Africa Leads Global DeFi Adoption With 95% Retail Usage

In Western Europe and North America, decentralized finance, commonly referred to as DeFi, is predominantly viewed as an investment opportunity. Asset managers in this space are promoting a variety of products, including staking, yield strategies, thematic ETFs, and even products that track meme coins tied to political sentiment. Billions of dollars are being invested in financial engineering for these products and services. In contrast, across Africa, blockchain technology is being utilized not just as a speculative asset, but as a store of value and a gateway to essential financial tools where traditional systems are lacking.

The African continent is home to the youngest and most digitally connected populations on Earth, with a significant adoption of mobile money. In 2024, Sub-Saharan Africa surpassed 500 million mobile money users, highlighting its mobile-first financial adoption. However, true financial inclusion lags behind, with 51% of adults across Sub-Saharan Africa remaining unbanked. This is not only due to a lack of access but also because they are locked out of tools that enable upward mobility, including remittances, insurance, affordable credit, and safe savings.

Throughout Africa, decentralized finance is not a passing trend but is becoming a practical necessity. Adoption is growing, especially in peer-to-peer uses. In the 2024 Adoption Index, which tracks the use of DeFi and similar technologies, Nigeria ranked second globally, with Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa in the top 30. Sub-Saharan Africa leads the world in retail-focused usage, with 95% of on-chain transaction value coming from transfers below $10,000, with most under $1,000. These aren’t institutional trades or speculative bets, but real people using blockchain for their real needs of preserving savings during inflation, reducing remittance fees, and accessing financial tools that banks and mobile money can’t often provide.

Stablecoins are emerging as one of Africa’s most powerful Web3 use cases. With limited access to local currencies that hold stable value and formal banking, people are turning to dollar-pegged assets like USDT and USDC for utility in important daily transactions, including holding value, cross-border payments, and paying suppliers. Stablecoins now account for 43% of all blockchain transaction volume in the region. These examples reflect real-world usage today, not theoretical use. In Kenya’s Kibera settlement, grassroots projects are enabling peer-to-peer commerce with Bitcoin and stablecoins, helping users avoid mobile money fees and any bank gatekeeping. Yellow Card, a leading African Web3 platform, recently reported major growth in stablecoin-powered transactions across 20+ countries, signaling a broader shift toward blockchain as infrastructure, not investment.

It is a clear signal that across the continent, DeFi is not solely an asset class; it is functioning as financial infrastructure. While global headlines focus on DeFi speculation and regulation, Africa’s most powerful blockchain asset isn’t a coin; it’s its builders. Web3 startups made up 6.4% of all African venture capital funding in the first half of 2024, nearly double the global average of 3.5%. This signals more than investor curiosity; it reflects confidence in African-led solutions to African challenges. Developers from Nairobi to Lagos to Accra aren’t only adopting Web3, they’re building core infrastructure from the ground up. In many cases, they’re skipping legacy systems entirely, designing cross-border remittance tools, decentralized lending apps, and blockchain-based identity protocols specifically for markets that have long been underserved by traditional finance. In Nigeria alone, the number of Web3 developers surged by 28% year-over-year in 2024, making up 4% of all new Web3 developers globally, the highest share of any African country.

Some of the most exciting blockchain projects on the continent are already live. In Kenya, for example, Kotani Pay enables stablecoin transfers via SMS, eliminating the need for smartphones or data plans. Ayoken, a pan-African NFT marketplace, empowers artists and creators to access global revenue streams. Meanwhile, Congo-founded Jambo is building a blockchain-powered “super app” that lets young people earn, learn, and transact, all without relying on traditional financial rails. This is no longer a story of passive adoption. It’s a homegrown movement, funded, founded, and forged by African builders shaping a financial future on their terms.

African builders are taking on Web3 adoption’s most difficult problems first. They are designed based on constraint, not abundance. The breakthroughs happening across the continent are not just about innovation, they’re about necessity. Three challenges stand out: unreliable infrastructure, exclusion from formal ID systems, and the high cost of moving money across borders. In Nigeria, shifting regulations from a 2021 banking ban to 2023 licensing guidelines have spurred developers to build resilient, compliant systems that can adapt to both traditional and decentralized rails. Elsewhere, startups are building tools that reflect the reality on the ground. Fonbnk, for example, lets users convert prepaid airtime into stablecoins without needing a smartphone, bank account, or access to an app store.

High remittance fees also remain a major barrier across Africa, where many depend on money from relatives abroad. Traditional providers are costly, slow, and require bank accounts, often out of reach. Blockchain-based transfers cut fees to under 1%, settle in minutes, and need only a smartphone, offering a faster and more inclusive solution. The challenges aren’t purely technical; they are also social. High youth unemployment and limited public trust in public institutions have created space for risky behavior and speculation. As Future Africa has noted, these patterns often reflect deeper economic needs, not hype chasing. In response, some platforms are adding safeguards, such as spending caps and educational prompts, to protect users. By building for both structural and social realities, African developers are stress-testing blockchain in the toughest environments. In doing so, they are offering a blueprint for financial systems that include those long left out.

Africa isn’t following the hype cycle; it’s building something different: a parallel financial system born of necessity. Across the continent, blockchain is emerging as a practical response to regulatory uncertainty, currency instability, high remittance costs, and exclusion from traditional finance. Stablecoins help preserve value, cross-border tools lower transaction fees, and blockchain fills critical gaps where banks and mobile money fall short. But it’s not only about use, it’s about innovation. African developers are building custom infrastructure and tools tailored to local realities, despite challenges like unreliable connectivity, shifting regulations, and complex social dynamics. They’re pushing the boundaries of what blockchain can do, under conditions that stress-test its true utility. If mass adoption is the goal, it’s time to follow the real signals, and all signs point to Africa.