Africa’s technology ecosystem has spent the past decade evolving from solving basic infrastructure gaps to building financial and digital products for increasingly sophisticated markets.
For Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi, co-founder of Nigerian digital asset platform Busha, one thing has remained constant: African technology companies often have to build both the product and the market around it.
Samuel-Biyi, who began his technology career with Jumia Nigeria and has since worked across startups, venture capital, academia and digital assets, said this market-building requirement remains one of the defining characteristics of African technology.
Speaking in a CoinAfrica One-on-One, Samuel-Biyi reflected on his experience building in Nigeria, the changing regulatory environment, the rise of stablecoins, the challenge of accessing capital and how artificial intelligence could intersect with blockchain to create new forms of economic activity.
CoinAfrica: You’ve built companies, invested in startups, taught at universities and worked with regulators. Which experience changed your perspective on Africa’s technology ecosystem the most?
Laolu: They have all been complementary.
My first taste of the startup world was joining the founding team of Jumia in Nigeria in 2012. That was a major turning point because it exposed me to how quickly technology could accelerate and change an industry.
I later worked in venture capital, which gave me the perspective of capital allocators and investors. I also founded ShoreGIFT, where I learned about user acquisition, growth, and building local software products.
Then I got into blockchain with Busha, while continuing to stay close to academia through teaching and research.
All of those experiences have shaped how I think about business, regulation, and emerging technologies.
CoinAfrica: What has fundamentally changed in Africa’s technology ecosystem over the past decade, and what challenges remain?
Laolu: A lot has changed, particularly in the context in which African startups operate.
When Jumia launched, organised e-commerce was still relatively new in Nigeria. Companies had to solve infrastructure problems themselves, including logistics, payments and even how to deliver products to destinations without reliable addressing systems.
Many of those problems have continued to appear in other sectors.
When we launched Busha in 2019, we also had to create infrastructure around the business and engage with regulators to help think through some of the rules.
The consistent theme is that founders often have to create the market for their own products before the market matures.
That is difficult, but it also creates enormous opportunities for companies that can survive long enough to see the market develop. When you win in Africa, you can win a very large market.
CoinAfrica: In an industry where hype can sometimes outpace substance, how do founders build genuine trust?
Laolu: Trust is the baseline, particularly if you operate in financial services.
At Busha, the approach has been to build that trust deliberately. We engage regulators, ensure the company and its founders remain educated, and make sure the people behind the business have the credibility to support what the company is building.
In Nigeria, where trust is already fragile, companies effectively have to work from a deficit and claw their way toward credibility.
That takes time.
The companies that eventually achieve scale are usually those that spend years building customer trust and demonstrating that they can be relied upon.
CoinAfrica: What separates regulation that enables innovation from regulation that unintentionally slows it down?
Laolu: Regulation needs to become more of a propeller alongside being a hammer.
The industry has matured considerably. There are companies that have operated for more than five years, serve millions of customers and have moved billions of dollars in value.
At this point, regulators need to think about how these companies can grow into the next generation of major African financial institutions.
That requires clearer licences, access to local capital and greater comfort from banks in serving the sector.
The goal should be to recognise digital assets as a bona fide financial services sector rather than continuing to treat them as something on the fringes.
CoinAfrica: Have stablecoins reached the point where they can become part of everyday finance in Africa?
Laolu: We are very close.
Money has evolved repeatedly throughout history, and there is no reason to assume today’s monetary system is its final form.
Samuel-Biyi pointed to the rapid expansion of the stablecoin market as evidence of the growing momentum behind tokenized money. He argued that as more local stablecoins and private-sector instruments emerge, they could increasingly interact with existing banking infrastructure rather than simply displace it.
He expects that within the next two to three years, ordinary users could increasingly interact with stablecoins without necessarily realising that they are doing so.
CoinAfrica: What does the future of tokenized finance look like?
Laolu: Tokenized money will likely grow alongside other forms of tokenized financial assets.
Banks and large fintech companies are already exploring areas such as tokenized securities.
If gold, stocks, mutual funds and other assets become tokenized, they will need a form of digital money capable of interacting with those assets.
That could create an ecosystem in which local-currency and dollar- or euro-denominated stablecoins become the settlement layer for a broader tokenized financial system.
