Mambo! 👋 Licenses, funding, and stablecoins matter. But this week reminded us of something older and harder to solve: distribution still wins.
The story
Techstars-backed stablecoin-powered cross-border payments platform Chimoney shut down.
The founder said it was not because the product did not work. The bigger challenge was distribution. Also, raising only $1 million did not match the scale of what the company wanted to build.
What makes this interesting is Chimoney had many things other stablecoin startups are now chasing. The company was backed by Techstars, MSB licensed by FINTRAC and was among the earliest stablecoin fintechs to secure a PSP license in Canada, a path now followed by Juicyway, Zuniq, Fincra, Wewire, and Grey.
Sometimes having infrastructure and licenses early is not enough. Getting distribution right still matters.
Deals
More stablecoin companies are doubling down on emerging markets because this is where customers have hair-on-fire problems: currency instability, high fees, delayed settlements, and dollar scarcity. Here, stablecoins are painkillers, not vitamins.
Launches
Yellow Card and Mastercard partnered to use stablecoins across cross-border remittances, B2B settlements, digital loyalty programs, and treasury management.
Another sign of where this is going. Stablecoins are increasingly showing up inside platforms people already use and trust, instead of pulling users into completely new products.
Regulation
Kenya’s Finance Bill 2026 would require crypto exchanges and virtual asset service providers to report detailed user trading activity to the Kenya Revenue Authority ( KRA), including buy and sell prices, profits, wallet activity, and crypto payments.
False reporting could attract penalties of up to $775 per false entry.
Kenya is increasingly moving toward regulating crypto the same way it regulates traditional financial institutions.
Madini
“Stablecoins are crypto’s killer use case.”
Brenton Naicker, Principal and Head of Growth at CV VC, which runs the $20 Million Africa Blockchain Fund backed by Circle Ventures, explains how stablecoins are solving a multi billion dollar problem hiding inside African payments and cross-border finance.
From inside
Two Roads to the Same Stable Future. Kenya regulates first. Tanzania experiments first.
On the record
“Africa may become one of the most important stablecoin markets in the world.” - Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, Managing Director, Circle MEA.
Currency devaluation and broken cross-border payment rails have turned Africa into one of the world's most critical real-world stablecoin markets.
That may be one reason Circle is doubling down on the region, now hiring a VP of Ecosystem Growth for Sub-Saharan Africa. Apply
Written from inside Africa with love 🇹🇿💚
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