Internet Money is the New Money

Hey, Sheriff here 👋 

Today we’re discussing a poorly understood technology that could change how remittance works in Africa: stablecoins.

In 2009, an anonymous person (or people) called Satoshi Nakamoto invented internet money.

 It was a new way to create, store, and use money without banks or cash - just the internet.

They called it Bitcoin.

To this day, we still don’t know who Satoshi is, but it doesn’t matter.

That little project created the crypto market - a $3 trillion market of Bitcoin and many other currencies just like it.

And everyone - people, governments, and companies invested - whether by owning it, supporting it, or wanting to clip its wings.

To some, it’s a casino of imaginary money that fluctuates wildly.

To others, it’s a solution in search of a problem.

But in Africa, crypto is solving big problems.

Africa Gets Crypto

Living in Africa means dealing with awkward financial realities.

When inflation hits 142% in Sudan, savings evaporate.

If the government freezes your bank accounts during protests (like Nigeria during the #EndSARS movement), financial freedom becomes political freedom.

And if you’re in Egypt, where the currency lost 35% of its value last year, finding alternatives is a matter of survival.

So, crypto became a safe haven for millions. It gave them:

• Protection from inflation with assets like Bitcoin

• A shield against currency crashes by letting people hold digital dollars

• And a way to transfer money without needing banks or the Fed.

Between 2020 and 2021, crypto usage in Africa grew by 1200%.

Today, Africa is adopting crypto faster than anywhere else in the world.

But for everyday Africans, crypto’s most practical use case might be the oldest money transfer use case of all…

Sending money back home: The $100 billion problem

Last year, Africans abroad sent over $100 billion back to the continent.

Behind that number are millions of stories:

• A nurse in London sending money for her mother's medicine in Lagos

• A software developer in the US paying for his siblings' tuition in Nairobi.

• A store worker in Dubai, trying to send his kids in Abidjan to school

But in 2025, sending money home is still a big pain.

Western Union - the oldest money transfer company - takes 3 to 7 days to get your money across.

And they tax you heavily. Think 5 to 8%.

Sure, fintechs are fixing this, but they have to deal with:

• Bank integrations across many countries

• Complying with the laws in every country they serve

• And paying the different mediators between the sender and the receiver

While they were a step up over Western Union, they’re sometimes slow, have downtime, and don’t serve every country.

When these apps go down, people who depend on remittance are left stranded.

Enter: Stablecoins

The crypto market is infamous for booms and busts.

But there’s a quieter side that’s now getting louder: stablecoins.

These are digital currencies pegged to real-world assets like the US dollar.

$1 of USDC or USDT today will be worth $1 tomorrow.

And just like the internet, they move at internet speed.

The best part?

They solve a lot of the big hairy problems with remittances.

• No banks needed — just an internet connection and a wallet address.

• Transfers complete in seconds, not days.

• Fees drop from dollars to pennies.

Across Africa, stablecoins are becoming the new way to send and receive money from abroad - and of course, protect and hold wealth.

For instance, when the Ethiopian Birr lost value in 2023, stablecoin use jumped 180%.

And while crypto in Africa used to be dominated by Bitcoin, stablecoins are growing - making up 43% of all transactions today.

And last year, over $30 billion in stablecoins were transacted on African wallets.

That's real utility, not speculation.

But there’s a catch.

Crypto isn’t pretty to look at 

Most crypto apps aren’t built for everyday users.

The whole industry started out on the fringes of tech.

Because of that, its early users were very techy.

So they built products for people just like them.

And now that it’s mainstream, it’s a steep learning curve for everyday people.

• It's full of technical jargon that scares away newcomers.

• Interfaces can be complicated and unintuitive.

• And the risk of errors is high — send money to the wrong address, and it's gone forever.

Imagine explaining to your mum how to set up a crypto wallet, buy USDC, and transfer it using a 42-character address without making a mistake.

Odds are, it’ll be tough.

Yet, adoption in Africa keeps growing.

Because the inefficiency of other methods is a bigger pain than crypto’s bad UX.

It’s worth asking: what if crypto remittances could be as simple as sending a text?

In 2022, these two friends came up with an answer.

A stable way to use stablecoins

Mike Hudack and Simon Amor met while working at Monzo, one of the UK’s biggest neobanks.

Mike was Chief Product Officer, and Simon was a Product Designer.

At Monzo, they saw how the banking system moved money.

And it grew to become the UK’s biggest digital bank.

But while doing that, crypto was rising.

They’d both used stablecoins and saw they were a better way to pay.

So, they asked: “If sending texts is easy, why not money?”

The insight? Make stablecoin transfers so simple, anyone could use it.

No long wallet addresses. No seed phrases. Just something your grandma could use.

You send money in your currency, and they get it in theirs - instant and free.

And they called it Sling Money.

Last year, Caleb caught up with Simon, who introduced him to the app.

In five minutes, Caleb had:

• Opened an account

• Gotten verified

• And received his first transfer (a $50 gift from Simon)

The best part? He withdrew it right into his M-PESA wallet.

Here’s Simon sending $50 (7,000 Kenyan Shillings) to Caleb, with Caleb withdrawing to M-Pesa - all in one minute.

At this point, they both realized - this product was perfect for Africa.

So they decided to set up a launch in Kenya, with Tech Safari’s help.

In November, Sling Money launched at the Latitude59 event hosted by Tech Safari in Nairobi.

And it took off like a rocket.

So fast, that the app actually crashed from the demand.

In ten days, they’d gotten 100,000 downloads.

For the first time, sending money across countries wasn’t long or stressful. It just worked.

And on the back of that success, Sling Money is…

Following the money people

Sling Money’s next stop is Uganda - a country just west of Kenya.

Kenya and Uganda share more than just a border.

They share lives, families, and economies connected by years of trade and migration.

Over 300,000 Ugandans live and work in Kenya, sending money to their families back home.

Both countries trade $1.3 billion annually, mostly between small business owners and individual traders.

This flow of humans and money makes up a strong remittance corridor.

There are many other corridors, like the UK to Nigeria and the U.S. to India.

Today, if I want to send $200 from Nairobi to Kampala using Western Union, it will cost me $20 and take four days.

It’s faster to simply drive the cash there.

Sling Money’s big insight is to power these remittance corridors with stablecoin tech, to make money movement simple, cheap, and fast.

This will make the flow of money simpler, cheaper, and faster.

So…

Let’s go to Kampala 🇺🇬 ?

When Sling Money made its debut in Kenya last year, they didn’t just launch an app.

They built a community, meeting with Kenyan tech people and hosting two big events in Nairobi.

Kampala, Uganda’s biggest city, is up next.

And just like last time, Tech Safari is powering the launch.

We’ll be in Uganda to host two events - a Tech Safari Mixer and a Sling Session.

And as you can expect, it’ll be a blast.

So, if you’re in Uganda, pull up for both events.

And if you need to send money into and across Africa, download the Sling Money app to see what the hype’s about.

We have a welcome gift waiting for you once you make your first deposit.

Crypto is built for Africa.

Sling Money is using it to build a solution to Africa’s big remittance problem - starting with Kenya and Uganda.

And we’re excited to help see it happen.

Do you think stablecoins are a solution to Africa’s remittance problem?

Let us know here.

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on This Week in African Tech.

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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