Mambo 👋, Kenya just set the standard this week. What a regulator does first matters, because everyone else is watching.
The Story
Kenya required 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.
This shows stablecoins are moving out of the sandbox.
Issuers will now be closely watched.
Stablecoins are starting to look like real money.
Local financial institutions like banks are also positioned to earn from this.
Deals
Surge Pay raised $150K to build a single stablecoin powered platform for moving money across borders without the usual friction.
Launches and Partnerships
VALR partnered with Onafriq to enable mobile money onramping across 43 African markets; allowing users to fund crypto accounts directly using M-Pesa or MTN MoMo in local currencies including KES, NGN, GHS, and UGX.
Last week we said in Africa on-ramping is the wall; VALR and Onafriq just started climbing it.
Regulation
Eight African countries implemented some form of crypto-specific regulation. The other 46 are watching. (Ripple, State of Crypto Regulation in Africa 2026)
Madini
“Nigeria imports $20 billion from China annually. When the banks are too slow or the dollars are too scarce, the market doesn’t stop, it just finds a new way to move. To keep stock flowing 24/7, these traders have built a parallel system that works at the speed of the internet, not banking hours”
From Inside
Remittance is becoming one of stablecoin’s most important use cases in Africa.
Nala, Grey, and Kredete have all launched stablecoin products. Now Thunes, one of the largest payment networks operating across Africa, has joined Circle’s Payment Network. The bottlenecks remittance companies have been fighting for years are starting to disappear.
Stablecoins are solving different problems including the treasury prefunding problem that has always slowed them down; better for their customers and better for their own balance sheets.
On the record
Written from inside Africa with love 🇹🇿💚