Advancing African Commerce: How Bitnob and Tether Are Rebuilding Cross-Border Payment Infrastructure at Scale

"Quite a number of institutions are not playing in this space. The reason the volume is really low is because regulations are not clear. Once that's clear, you can see institutions play and that automatically moves the volume."

"Once regulation is in place we believe that quite a lot of African institutions, individuals will begin to adopt more stablecoin."

"Policy makers want to get an understanding of what it is but they don't know what it is. They want to speak with people who are within that space who are solving the problem."

"We did like a lot of demos for businesses who need a better understanding of our infrastructure. For those who don't understand what we do we can give clarity around that."

"Kenya has been leading the way when it comes to cryptocurrency in Africa. That's why you see that most of these conferences around cryptocurrencies, fintech, are happening in Kenya because it seems to be more of a favorable environment for financial innovation."

"M-PESA has really made it easy. You think about mobile money, you think about M-PESA, and the majority of the African countries are now looking at Kenya as that country that drives financial inclusion, and stablecoin is one of those infrastructures that supports financial inclusion."

"Once the bill is passed in Kenya, you will see quite a number of East African countries following suit, and also other African countries following suit."

"A country like South Africa that has clear regulation in Africa, you could see that there are more institutional players compared to a country like Nigeria. Everybody is paying close attention to what happens with South Africa right now because South Africa has a framework in place."

"Bitnob has been around for like 5 years right now. We started as a DCA app, a dollar cost averaging where people can save in Bitcoin. Then we moved into providing other services via our app."

"In 2022 we moved into providing businesses, infrastructures for them to be able to build. And we've been able to grow from there."

"We shifted from just consumerization to now providing payment infrastructures for enterprise businesses, SMEs and Developers/startups can take advantage of our APIs."

"Right now we provide Bitcoin and stablecoin infrastructure for businesses, enterprise businesses, small businesses who want to expand their reach across Africa, cross-border payments, on-ramp and off-ramp, liquidity and treasury management. These are some of the services which we provide. Plus the consumer-facing app is still available for businesses or individuals to take advantage of."

"The fragmentation that we have within the space is really reduced because of cryptocurrency. So the stablecoin that you collect in Kenya is the same stablecoin that you spend in Nigeria. It's the same money, right? And it's easy for you to be able to accept that."

"Quite a number of global companies are coming into Africa and do not understand the problem that Africans are facing. They come from an institution where the banking infrastructure is good, where disposable income is high, where there is a good regulatory environment, and they adopt that same idea and technology into Africa. That's not going to work."

"Africans are not treating cryptocurrency as a theory. For us it's a practical use case."

"It's how the average African gets to hedge against inflation."

"It's how small businesses get to expand into other African countries."

"It's how we move money."

"Africa is not the richest economy in the world. So if money is coming or going back into Africa we want to keep that amount of money."

"The best crypto products or Bitcoin products in Africa are built by Africans because they've experienced the real-time challenges and they're able to build around that solution."

"What Bitnob is doing is trying to redefine what savings can be beyond you just saving in fiat. You can now save in Bitcoin. If you want to move money from Nigeria to Ghana you can use stablecoin to settle that payment. If you're a business, you want to hedge against volatility of fiat currencies, you can easily move your money from fiat to stablecoin just to be able to hedge against it and anytime you also need to off-ramp and convert into any fiat of your choice whether it is Rwandan francs, Kenyan shillings, Nigerian naira, Ghana cedi, you are also able to do that in a very fast way."

"You think about Kibera slum where quite a number of people are trading in Bitcoin. That's exactly their entry point for Bitcoin. You can see real life use cases."

"I was watching a documentary on BBC where someone said the reason why they prefer to save in Bitcoin is because it secures it for them. Nobody gets to ask you to say 'oh where's the money' and all of that. It's digital money and you can make money with it. You would never have thought about that use case in Europe."

"We are seeing real life cases. People are seeing their problem and they are seeing how stablecoin and Bitcoin is solving that problem and they are building around it. So that's the beauty of what is happening in Africa."

"One of the great use cases is the fact that since I've been in Kenya, with zero cash, I've been able to make all my payments via Bitnob. I do the same for Ghana, I do the same for Uganda, I do the same for Rwanda. Majority of African countries where I do not need to carry cash. And these are some of the use cases of Stablecoin and Bitcoin."

"We also see quite a number of people using the off-ramp because people still spend in cash, people still spend in naira. They're able to quickly off-ramp and convert to local currency to be able to spend in the streets."

"Off-ramp transaction fee in Kenya is free. Same as Nigeria. So transaction when we pay out on Bitnob mobile app is free."

"Quite a number very fast. You understand? Very fast."

"Most importantly, one of the reasons why Africans are beginning to adopt cryptocurrency or stablecoin is because of the rates, the fees, the charges."

"Absolutely not. I mean, I couldn't say this is the reason why there is a dip, but we all know that cryptocurrency is volatile and that has always been there. But it's never anything to worry. I think for quite a number of people who understand the technology, understand the use case, this is the time that they are actually even buying more."

"One of the things I think quite a number of people would assume is the fact that some people, quite a number of institutions, and this is not, I'm not certain, but this can be a reason, borrowed to buy Bitcoin in large volume. Once the price begins to go down, because they want to also make profits, they begin to sell. And once they begin to sell, we get liquidation. We get liquidity in the blockchain ecosystem begins to reduce and that also drives the price down."

"Think about a country like Nigeria. The reason why we are not seeing quite a number of institutions involved in stablecoin is because the regulation is not there."

"A couple of companies were licensed I think two years ago in Nigeria. And you can see that that is introducing institutions into the play."

"A country like South Africa that has clear regulation in Africa, you could see that there are more institutional players."

"Everybody is paying close attention to what happens with South Africa right now because South Africa has a framework in place."

"For Kenya, it's going to be a great opportunity because in this period already, it gives direction to other African countries to want to also follow suit."

"A country like Rwanda, even Kenya I would say, if the regulatory framework is clear then it's easy for institutions to be able to participate."

"If you read the Chainalysis report about the adoption and volume that's being moved in Africa, you can see that the adoption is high but the volume is very low. I think the reason why the volume is really low is because quite a number of institutions are not playing in this space. But once that's clear you can see institutions play and that automatically moves the volume."

"We are looking at banks, other liquidity providers, stablecoin infrastructure. We've seen quite a number of banks wanting to understand what stablecoin is. They are very familiar with the traditional fiat movement from one country to another. How do they integrate this other strategy in making sure that they are not left out?"

"For those who don't understand what we do we can give clarity around that. Quite a number of people used to think about Bitnob as just consumer mobile app. But we shifted from just consumerization to now providing liquidity for infrastructures or institutions or governments for larger organizations and also even policy makers."

"It's pretty new, we are looking for design partners right now but we believe that it's going to be a game changer within the Africa ecosystem for businesses, liquidity."

"One of the things you see within the Africa space is a lot of those policy makers want to get an understanding of what it is but they don't know what it is. So they want to speak with people who are within that space who are solving the problem. I think that is one of the things: a better understanding of what stablecoin is, what are the use cases, what are the impacts."