Sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa still costs more than 8% on average, according to the World Bank .

For businesses, freelancers and households moving money across borders, the problem is not simply the fee. Traditional payment routes can also involve multiple intermediaries, foreign-exchange constraints and settlement delays.

Stablecoins offer a different route. Dollar-pegged digital assets can move across blockchain networks within minutes, giving users access to a form of digital dollar liquidity without relying entirely on correspondent banking infrastructure.

The scale of usage is becoming harder to dismiss. The 2026 BVNK Stablecoin Utility Report , based on a survey of more than 4,600 users across 15 countries, found that Africa had the highest stablecoin ownership rate among crypto-active users at 79%. More than 28% of African holders said they convert or spend stablecoins within days of receiving them, and 95% said they would prefer to receive income in dollar-pegged stablecoins.

That points to a shift from stablecoins being an alternative asset to being part of how some African users receive, hold and move money.

In this #TechTalkThursday, we examine what is driving this use, where stablecoins are creating value for businesses, and how regulation will determine whether these networks become part of Africa’s formal payments infrastructure.

Stablecoin Activity Is Starting to Reflect How Africans Already Move and Spend Money

The strongest evidence of utility is how people use the assets after receiving them.

The BVNK report found that daily expenses are the primary motivation for stablecoin use among 62% of users in Nigeria and 50% in South Africa. That puts stablecoins closer to payments and money management than to a purely investment-driven crypto market.

The wider African market shows a similar pattern. In Ghana, about three million people, equivalent to 17% of the adult population, engaged in digital-asset transactions in the 12 months to June 2024, according to data from the Bank of Ghana and Chainalysis . Those users processed roughly $3 billion in transaction volume.

Platform activity is also beginning to reflect that demand. Payments platform Timon added 50,000 users in the first half of 2026, matching its combined acquisition over the previous two years. Stablecoins now account for nearly 70% of its transactions.

The significance is not simply that more people own stablecoins. It is that a growing share of that ownership is connected to actual financial activity.

The Business Case Strengthens When Money Has to Cross Borders

For businesses operating across African markets, the attraction is more concrete: moving dollar value without depending entirely on slow and expensive payment corridors.

The World Bank puts the average cost of sending $200 to sub-Saharan Africa at more than 8%. Stablecoin-based transfers can reduce some of those costs and settle within minutes, removing several layers of traditional payment infrastructure.

That matters for the continent’s growing cross-border workforce. The BVNK report found that stablecoins represent roughly one-third of annual earnings for individuals receiving them, with 95% of African cross-border workers surveyed preferring to receive income in stablecoins.

The use case also extends beyond individual workers.

Importers and exporters can use dollar-pegged stablecoins to manage working capital and access dollar liquidity in markets where foreign-exchange availability is constrained. For these businesses, the attraction is less about crypto exposure and more about the ability to move dollar-denominated value when conventional channels are expensive or difficult to access.

“Stablecoins are powerful tools for business efficiency, treasury management, and mitigating FX volatility risk. However, the infrastructure powering them must operate in lockstep with the strictest data protection and AI governance frameworks.”

– Thelma Okorie, Group Data Protection and Privacy Counsel at Yellow Card

 

The Next Constraint Is No Longer Whether Users Want Stablecoins

Usage is developing faster than the systems needed to bring it safely into the mainstream.

African regulators are increasingly moving toward supervised markets rather than outright prohibition. Nigeria has admitted Luno Nigeria into the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme, giving the exchange a supervised route into the market. Ghana, South Africa , Rwanda and Mauritius are also developing or refining frameworks covering virtual assets and stablecoin activity.

The direction of travel is visible in the regulatory data. Yellow Card’s 2025 Regulatory Report  places African markets across four broad categories: established frameworks, developing frameworks, no framework, and effectively banned.

The unevenness matters because stablecoins are inherently cross-border. A company can operate across several African markets, but it does not encounter one regulatory environment.

For Luno Nigeria CEO Ayotunde Alabi, the value of regulatory clarity is therefore commercial as much as legal:

“Admission into ARIP gives us a clearer regulatory pathway, strengthens trust with customers and partners, and provides a stronger foundation for the next phase of our growth.”

-Ayotunde Alabi, CEO of Luno Nigeria 

The question for the market is whether these individual frameworks can eventually work together closely enough to support the cross-border activity stablecoins are being used for.

Dollar Liquidity Creates a New Trade-Off for African Markets

The same feature that makes stablecoins attractive to users also creates a policy challenge.

Dollar-pegged assets provide an alternative store of value and settlement mechanism in markets where local currencies face volatility or businesses struggle to access foreign exchange. But widespread use of digital dollars can also move transactions and savings away from domestic financial systems.

The IMF has acknowledged the efficiency gains from stablecoins, including cheaper and faster cross-border transfers, but has also warned about the risks of digital dollarization , monetary transmission and financial disintermediation.

Its position is significant because it does not amount to a call for blanket prohibition. Instead, the IMF has argued for formal oversight, including licensing of virtual-asset service providers, reporting requirements and consumer-protection measures.

Nigeria is already moving in that direction, with the CBN and SEC developing a joint framework  to monitor crypto activity using blockchain analytics.

This creates a more defined policy question: how can African markets capture the payment and settlement benefits of stablecoins without allowing an alternative dollar-based financial system to develop entirely outside domestic oversight?

Integration Will Determine Whether Stablecoins Become Payment Infrastructure

The next stage is unlikely to be about convincing users that stablecoins have a use case. The adoption data already provides evidence of that.

The bigger test is whether stablecoins can connect efficiently with the financial systems businesses and consumers already use.

The BVNK report found that 91% of African respondents would be interested in accessing stablecoin wallets through their existing banking applications. That suggests users are not necessarily looking to replace banks. They want the speed and liquidity of stablecoin rails within familiar financial services.

That creates an opportunity for banks, payment companies and regulated digital-asset platforms to connect the two systems.

Yellow Card’s Chris Maurice, describes the direction of the market this way:

“Stablecoins have become critical infrastructure for global institutions, and compliant access to the rails and payments is a requirement for companies looking to utilize this technology.”

– Chris Maurice, CEO and Co-Founder of Yellow Card

But integration across borders will remain difficult if payment and regulatory infrastructure develops in isolation.

“Payment infrastructure is what separates platforms that can scale from those that hit a ceiling. Most brokers lack the connectivity to process payments seamlessly across 10+ African markets simultaneously. That’s where the real growth opportunity sits.”

-Bruno Bawa, Lead for African Partnerships at Kora

For Africa, that may be the more consequential phase of the stablecoin story. The market has moved beyond asking whether people will use dollar-pegged digital assets. It now has to determine how those assets connect to banks, payment platforms, regulators and businesses across multiple markets.

Stablecoins are gaining traction because they solve specific problems in Africa’s existing financial infrastructure. Whether they become a durable part of that infrastructure will depend on how effectively the continent integrates them into the systems already moving its money.