 and June 2024. stablekoin.africa/p/africa-s-sta…