Mambo, Here is John 👋
One of the most common claims around stablecoins is that they make payments almost free. Brian Armstrong, Co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, recently said that over $60 billion was spent on remittance fees in 2025 and that this could be almost zero with stablecoins. The statement sounds right, and it has been repeated across the ecosystem. But from what is actually happening on the ground in Africa and other emerging markets, it is not how the system works today.
Even though more than 40% of crypto transaction volume in Africa is now stablecoin-based, most end users are not directly interacting with stablecoins. They do not hold USDC or USDT, they do not manage wallets, and they do not think in terms of blockchains. What actually happens is that someone sits in the middle. An agent, a platform, or a provider bridges the gap. If a person in the US sends you an invoice in USDC and you are in Nigeria, you do not go and buy USDC yourself. You send naira to a provider, and that provider completes the transaction on your behalf. Most stablecoin usage in Africa today is indirect.
That is where the idea of zero fees starts to break down. Stablecoins as a technology can move value at very low cost, but users do not interact with that layer. They interact with onramps, intermediaries, and offramps, and each of those layers has a cost.
Onramping is not free
If you have Kenyan shillings or naira and want to move into stablecoins, that money has to be collected first. This usually happens through mobile money or bank rails, which already charge fees. On top of that, the stablecoin provider often pays local aggregators or PSPs to collect funds via APIs. In many African markets, that collection cost ranges between 1% and 3%. Some companies reduce this by owning more of the stack. For example, companies like Nala have an advantage because they operate both local PSP infrastructure and stablecoin rails, allowing them to lower collection costs for their own flows. But even in those cases, the cost does not disappear across the system.
Offramping is not free
Most recipients in markets like Tanzania or Uganda do not want to hold USDC or USDT. They want local currency in their mobile money wallet or bank account. That means another intermediary has to convert and pay out. Even if margins are tight, there is still a payout fee, because terminating a transaction into mobile money or bank systems is not free. So again, the cost is still there, even if it is lower than traditional cross-border methods.
There is also the question of speed
Stablecoin settlement itself is fast, but the end user experience depends on the rest of the stack. If a mobile money network is down or a bank delays processing, the transaction is no longer instant from the user’s perspective. The slowest part of the chain defines the experience, not the fastest.
Other Costs
There are operational costs that are often invisible in the zero-fee narrative. Infrastructure providers like Bridge, charge for compliance, KYC and KYB processes, and API usage. Many of these costs are priced in dollars, even for companies operating in emerging markets. Over time, these costs are either absorbed or passed on to users indirectly.
So what is really happening is not that stablecoins eliminate fees, but that they shift where the fees sit. Instead of correspondent banks and SWIFT charges, costs move to local liquidity, aggregation, compliance, and payout infrastructure. The system becomes more efficient, but it is not free.
At the same time, it is important to recognize where this could go. If users begin to interact with stablecoins directly, costs can compress further. Onramp and offramp layers become thinner, intermediaries become less necessary, and more value moves at the protocol level where fees are minimal. In that world, stablecoins get closer to the idea of near-zero cost.
But that shift only works if users can actually stay in stablecoins. If someone receives USDC and can spend it directly with merchants who also accept stablecoins, the need to convert disappears and costs drop significantly. That is the real unlock.
The problem is that this environment does not exist at scale yet. Most merchants in Africa still operate in local currency. That means even users who directly hold stablecoins eventually need to convert back to mobile money or bank balances to spend locally. The moment that conversion happens, the fee comes back into the system.
That leads to the deeper point. Stablecoins in Africa are not removing intermediaries. They are replacing global intermediaries with local ones. Instead of correspondent banks and international networks, the system now depends on local PSPs, liquidity providers, and OTC desks. The structure changes, the speed improves, and costs may fall, but the system remains layered.
Stablecoins are cheap at the protocol layer. They are still expensive at the user layer.
Until users can earn, hold, and spend stablecoins without leaving that layer, zero fees will remain more of a narrative than a reality.
Written from inside Africa with love 🇹🇿💚