What To Know:
- AfCFTA and the IOTA Foundation launched ADAPT, a digital trade system featuring stablecoin settlement and shared infrastructure for 55 economies.
- Pilots in Kenya and Rwanda cut paperwork by up to 60%, reduced clearance times to 30 minutes, and logged about 100,000 daily ledger transactions.
- Stablecoin adoption is accelerating, with Nigeria posting 22 billion dollars in annual volume and South Africa recording 50% month-on-month growth.
The African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat and the IOTA Foundation have launched a digital trade initiative that places stablecoin-based settlement at the center of a broad modernization effort. The program, known as the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT), will provide a shared, open-source digital infrastructure for 55 African economies. The initiative was formally unveiled on Monday in collaboration with the Tony Blair Institute and the World Economic Forum.
Africa Advances Its Stablecoin Plan for Digital Trade
ADAPT focuses on instant cross-border payments, verifiable digital trade documents, and interoperable digital identities. These components form the core of a system that seeks to compress processing times, reduce fraud, and replace analog record-keeping. According to officials working on the project, stablecoins are expected to be an important driver of adoption. USDT is positioned to serve as the primary settlement asset during the initial rollout.
The AfCFTA Secretariat and IOTA Foundation launched the ADAPT digital trade initiative with the Tony Blair Institute and WEF, introducing USDT-based cross-border settlement and standardized digital trade documents/IDs. The program will expand from 2026, aiming to cover all 55…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) November 17, 2025
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Dominik Schiener, founder of the IOTA Foundation, said the groundwork for digital documentation has already been completed through previous pilots. He noted that the program is now designed for real-world payment activity. Schiener added that IOTA intends to support tokenization of physical assets that are relevant to African trade, including commodities and critical minerals. He stated that the system will incorporate cross-border payments using stablecoins to facilitate low-cost settlement.
The introduction of ADAPT comes during a period of increasing regulatory clarity for stablecoins in major financial centers such as the United States and Hong Kong. Clearer rules have supported institutions that seek predictable payment rails, and stablecoin volumes have risen sharply over the past year. African policymakers view this period as an opportunity to reduce reliance on fragmented financial infrastructure and integrate directly with rapidly expanding digital settlement systems.
Current inefficiencies highlight the scale of the challenge. African traders face an estimated 25 billion dollars in annual payment transaction fees. Document fraud adds billions in losses each year. A single shipment may require more than 200 paper documents shared among dozens of parties. Border agencies often work across multiple disconnected systems, as seen in Kenya where officers previously logged into 13 platforms to verify a single consignment.
Pilot deployments in Kenya and Rwanda delivered notable results. Kenyan exporters have reduced printing and documentation costs by approximately 400 dollars per month. Freight forwarders cut manual paperwork by up to 60 percent. Border clearance times dropped from six hours to around thirty minutes. Kenya now records roughly 100,000 daily transactions on IOTA’s distributed ledger.
ADAPT will begin with Kenya, Ghana, and a third country expected to be selected from North Africa. The program is scheduled to expand across the continent by 2026 and aims to integrate all AfCFTA members by 2035. AfCFTA estimates that digitalization could double intra-African trade, generate 23.6 billion dollars in yearly economic gains, and support 70 billion dollars in additional trade value.
Schiener said that digital trade finance could provide immediate benefits for exporters and producers. He cited the example of a miner in Rwanda who could access onchain trade finance at half the usual cost and receive payment almost instantly through USDT. He argued that linking real-world assets and settlement mechanisms to distributed ledgers could strengthen the industry’s long-term relevance.
Stablecoin usage across the continent is rising rapidly. A report by Yellow Card noted that stablecoins account for 43 percent of all digital asset transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria leads with more than 22 billion dollars in stablecoin transaction volume last year and a 59 billion dollar digital asset market valuation. South Africa is the fastest-growing market, posting monthly volume growth of about 50 percent since late 2023. Nearly six million South Africans now hold stablecoins.
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