Author: Insider Editor

A South Africa-based Bitcoin treasury and SME-finance firm Africa Bitcoin Corporation (ABC), now holds 5.0246 BTC in its corporate treasury, according to its real-time analytics dashboard. The company has set an ambitious 2030 target of 21,000 BTC, which would make it the largest African-listed firm holding Bitcoin on its balance sheet. At its current level, ABC has achieved just 0.02% of its long-term goal, highlighting how early the company is in its treasury strategy. Despite the small starting point, ABC is positioning itself to offer shareholders regulated stock-exchange exposure to Bitcoin across South Africa, Namibia, the US, and Germany. Listed…

Hamilton Labs, a blockchain startup focused on digital payments, has received strategic backing from AXIAN to scale its dollar stablecoin infrastructure across Africa. The investment will enable Hamilton Labs to expand its platform, improve transaction efficiency, and support wider adoption of digital currencies in the region. The funding will support the launch of Hamilton’s flagship stablecoin, USDh, and its integration with fintech platforms, enabling African consumers and businesses to access dollar-denominated savings and payment tools. USDh is a dollar-pegged stablecoin backed by USD-denominated government bonds, with the returns from those bonds embedded into the digital dollar. This allows users to…

Co-founder of blockchain infrastructure firm Mysten Labs,Adeniyi Abiodun and his wife, Gloria Abiodun, have launched a $1.3 million endowment fund aimed at training African software engineers, tackling a critical talent shortage in the region’s tech ecosystem. The five-year fund, managed by the Inurere Foundation, will offer student loans to aspiring software engineers enrolled in the Techpreneurship programme run by Semicolon Africa, a Nigerian workforce development company. Participants will gain hands-on experience in advanced programming languages, including Move, which is used for smart contract development. Fintech company Meedl Africa will facilitate the loans. Each student loan will provide roughly ₦5 million…

Getting an academic transcript in Liberia has long been a slow and frustrating process, often involving physical visits, back-and-forth emails, and weeks or even months of waiting. The reliance on manual systems has also raised concerns about the authenticity and security of academic records. TranscriptDove, a new platform developed by EdNova Group, is looking to change that. Launched as part of a broader push to digitise education systems across Africa, the platform provides a centralised system for requesting, processing, delivering, and verifying transcripts. It replaces paper-based workflows with a secure, traceable digital process designed to reduce delays and limit fraud.…

Kenya’s largest banks are entering a new phase of competition, one where growth is no longer driven by bringing customers online but by generating more revenue from those already there. I&M Group’s latest disclosures show just how far the digital shift has gone. The lender says 98% of its customers now transact through digital channels, a figure that signals the industry may have largely exhausted the pool of new digital users. With more than 727,000 customers across five markets and assets of KES 668.9 billion ($5.2 billion), I&M’s numbers offer a clear read on the wider market, particularly among top-tier…

Kenya is moving to bring its fast-growing crypto sector under closer scrutiny, with new draft rules that set out strict requirements for stablecoin issuers and tokenised asset platforms. The proposals, released by the National Treasury on March 19, introduce detailed standards around reserves, disclosures, and operational controls for firms issuing stablecoins digital currencies pegged to fiat or tokenised real-world assets (RWAs), such as property or debt traded in digital form. At their core, the rules aim to formalise oversight of virtual asset businesses and help Kenya exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list. Regulators are also responding to…

Vitel Wireless has deepened its presence in Nigeria’s telecom market with the launch of a non-expiring data service, designed to address long-standing consumer frustrations around data loss and pricing fairness. The new offering, dubbed “Data Wey No Dey Expire”, allows subscribers to retain purchased data until fully consumed, eliminating the time restrictions that typically apply to internet bundles in the country. Speaking at the launch in Lagos, Vitel Wireless Chairman and CEO, Engr. Kenneth Emeka Nwabueze, said the initiative aims to give Nigerians greater flexibility and value amid ongoing economic pressures. “Once users pay for data, they should be able…

Oxygen X Finance Company, a digital lending platform and subsidiary of Access Holdings, has teamed up with the Lagos Food Bank Initiative to support women in underserved communities in Agege. The partnership aims to boost women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion through a sustainable backyard farming program. The initiative provides participants with poultry farming resources, including cages, chicks, feeders, antibiotics, and multivitamins, giving them the tools to generate consistent income. Beyond materials, beneficiaries also receive financial literacy and credit education, covering business management, responsible borrowing, and strategies for scaling their ventures. Speaking on the initiative, Emmanuella Awogu, Brand Manager and…

MTN Group is winding down Ayoba, the messaging and lifestyle app once touted as Africa’s answer to WeChat, as it pivots toward a unified digital platform. The decision, announced in March 2026, is part of a broader reevaluation of how the telecom giant delivers digital services under its Ambition 2030 strategy. The move aims to simplify MTN’s digital ecosystem. Over the years, the company developed multiple standalone apps spanning messaging, content, and financial services. Ayoba, which combined chat, music, games, news, and mobile money into a single “super app,” sat at the centre of this strategy. Rather than scaling that…

Nigeria has earmarked $6.1 million for external consultants to support the rollout of its national fibre expansion project, according to a World Bank procurement report released on March 17, 2026. The funding will cover seven consulting firms and five individual experts engaged across key areas of the project. The engagements are part of the Building Resilient Digital Infrastructure for Growth (BRIDGE) project, a $2 billion initiative aimed at significantly expanding the country’s broadband backbone. The consulting contracts covering transaction advisory, legal compliance, technical planning, and capacity development underscore both the scale of the project and the government’s reliance on external…