Mambo 👋! This week, Africa’s stablecoin economy looked a little more mature.
Regulators wrote new rules.
Fintechs embedded stablecoins deeper into everyday products.
Customers continued using familiar apps without ever touching crypto.
That may be what mainstream adoption actually looks like.
The story
Kenya finalized its crypto licensing framework.
The Framework is requiring exchanges, wallet providers, stablecoin issuers, and other virtual asset firms serving Kenyan customers to obtain licenses and comply with governance, AML, cybersecurity, and consumer protection rules.
Coming just a week after Nigeria unified its virtual asset regulation, another pattern is becoming clear: Africa’s largest crypto markets are choosing to regulate digital assets rather than ban them.
Deals
After its acquisition, Chimoney confirmed it had repaid all investors.
The outcome is notable. Chimoney shut down despite holding valuable Canadian money services licenses, assets that many stablecoin companies are now actively pursuing. It reinforces a lesson we have tracked before: licenses alone are not enough. Distribution remains the harder problem.
Launches
LemFi partnered with BVNK to to move cross-border settlements onto regulated stablecoin rails.
In announcing the partnership, BVNK said, “Customers don’t need to touch crypto. They stay in local currency, use the same familiar app, and get money to their families faster.”
That captures the thesis we have been building: stablecoins are becoming infrastructure inside products people already use, not products customers need to learn.
Regulation
The Bank of Tanzania is moving closer to regulating crypto and stablecoins.
Governor Emmanuel Tutuba said the central bank has completed its assessment of the virtual asset sector and is finalizing regulations to supervise cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and other digital assets.
It reinforces a pattern we have been tracking across the continent: regulation is catching up as digital assets become part of Africa’s financial infrastructure.
Madini
Nigeria attracted nearly 60% of Africa’s stablecoin inflows.
Scale is increasingly concentrating around markets and platforms with the deepest crypto adoption.
From inside
South Africa’s crypto card race is no longer about crypto.
The real competition is around user experience, FX costs, and rewards, while stablecoins quietly power settlement in the background. It reinforces a thesis we have been tracking: the most successful stablecoin products may be the ones where customers never realize they are using stablecoins.
On the record
Kenya reduced the minimum paid up capital requirement for stablecoin issuers from KSh 500 million (about US$3.9 million) to KSh 300 million (about US$2.3 million), lowering the highest capital threshold in its new virtual asset licensing framework.
Written from inside Africa with love 🇹🇿💚
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