Africa crypto market grows 13 percent

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The report notes that Sub-Saharan Africa received $101 billion in on-chain value between 1 July 2025 and 30 June 2026, with the region growing by 13.4% in that period.

Peer-to-peer stablecoin inflows across the region grew more than sixfold, from $2.3 billion in 2022 to $14.6 billion in 2026, while Bitcoin inflows fell 60%, from $36 billion to $14.6 billion. Nzube Ezudo, a former corporate banker who now leads Superteam Nigeria, attributes the split in growth between South Africa and Nigeria to regulatory sequencing, not waning Nigerian demand.

Regulatory Differences

South Africa has treated crypto as a regulated financial product for a few years, which has led to exchanges being licensed, banks dealing with them, and businesses being able to run crypto through their books without fear. In contrast, Nigeria’s regulatory environment has led to a decline in crypto activity, with decentralised exchange activity falling by 45% and cross-border peer-to-peer flows falling by 17%.

Ezudo argues that the decline in Nigeria’s crypto activity is not due to a loss of interest, but rather a change in the routing of value. He notes that domestic centralised exchanges now take half of Nigeria’s centralised exchange inflows, up from 27% in 2025 and just 7% in 2022. Some of this shift is real and healthy, Ezudo says, as licensed local platforms offer better naira liquidity and faster payouts.

However, Ezudo suspects that some of the activity has moved out of public view, into over-the-counter desks, merchant networks settling off-chain, and WhatsApp and Telegram trading groups. He believes that over time, Nigeria will see the same institutional lift that South Africa is enjoying now, and that the goal should be to make the regulated route so cheap and easy that there is no reason to leave it.

Stablecoin Adoption

At the regional level, stablecoins are doing more of the work, but Chainalysis found that Bitcoin still accounted for 92% of Nigeria’s small domestic wallet transfers below $10,000. Ezudo notes that Nigeria’s formal services are growing, but its P2P habit remains distinctly Bitcoin-driven. He believes that the drivers of growth in smaller West African markets, such as Ghana and Senegal, are not only speculative, but also driven by demand for cheaper, faster payments across West Africa and with the diaspora.

Ezudo’s test for sustainability is simple: does the volume survive a quiet market? If the numbers hold while prices go sideways next year, it is adoption, he says. If they fade, it was a moment. He is leaning towards adoption because stablecoins, not volatile tokens, are doing more of the work. Across the $101 billion regional market, most volume is still savings and value preservation, Ezudo concedes, but merchant settlement is the smaller slice, and it is the fastest-growing one.

Cross-border crypto payment routes in Africa nearly doubled in the past year, rising from 80 to 152 corridors, with their total value tripling from $34.3 million to $116.5 million. Ezudo argues the focus must shift from crypto as a savings tool to crypto as a payment infrastructure, particularly as the informal sector—where much intra-African trade occurs—leads the adoption curve. Scaling further won’t hinge on blockchain speed, he says, but on practical solutions like local cash-out options, business-friendly tools, and built-in compliance.

The core challenge isn’t transaction speed or blockchain efficiency, Ezudo states—Solana already settles transactions in under a second for pennies. The bottleneck lies in the ‘last mile,’ ensuring regulated pathways are as cost-effective and user-friendly as unlicensed alternatives, while providing the necessary infrastructure to support growing trade between African nations.

Three key factors pushed traditional finance toward stablecoins, Ezudo explains: customers abandoned legacy systems, regulators clarified rules, and global institutions signaled acceptance by adopting stablecoin-based solutions. When Visa and major U.S. banks adopted dollar-pegged tokens, the reputational risk of engaging with them vanished, and the risk of exclusion became far greater. Banks now prioritize stablecoins for their dollar liquidity and speed, sidestepping Bitcoin’s price volatility entirely.

Meanwhile, regional experiments with local-currency stablecoins are underway in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania, including a potential cedi-backed model in Ghana that would allow users to receive local currency without holding crypto.

This model could potentially increase the use of local currency stablecoins for domestic and regional trade. Ezudo believes that regulating stablecoin activity and encouraging local currency stablecoins could help plug these rails into national payment systems.

Regulating Stablecoins

In July 2026, Nigeria‘s President Bola Tinubu signed an Executive Order on Virtual Asset Coordination, creating a council to harmonise how regulators treat virtual assets, including stablecoins. This move aims to coordinate rules and regulate stablecoin activity.

Ezudo notes that central banks are right to worry about the impact of stablecoins on monetary policy. However, he believes that stablecoins are a symptom, not the cause, of people reaching for dollars when local currency is unstable or hard to move.

The best defence of a local currency is a stable currency that is easy to use, Ezudo says. If central banks get that right, stablecoins can carry their currencies instead of replacing them. On 1 September 2026, 21 global financial institutions committed to establish a company to issue a United States dollar stablecoin.