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Date:
25 August 2026 4:01pm WAT
Nigeria’s growing cryptocurrency sector is being confronted by rising hurdles in cross-border payments and tax compliance, as increased adoption of digital assets exposes gaps in the infrastructure needed to support their wider use in the economy.
The development has prompted fintech entrepreneurs and digital asset companies to shift attention beyond cryptocurrency trading to building payment and compliance solutions that can support businesses and consumers operating within an increasingly regulated market.
One of those driving the shift is Opeyemi Akinremi, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Ivorypay, a fintech company developing stablecoin-based payment infrastructure for African markets.
Akinremi’s approach has evolved from financial education to payments and, more recently, regulatory technology, reflecting some of the major challenges confronting the continent’s rapidly expanding digital asset ecosystem.
Africa has become one of the world’s fastest-growing markets for cryptocurrency adoption, driven partly by currency volatility, limited access to formal financial services and the high cost and difficulty of conventional cross-border transfers.
Yet increased adoption has also exposed gaps in the infrastructure needed to make digital assets useful for everyday commerce, particularly for businesses that need to receive, convert and transfer money across different African markets.
It is a gap Ivorypay has sought to address by developing payment rails that enable businesses to use stablecoins while connecting transactions to local payment systems.
Akinremi’s journey into the sector began before blockchain. An alumnus of Rome Business School, he started his career at the African Center of Excellence at Obafemi Awolowo University, where he worked around research, financial education and financial capability.
That experience informed his belief that financial inclusion required not just products, but the knowledge, infrastructure and tools needed to enable people to participate in formal financial systems.
In 2019, he founded Finance Bridge Academy, a digital financial literacy platform that equipped African youths with practical knowledge of trading, financial markets and online income opportunities.
The platform attracted international interest and was acquired in April 2021 by Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, Cryptolocally.
The acquisition marked a turning point in Akinremi’s career, moving him from financial education towards building infrastructure for participation in the financial system.
Later in 2022, he co-founded Ivorypay to tackle the practical difficulties businesses face when making cross-border payments, particularly in markets where conventional systems can be slow, expensive or difficult to access.
Rather than concentrating on cryptocurrency trading and speculation, Ivorypay has focused on stablecoins as a payment mechanism, allowing businesses to accept, convert, hold and move digital value while interacting with local payment systems.
The company has since expanded its infrastructure across Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, processing hundreds of millions of dollars in transaction volume.
Its development has also attracted backing from investors including Crypto Valley Venture Capital and Hedera, as well as partnerships with industry participants such as Tether and Telegram.
In 2025, the company expanded its consumer offering with the launch of Duffle, an application that enables users in Nigeria to pay for goods and services using stablecoins.
But while payment infrastructure addresses one of the sector’s major constraints, the growth of digital assets has created another challenge, which is compliance.
As regulators across Africa, including Nigeria, develop clearer frameworks for virtual assets and taxation, cryptocurrency businesses and users increasingly need tools to understand and meet their obligations.
It was against this backdrop that Ivorypay launched Caesar.africa, an artificial intelligence-powered platform designed to help individuals, cryptocurrency exchanges, Web3 wallet providers and other digital asset businesses estimate and calculate their tax obligations.
Akinremi has also participated in the wider debate over cryptocurrency taxation in Nigeria. In an August 2026 interview with TechCabal, he discussed the country’s evolving tax rules and their implications for cryptocurrency traders and businesses.
The development of Caesar.africa therefore represents another stage in the evolution of Akinremi’s work, from addressing the knowledge gap through Finance Bridge Academy, to payment infrastructure with Ivorypay, consumer access through Duffle and, now, compliance through Caesar.africa.
Source: guardian.ng