Author: Louis Dike

South Africa continues to lead in crypto innovation with the announcement that Super Group — a Johannesburg-based financial services firm — will launch a Rand-pegged stablecoin built on the Solana blockchain. The move makes South Africa one of the first African countries to host a locally denominated stablecoin tied to its national currency, the South African Rand (ZAR). Super Group says the new stablecoin will enable instant settlements, cross-border remittances, and fintech integrations — addressing pain points in Africa’s digital payments space. “This is not just a crypto product; it’s financial infrastructure,” said a company spokesperson.“We want to bridge traditional…

The conversation around crypto in Africa is changing. For years, social media buzzed with token charts, “next 10x coins,” and trading signals. But in 2025, something deeper is happening — the spotlight is shifting from price to infrastructure, from traders to builders. Across Lagos, Nairobi, Accra, and Cape Town, Web3 founders are quietly laying down the rails for Africa’s digital economy. These new rails are the wallets, on-ramps, stablecoin systems, and remittance APIs that will support millions of users across borders. The New Builders’ Mindset Crypto Twitter in Africa has matured. Conversations tagged around crypto reveal an evolving focus on…

Kenya has officially replaced its controversial 3 % Digital Asset Tax with a more structured levy targeting crypto-platform service fees. The revision — included in the Finance Act 2025 — shifts the tax burden from users to service providers, a move that aligns with international best practices and encourages fairer participation in the country’s digital-asset economy. The change comes months after industry pushback against the earlier model, which many said penalized small traders and startups. The new policy focuses on service-based revenue — taxing commissions, transaction fees, and spreads — rather than total transaction value. What the New Framework Covers…

Nigeria’s fintech ecosystem — one of the largest and fastest-growing in Africa — is undergoing a major regulatory shift. The government is preparing to establish a single, consolidated fintech regulator to coordinate oversight of digital assets, payments, lending, and crypto activities under one roof. For years, fintech companies have had to navigate a maze of overlapping rules from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). The new unified framework aims to simplify compliance, foster innovation, and protect consumers more effectively. Why the Change Matters Nigeria’s regulators have…

For the first time since 2018, Bitcoin (BTC) has closed October in the red — breaking a seven-year streak of monthly gains that traders had long referred to as “Uptober.” The world’s largest cryptocurrency fell slightly by the end of the month, trading just below US$109,700, according to data from Crypto.News. While the decline was modest — around 0.5% in the past 24 hours — the broader sentiment shift has sent ripples through the crypto market. The total global market capitalization now sits at approximately US$3.7 trillion, reflecting cautious investor positioning amid macroeconomic uncertainty. Macro and Market Factors Several external…

Africa’s largest payments provider, Flutterwave, has teamed up with Polygon Labs to overhaul cross-border payments across the continent. The partnership integrates Polygon’s blockchain as the foundation for Flutterwave’s new stablecoin-based payment system, promising faster and cheaper international transfers. The initiative will first serve multinational companies including Uber and Audiomack before expanding to consumer remittances via the Flutterwave Send App in 2026. With fees for African cross-border payments averaging over 8%, the move marks a major step toward efficiency and financial inclusion. See more related: Tether Invests in Kotani Pay to Expand Stablecoin Infrastructure Across Africa Flutterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola said…

Africa’s two largest economies, Nigeria and South Africa, have officially been removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list”, marking a major leap forward for financial transparency and global market credibility. The FATF grey list identifies countries with deficiencies in anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) controls. Since being placed on the list in previous years, both nations faced increased scrutiny, tighter banking relationships, and limited access to cross-border liquidity — challenges that directly impacted crypto innovation and institutional adoption. Why This Matters for Crypto With their removal, regulatory risk perceptions are easing, paving the way for…

According to Securities and Exchange Commission (Nigeria) (SEC) Director-General Emomotimi Agama, Nigeria witnessed cryptocurrency transactions exceeding US $50 billion (approximately N 75 trillion at N1,500/USD) between July 2023 and June 2024.  The figure is particularly striking considering that Nigeria’s equities market capitalisation is currently around N 98.8 trillion—making the crypto volume roughly two-thirds of that size. What the Numbers Reveal See more related: Reps Panel Urges SEC to Rethink ₦1B Capital Benchmark for Crypto Operators Implications for Nigeria’s Crypto & Financial Ecosystem 1. A booming informal market The magnitude of crypto transactions points to an informal economy of digital-asset trading,…

Licensed bureau-de-change (BDC) operators across Nigeria say their businesses are approaching collapse after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) suspended dollar allocations from the official foreign exchange window. The move has severely disrupted their ability to operate, pay staff, rent offices and maintain licences. One BDC operator, Abubakar Ardo, told Nairametrics that “most of us are just managing to stay afloat. Since the CBN stopped selling forex directly to us … the income just isn’t coming in as before.” The problem is compounded as demand for foreign currency through BDCs has fallen. Many clients now prefer to use international money-transfer…

After years of rapid adoption and speculative growth, Africa’s crypto industry is entering a phase of maturity — one characterized by trust, compliance, and security. From Nigeria’s push to regulate Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to Kenya’s upcoming Capital Markets (Amendment) Bill and South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) framework, regulators are tightening oversight to protect users and attract institutional capital. These moves mark a critical turning point: crypto in Africa is shifting from informal peer-to-peer networks to institutional-grade digital finance. Why Compliance Now Matters In a continent where nearly 70% of transactions are still informal, unregulated crypto markets…