Stablecoins in Africa: Adoption, Rules and Tunisia

Across Africa, dollar-pegged tokens such as USDT and USDC have become a practical tool for saving, paying suppliers and moving money across borders where hard currency is scarce. Stablecoins in Africa are now large enough that regulators from Nairobi to Rabat are writing rules for them. Tunisia, with strict currency controls and a large diaspora, faces the same questions but has not yet answered them.

How big is crypto in Africa?

Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, up about 52% on the previous year. That made it the third-fastest-growing region in the world, behind Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Activity is concentrated:

• Nigeria received over $92.1 billion, nearly three times the next country;
• South Africa, Ethiopia, Kenya and Ghana complete the regional top five;
• monthly volume peaked at almost $25 billion in March 2025, largely driven by Nigerian exchange activity after a currency devaluation.

Retail use is significant. Transfers under $10,000 made up over 8% of regional value, against 6% elsewhere. These figures cover on-chain flows and do not fully capture peer-to-peer and informal trading, so the real picture may be larger.

Why stablecoins and not just bitcoin?

Bitcoin still dominates purchases with local currency in the largest markets: it accounted for 89% of fiat purchases in Nigeria and 74% in South Africa, according to Chainalysis. Stablecoins serve a different purpose. They are used as a dollar substitute.

A review of the data by All Business Africa highlights three main uses:

• Savings protection. In Nigeria, stablecoins act as a dollar proxy amid inflation and restricted access to foreign currency.
• Trade payments. Chainalysis describes multi-million-dollar stablecoin transfers linking Africa, the Middle East and Asia, supporting energy and merchant payments.
• Business on- and off-ramps. Firms such as Yellow Card, which operates in around 20 African countries, convert local currencies into USDT and USDC for companies.

USDT and USDC dominate; euro-denominated tokens remain small.

North Africa: high use despite bans

North African countries do not appear in Chainalysis's Sub-Saharan figures, but they show up in its global ranking. In the 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Morocco ranked 24th and Egypt 26th in the world, ahead of South Africa (28th), according to Morocco World News. Morocco reached this position even though crypto has been officially prohibited there since 2017. The Middle East and North Africa region as a whole saw crypto transactions grow 33% over the same period.

The gap between a formal ban and real use is the central policy problem for North Africa: bans push activity to unregulated platforms and peer-to-peer markets, where consumers have no protection and authorities have little visibility.

Regulators are moving from bans to licences

Several African countries are now bringing stablecoins into the regulated perimeter:

• Kenya signed its Virtual Asset Service Providers Act on 15 October 2025, effective 4 November 2025. The Central Bank of Kenya oversees stablecoins and payment services, while the Capital Markets Authority oversees exchanges. Stablecoin issuers must hold full collateral with licensed Kenyan custodians and guarantee redemption, according to Launch Base Africa. Existing operators have 12 months to get licensed.
• South Africa classified crypto assets as financial products, and Absa, one of its largest banks, has turned to Ripple for digital asset custody.
• Nigeria has moved towards formalisation with licensed exchanges, although enforcement remains uneven.
• Morocco published a draft law in November 2025 that would give Bank Al-Maghrib responsibility for stablecoins.

Stablecoins also compete with public projects. Afreximbank's Pan-African Payment and Settlement System launched an African Currency Marketplace in July 2025 for direct exchange between African currencies, as explained in our piece on PAPSS.

Where Tunisia stands

Tunisia has no dedicated crypto law. In 2023, a preliminary draft of a new foreign exchange code from the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) stated that crypto-assets do not have the legal status of a currency. In March 2024, the finance minister said the draft code would allow Tunisians to hold and trade crypto, subject to BCT authorisation and a financial threshold, according to Managers.

That government draft was never adopted. Instead, a 91-article bill to replace the 1976 foreign exchange law, filed by 45 MPs in October 2025, was still under committee review in June 2026, according to La Presse. Until a new code is passed, buying stablecoins with dinars sits outside any clear legal framework, and foreign exchange rules still apply. Our explainers on the legal status of crypto in Tunisia and FX code reform follow the debate.

What it means for Tunisian founders

• Demand exists for the same reasons. Freelancers paid in foreign currency, importers and diaspora families face currency constraints similar to those driving stablecoin use elsewhere.
• Regulation is the bottleneck. Without a licence category, Tunisian startups cannot legally build on- and off-ramps, and users are left with offshore apps and peer-to-peer deals.
• Kenya and Morocco offer templates. Split supervision, with the central bank on stablecoins and the market regulator on exchanges, plus full reserve backing, is becoming the African norm.
• Remittances are the obvious use case, but only within a legal framework. See our analysis of diaspora remittance channels.