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CoinAfrica: What is the biggest misconception African founders have about raising capital?
Laolu: The capital problem is real, particularly for financial services companies.
Founders face substantial capital requirements, talent costs and compliance expenses.
For a regulated financial company, compliance infrastructure alone can become extremely expensive.
The problem is that many startups cannot access the long-term, relatively low-risk capital required to build through those early stages.
Samuel-Biyi said Busha raised several million dollars in its seed round, but much of that capital came from investors in the United States and Europe. He argued that Africa needs more local capital willing to take early-stage risk.
CoinAfrica: How do you see artificial intelligence and blockchain intersecting over the next five years?
Laolu: One of the strongest areas of convergence could be agentic payments.
AI agents could eventually execute transactions autonomously using tokenized money and blockchain infrastructure.
That could create an internet-native economic layer in which AI agents transact with one another, analyse tokenized assets and deploy capital according to predefined instructions and guardrails.
The result could be dramatically higher transaction velocity and more efficient markets because activity would no longer be limited by the pace of human decision-making.
CoinAfrica: If you had to choose one blockchain use case with the greatest potential to transform Africa over the next decade, what would it be?
Laolu: Tokenizing real-world assets.
Samuel-Biyi described this as potentially the “most boring” use case, but also one of the biggest opportunities.
Africa holds significant amounts of gold, land and government securities that remain difficult for global investors to access.
Tokenization could allow those assets to be represented digitally and traded across borders while the underlying assets remain with local custodians.
For example, tokenized Nigerian gold could potentially become accessible to an investor in Kenya without that investor ever having to physically handle or transport the underlying gold.
CoinAfrica: Will African crypto companies increasingly compete on trust, governance and compliance rather than growth alone?
Laolu: Yes.
Historically, the crypto market allowed almost anyone to position themselves as an exchange or financial service provider.
But as governments, tax authorities and financial regulators become more involved, that model is changing.
KYC requirements, licensing, local banking relationships and compliance obligations will increasingly determine which companies can operate sustainably.
Samuel-Biyi believes compliance may currently look primarily like a cost centre, but could eventually become a competitive advantage as enforcement increases and customers place greater value on trusted, regulated platforms.
CoinAfrica: Looking toward 2035, what do you hope people say about the companies and founders shaping African technology today?
Laolu: The pace of technological change makes it difficult to predict who the biggest winners will be a decade from now.
The champions of 2035 or 2036 could be companies that have not even emerged yet.
But Samuel-Biyi hopes the early builders receive recognition for laying the foundations that future generations will build upon.
He also believes experienced founders have an important role to play in bringing institutional knowledge, networks and “adult rigor” into the next generation of African technology companies.
CoinAfrica: What is your message to African founders, policymakers, investors and young builders?
Laolu: Africa is worth it.
Building on the continent can be extremely difficult, with structural challenges often preventing hard work from translating directly into results.
But Samuel-Biyi believes the public and private sectors need to invest collectively in changing those conditions rather than giving up on the continent.
The opportunity remains significant, and he believes Africa’s future will depend on greater alignment between policymakers, businesses and the people building the next generation of technology.
CoinAfrica: Who would you like to hear from in the next CoinAfrica One-on-One?
Laolu: Earlier-generation African technology builders.
He highlighted founders who helped build some of Nigeria’s early technology sectors, arguing they have valuable institutional and market knowledge that could benefit today’s builders.
He also left the next guest with a question:
If you had unlimited capital and resources, what opportunity in Africa would you pursue right now?
Answered by Mimi Kufuor, COO, KoinKoin Global, and CEO, KoinKoin Ghana, in our next One-On-One Interview
The bigger picture
Samuel-Biyi’s perspective points to a broader transition taking place across Africa’s digital-asset industry.
The early phase was dominated by experimentation, user acquisition and market creation. The next phase could be defined by institutional trust, regulatory clarity, tokenized financial infrastructure and deeper integration with traditional finance.
For African founders, the challenge may therefore no longer be simply proving that a new technology works. It may be proving that it can operate sustainably within the financial, regulatory and economic systems that determine whether it reaches scale.
And as AI accelerates the pace at which products and markets can be built, the next decade could look very different from the last.
