Stablecoins in Africa: the overlooked story
“The growth of knowledge depends entirely upon disagreement.” – Karl Popper ||
Hi everyone! I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves. It looks like some of the fires around Madrid are being contained, but temperatures are set to climb today which is not good at all…
👀 You’re reading Crypto is Macro Now, which covers the interregnums we’re living through and the role of crypto in how this all plays out. 👀
📽 Come join me on Thursday for a Press Publish Substack Live chat with Michael Howell, author of the Capital Wars newsletter! More details below.
PUBLISHED IN PARTNERSHIP WITH: ✨ ALLIUM ✨
Another long-running crypto exchange shuts down
On Sunday, BitMart announced it will cease trading on August 26, with a full wind-down by January 31, 2027.
But volumes started surging a couple of days before, especially in BTC/USDT.
→ Book a demo: https://www.allium.so/
IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Stablecoins in Africa: the overlooked story
Markets: FOMC uncertainty
Term of the day: Minsky moment
Crypto is Macro Now offers ~daily commentary and updates on the overlap between the crypto and macro landscapes. Plus links and more.
If you’re a premium subscriber, thank you so much!! ❤
WHAT I’M WATCHING:
✨Press Publish with Michael Howell✨
Join me this coming Thursday for a Substack Live chat with Michael Howell, author of the Capital Wars newsletter which offers market insight you’re definitely not going to get anywhere else – no wonder Substack tells me it’s the #1 newsletter in the UK. Many of you will already be familiar with Michael’s deep expertise in global liquidity flows – his book Capital Wars remains the only coherent explanation I’ve read on how they are both a massive force and a complex machine that moves economies as well as markets.
But we’re not going to talk about any of that. Instead, we’re going to discuss Michael’s writing, why he does what he does, how he juggles his time, what he thinks of publishing platforms, and more. A back-room glimpse into how the insightful output gets made.
👉 Thursday, July 30th – 3pm BST / 4pm CEST / 10am EST – come join us!
Link to livestream: https://open.substack.com/live-stream/294553
Stablecoins in Africa: the overlooked story
Every now and then a report on a stablecoin partnership in Africa will cross my screen, and I take note.
In part, it’s because I grew up in Zambia, and the potential of permissionless payments in the region is what drew me to study Bitcoin more deeply (this was a while ago, before Ethereum). But largely, it’s because the potential to improve African cross-border transfers is underappreciated – not just because of fragmented banking and payments landscape, not just because of the relative lack of legacy barriers (Sub-Saharan Africa leads the world in mobile banking), but also because of spreading regulatory clarity.
This will matter for stablecoin payments, sure, and for digital asset trading – but it will also open the door to some fascinating tokenization use cases, covering new marketplaces, commodity collateral and more.
An example:
