Johannesburg-based VALR, Africa's largest crypto exchange by trade volume, announced on April 9 that it has connected its platform to the Onafriq payments network. The integration allows users to deposit local currency from mobile money services including M-PESA and MTN Mobile Money, then access Bitcoin and over 100 crypto assets. Onafriq, formerly known as MFS Africa before a November 2023 rebrand, operates across 43 African markets and links approximately one billion mobile money wallets.

How the On-Ramp Works

The technical flow is straightforward. A user logs into VALR, selects their local fiat currency, chooses mobile money as a payment method, selects Onafriq as the provider, and confirms a prompt on their phone. Deposits settle in seconds to minutes, with a cap of $300 per transaction. All incoming funds are first converted to a stablecoin (USDC, USDT, or EURC) before being routed into the user's chosen crypto asset. That stablecoin-first architecture means the integration effectively makes fiat-pegged digital currencies (USDC and USDT are pegged to the US dollar; EURC is pegged to the euro) the settlement backbone for every mobile money deposit on the platform.

Supported currencies at launch include the Kenyan Shilling, Nigerian Naira, Ghanaian Cedi, Ugandan Shilling, Zambian Kwacha, Congolese Franc, Tanzanian Shilling, and Central African Franc. Once funded, users can access spot and margin trading, tokenized real-world assets such as gold, equities, and private credit, yield products, and VALR Pay, the platform's peer-to-peer and merchant payments tool.

VALR co-founder and CEO Farzam Ehsani described the move as a logical extension of how finance already works for most Africans. "Mobile money has already reshaped financial access across the African continent," he said. "By enabling direct connections in local currencies, we offer millions a practical pathway to Bitcoin, stablecoins, tokenised gold, and more."

Onafriq Founder and CEO Dare Okoudjou framed the partnership in terms of network effects. "We are truly excited to welcome VALR onto the Onafriq Network, enabling their clients across Africa to transact freely with the 1bn mobile wallet users and hundreds of thousands of businesses already on Onafriq's network," he said.

Why the Timing Matters

Sub-Saharan Africa recorded $205 billion in on-chain crypto value between July 2024 and June 2025, a 52 percent increase year over year, according to Chainalysis data published in September 2025. The region ranks as the third fastest-growing crypto market globally, behind only Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Stablecoins account for roughly 43 percent of that regional volume, a figure that underscores the region's existing appetite for stablecoins and helps explain the routing architecture VALR has chosen for this integration.

Nigeria sits at the center of the story. Nigerian users generated $92.1 billion in on-chain activity during that same period, nearly three times South Africa's figure, and 89 percent of fiat-purchased crypto in Nigeria was Bitcoin. The country experienced acute naira devaluation in early 2025, which tends to push demand for dollar-denominated assets. With only about 45 percent of Nigerian adults holding bank accounts, mobile money is the primary digital financial channel for large portions of the population. Onafriq's presence in Nigeria includes a network of more than 400,000 agents, a scale that gives the partnership meaningful reach beyond smartphone-native users.

Kenya presents a different but equally relevant case. More than 82 percent of Kenyan adults already use digital financial services, largely through M-PESA. The country has high mobile financial literacy, though crypto exchange participation remains in earlier stages of adoption, making it a strong candidate for the kind of simplified on-ramp VALR is offering.

The $300 transaction cap will limit the integration to retail and remittance-scale use cases. That is deliberate. VALR holds dual licensing from South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority, covering both standard crypto asset services and discretionary portfolio management (FSP #53308), and was among the first exchanges in South Africa to obtain this dual designation when it received the license in April 2024. The cap is understood to reflect compliance and risk management requirements rather than any technical ceiling.

Company Backdrop

VALR was founded in 2018 and raised $50 million in a Series B round in March 2022, led by Pantera Capital with participation from Coinbase Ventures. Alameda Research also co-invested in that round; Alameda collapsed in November 2022 as part of the FTX fraud scandal. The exchange now counts 1.7 million registered users and 2,000 corporate and institutional clients. Onafriq, which rebranded from MFS Africa in November 2023, already demonstrated its infrastructure readiness in February 2026 when it and the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System ran the first wallet-based instant Naira-to-Cedi payments between Nigeria and Ghana.

What to Watch

The $300 cap and the initial eight-currency list are among the most immediate constraints on adoption speed, though regulatory environments, smartphone penetration, and user awareness across the covered markets will also shape the pace of uptake. If VALR expands those limits or opens its Onafriq integration to third-party developers building DeFi tools or remittance apps, the network effect could grow significantly. With Africa's mobile money market projected to reach $1.1 billion in market value this year and on-chain volumes continuing to climb, the infrastructure being built now will shape who gets access to crypto financial products across the continent for years ahead.