In just 5 months since its launch, Opera MiniPay is celebrating its milestone of 1 million users across Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. One can say that this is a sign that more Africans are adopting DeFi tools and the platform is gaining popularity on the continent.
What is Opera MiniPay?
The MiniPay is a self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet specifically for dollar stablecoins such as cUSD, a stablecoin running on the Celo Blockchain network.
What makes this a stablecoin is the fact that its value links to a list of currencies. In other words, it is decentralized.
According to the product director of MiniPay, Charles Hamel, the wallet allows users to use mobile phone numbers to easily send, receive, and acquire cUSD stablecoins at affordable rates.
The use of cUSD is to eliminate currency volatility and rapid devaluation, which currently affects a number of African countries such as Nigeria, and provides a stable value for the funds.
In that case, providing countries suffering from hyperinflation an alternative to traditional financial services.
Since 2023, the trend of African countries rapidly losing their currency value has been too glaring to ignore. Starting off with the highest loser is the Nigeria Naira, which lost over 55% of its value in 2023 and still going down in 2024.
Next in line is the Angolan Kwanza losing 39%, then Zambian Kwacha at 29%, the Burundi franc at 27%, the Congolese franc at 24%, and the Kenyan shilling at 20%. At the moment, most of these currencies are still on a downward spiral.
In terms of cross-border business transactions, African countries are taking big negative hits because of the currency devaluation happening across the board.
This is why African DeFi-backed financial startups are springing up to assist businesses in closing the African MSME Funding gap.