Are Stablecoins Quietly Powering Africa’s Crypto Growth?
From remittances to savings, stablecoins are showing what real crypto adoption looks like on the ground.
Over the years, crypto adoption has moved from niche to mainstream, with numbers showing just how much people are beginning to trust digital assets. That same trust has also pushed many countries to launch their own central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs.
Of course, part of that comes from a desire for control, and maybe a slice of the growing digital transaction pie, but it still shows how far crypto adoption has come, especially in the stablecoin space. Globally, stablecoins have seen the fastest growth in use. They’re no longer just trading tools as people are using them for everyday transactions, remittances, and even savings. And across Africa, the same pattern is playing out.
Take Uganda, for instance. The country recently kicked off a central bank digital currency pilot as part of a broader tokenization effort. Next door, Kenya is moving closer to formal crypto regulation. Its Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill just passed parliament and now awaits President William Ruto’s signature.
And it’s not just East-Central Africa, but all over sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria led the way back in 2021 as the first African country to launch a CBDC, according to the Overseas Development Institute. Since then, Ghana and South Africa have run pilot programs of their own. Egypt has its eyes on 2030, while Rwanda is still in the research and public consultation phase.
A look at the numbers paints an even clearer picture. Between July 2023 and June 2024, Nigeria received $21.8 billion worth of stablecoins, leading the continent by a wide margin. South Africa followed with $13.5 billion, while Ghana ($3.9B), Kenya ($3.3B), Zambia ($2.2B), Ethiopia ($2.0B), and Uganda ($0.7B) rounded out the top seven (via Chainalysis).
Those figures tell you something important—stablecoins aren’t just hype in Africa. They’ve quietly become part of daily life. People use them to send money home faster and cheaper, to pay suppliers, or to protect their earnings from currency swings. In many ways, they’re solving real financial problems that traditional systems haven’t.
If anything, Africa’s rapid stablecoin adoption highlights a bigger truth: everyday Africans are already showing what real-world crypto adoption looks like. Stablecoins might not make headlines every day, but they’re reshaping how money moves across the continent, one transaction at a time.
David Adubiina
