Digital asset infrastructure provider SCRYPT has expanded its licensed stablecoin settlement network into four East African markets, adding direct local-currency corridors for the Kenyan shilling, Tanzanian shilling, Rwandan franc, and Ugandan shilling.
Cutting Out the Dollar Bottleneck
The expansion allows banks, payment providers, and corporate treasury teams to convert local East African currencies directly into stablecoins without first sourcing US dollars. This addresses a persistent pain point across the region, where dollar liquidity is often constrained, correspondent banking is slow and expensive, and businesses paying international suppliers typically absorb multiple layers of currency conversion costs before a payment even clears.
SCRYPT says the new corridors run on the same infrastructure clients already use for trading, custody, and treasury operations, meaning institutions do not need a separate system to access the local-currency settlement rails.
Company Leadership Frames It as a Response to Real Demand
SCRYPT founder and CEO Norman Wooding said stablecoin adoption across Africa is driven by economic need rather than speculation, pointing to businesses trying to pay suppliers and manage treasury without losing margin to a banking system that rations dollar access. Gabriel Titopoulos, the company’s managing director of markets and trading, added that reaching stablecoins from local African currencies previously meant buying scarce dollars and absorbing several layers of conversion costs, a friction the new corridors are designed to remove.
Part of a Broader Regional Push
The move lands amid a wider scramble among digital asset infrastructure providers to build out stablecoin rails across Africa. Kenyan-based Checker recently raised $8 million to expand a similar stablecoin settlement network across Africa, Latin America, and Asia, while global neobank Fasset raised $51 million to grow its own stablecoin-powered payment corridors spanning Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Stablecoins have become an increasingly central settlement tool across the continent, with adoption climbing fastest in markets facing currency volatility and constrained dollar access.
What About West Africa?
Despite the regional momentum around stablecoin infrastructure, SCRYPT’s current expansion does not extend to West Africa. The four new corridors are limited strictly to East African currencies, and there is no indication yet that Nigerian naira, Ghanaian cedi, or other West African currencies are supported on SCRYPT’s platform.
That gap is notable given how central West Africa, and Nigeria in particular, has become to Africa’s stablecoin story. Nigeria alone accounts for a significant share of stablecoin inflows into Sub-Saharan Africa, driven by naira volatility, persistent foreign exchange shortages, and one of the highest remittance-cost burdens in the world. If SCRYPT were to extend similar local-currency corridors into West Africa, businesses there could gain a licensed, direct route from naira or cedi into stablecoins, cutting out the layered conversion costs that currently push many users toward informal or peer-to-peer channels. It would also give banks and payment providers in the region a compliant alternative at a moment when regulators in both Nigeria and Ghana have moved to formalise oversight of digital asset activity rather than restrict it outright. For now, though, that expansion remains a gap rather than a plan SCRYPT has announced.
