Hybrid "Crypto-Fiat" Platforms are Set to Takeover the African Financial Markets

Regarding cryptocurrencies and its continued growth in certain parts of Africa, Nigeria ranks sixth among the top countries adopting cryptocurrencies. In 2022 alone, despite the CBN ban, 33.4 million Nigerians owned or traded cryptocurrencies, which accounts for 35 per cent of the population aged 18 to 60. Such a dodged market have driven a surge in hybrid crypto-fiat platforms offering everything from fiat-crypto exchange to payments, remittance, investments and more. The trend is the same across Africa where both leading international crypto services providers like Binance and Luno and native exchanges like ChainEx and Chipper Cash are driving financial inclusion and easing transactions through crypto-fiat services. With the demand for financial inclusion, increasing reliance on P2P foreign remittance to African countries, increasing internet usage and crypto/blockchain adoption across the continent, crypto-fiat platforms have a golden opportunity become the market kings, outperforming traditional financial institution and steering a chunk of the market to themselves. Binance is taking a bold step to include services such as airtime and bills payment amongst others, emulating existing fintech platforms in terms of utility. This trend will likely permeate other companies and speculations are that we might see a proliferation of hybrid crypto-fiat platforms. The success of these platforms will be largely dependent on the ease with which they enter into the markets and how efficient their services become, a challenge that business developers and marketers might find appealing. Nonetheless, the facts are that the figures and data are in the favour of hybrid platforms or those who intend to build such platforms —crypto adoption in Africa is growing; the population is youthful; P2P use is on a daily uptrend; and local fiat currencies in most African countries are not performing any better.