Between July 2024 and June 2025, Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain value, a 52 per cent year-over-year increase that placed the region among the world’s fastest-growing crypto markets.
- Between July 2024 and June 2025, Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain value, a 52 per cent...
- Stablecoins accounted for 43 per cent of that activity.
- “One of our larger early corporate clients is a major food producer on the African continent.
- In that context, holding dollar-pegged stablecoins has become a savings strategy for users who cannot access foreign bank accounts.
Keep reading for the full breakdown on Africa crypto news — everything you need to know is covered below.
Stablecoins accounted for 43 per cent of that activity. The growth reflects a practical shift. Across Africa, individuals and businesses are using stablecoins, dollar-pegged digital currencies, to bypass slow, expensive banking infrastructure that has long constrained cross-border trade and everyday payments.
According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa received $54 billion in remittances in 2023, yet sending money to the region remains the costliest globally, with fees averaging 7.9 per cent for a $200 transfer.
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Stablecoin transfers cut that cost sharply. Stablecoin transfers average 0.5-1 per cent of the value sent, making them the lowest-cost option available to most users in Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Ghana and Kenya.
Who is using stablecoins and why
While 70 per cent of stablecoin users rely on them for personal purposes such as remittances and savings, 30 per cent now employ them for business operations.
Chris Maurice, co-founder and CEO of Yellow Card, a pan-African stablecoin payments platform operating in more than 20 African countries, described one such case.
“One of our larger early corporate clients is a major food producer on the African continent. They import raw materials and ingredients from Switzerland and the UK. When they first approached us, they could only secure about 30% of their necessary dollars through the banking system. We helped them facilitate transfers via stablecoins, moving money instantly to the UK and Switzerland to enable critical imports.”
Currency depreciation is another driver. Between 2020 and early 2024, Zimbabwe’s dollar lost over 75 per cent of its value against the U.S. dollar, while the Sudanese pound lost over 80 per cent.
Nigeria’s naira lost over three-quarters of its value in the same period. In that context, holding dollar-pegged stablecoins has become a savings strategy for users who cannot access foreign bank accounts.
Maurice argues that stablecoin adoption in Africa is driven by “the most practical” use case: “In Africa you have the most transactions in the world under a thousand dollars. These are people transferring money for real use cases.”
Institutions move in, regulators lag in Africa
Maurice notes a marked increase in demand from African banks and financial institutions: “We’re seeing banks and large financial institutions across the continent start to get into this technology and use it in a way that really makes sense for them. The ability for African banks to be able to use stablecoins to make payments that don’t have to go through New York appeals to many.”
In June 2025, Visa expanded its stablecoin settlement solution across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and announced a partnership with Yellow Card to explore stablecoin use cases across its licensed markets.
Visa’s senior vice president for CEMEA, Godfrey Sullivan, stated that in 2025, every institution that moves money will need a stablecoin strategy.
Salifyanji Namwila, CEO of Y Combinator-backed stablecoin payments startup Devdraft, told Techpression in 2025 that this institutional momentum is no surprise.
“The best they can do is partner with the central bank,” she said, pointing to Devdraft’s own regulatory arrangements with the Bank of Zambia and the Reserve Bank of Malawi as proof of concept.
“They are very welcoming in that sense; they come in, check the system, check KYC. That promotes business and actually encourages entrepreneurship within Africa.”
Namwila argued that the countries resisting that model are the ones falling behind. She drew a direct comparison to the trajectory of AI adoption, saying governments that tried to ignore or ban the technology eventually had to integrate it on worse terms than those who engaged early.
“It’s either you tag along or you remain behind,” she said. “Whether or not the regulators agree to adopt cryptocurrency, it’s going to happen.”
South Africa has emerged as one of the continent’s early leaders in crypto regulation, implementing a comprehensive framework that classifies crypto assets as financial products.
Kenya’s National Treasury introduced a draft Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill in March 2025. Elsewhere, the rules remain unsettled.
Sanjeev Gupta, a senior fellow emeritus at the Centre for Global Development, warns that “without robust regulatory frameworks and strengthened tax administration, stablecoins could narrow the tax base and undermine fiscal and development goals.”
The gap between stablecoin adoption and regulatory progress is the defining tension in Africa’s crypto story.
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