Over 1,600 attendees from 64 countries packed the Sarit Expo Centre for Africa Tech Summit on February 12-13, 2025. Bitnob came as Silver Sponsor with the goal to show African businesses how stablecoin rails actually work.
The eighth edition brought together 800+ companies across Africa’s tech and finance ecosystem, builders, investors, and industry leaders charting the future of African technology. For Bitnob, a company building stablecoin payment infrastructure for businesses across Africa, this was the right platform to connect with businesses facing cross-border payment challenges and demonstrate practical solutions.
Our CEO Bernard Parah showcased a new product to the attendees,, while our Growth and Marketing Manager Damilola Robert joined a panel on “Africa Isn’t Your Beta Test: Why the Continent Is Writing the Crypto Playbook”
As Silver Sponsors of Africa Tech Summit 2025, we demonstrated our commitment to advancing conversations around stablecoin infrastructure and cross-border payments in Africa.At our booth, Founders and business owners stopped by to discuss their cross-border payment challenges: expensive fees, slow settlements, unreliable banking rails. We also engaged with developers and technical founders interested in building on top of Bitnob’s payment infrastructure, exploring how our APIs could power their specific use cases.
Bernard Parah on How Borderless Money Can Transform Africa
On Day 1, our CEO and Co-founder, Bernard Parah, took the stage to present “Hedge”enterprise-grade Financial Infrastructure., an Hedge is a non custodial, enterprise-grade financial infrastructure platform that empowers institutions to operate securely across wallets, exchanges, and blockchains.
Hedge does not hold customer funds, it provides a full suite of infrastructure tools that enable organizations to manage their treasury operations, move funds across crypto and fiat rails, access market intelligence, interact with blockchains, and scale their overall financial workflows; without building complex systems from scratch.
Damilola Robert Joins Panel: “IAfrica Isn’t Your Beta Test: Why the Continent Is Writing the Crypto Playbook”
In a panel discussion moderated by Busha, Bitnob’s Growth and Marketing manager, Damilola Robert, joined alongside representatives from Co-Founder & CPO, VALR and Business Operations Manager , Busha. The discussion tackled questions about what African users actually need versus what global crypto products are shipping to the continent.
The panel highlighted how Africa is often treated like a beta test by global crypto companies. But the reality is different; Africa is one of the most production-grade crypto markets in the world.
On what works in Africa, Damilola pointed out;
“The most successful crypto platforms in Africa didn’t ask, ‘How do we bring ‘DeFi here?’ They asked, ‘How do we fix broken money?’
The panel discussed how African users trust proof first (that money arrived, that withdrawals work, that support responds), people second (community and word-of-mouth), and platforms last. Brand names matter less than operational reliability. The single failure that causes permanent user loss is locked or delayed funds without communication, and stablecoins are succeeding in Africa because people need protection from inflation, FX scarcity, and broken banking rails.
At Our Booth, we spoke with:
- E-commerce businesses trying to pay suppliers and receive payments from customers globally
- SaaS companies receiving subscriptions in dollars but paying local teams in multiple currencies
- Remittance operators are exploring whether stablecoin rails could replace their existing infrastructure
We also connected with developers interested in building on Bitnob’s infrastructure. Our developer-first approach, comprehensive documentation, and robust APIs make it possible for teams to build custom payment solutions for their specific use cases.
Conclusion
The future of cross-border payments in Africa is being built right now. It’s being built by businesses that refuse to accept slow, expensive, unreliable payment systems as inevitable. It’s being built by developers creating new financial products on stablecoin rails. It’s being built by infrastructure companies like Bitnob that are making it all possible.
If you’re a business ready to explore stablecoin payments, visit bitnob.com or check out our developer documentation. If you’re building something and need payment infrastructure, we’re here to help. Africa isn’t a beta test. It’s the future of how the world will move money. And that future is already here.
