Specifically, Coinbase has formed a partnership with Africa's Yellow Card to extend the availability of its services to 20 African countries, with a focus on facilitating access to the USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin. This collaboration involves the integration of Yellow Card's payment rails into Coinbase, allowing customers in Africa to convert fiat to Bitcoin and USDC on the Ethereum layer-2 rollup Base.
Yellow Card operates in 20 countries, including Nigeria, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania. The partnership aims to address economic challenges in high-inflation and remittance-dependent markets, offering a more economically viable means of transactions in these regions.
The integration of Yellow Card's payment rails will be accessible to African users through Coinbase Wallet, which recently implemented a feature enabling transfers via links from social media platforms such as iMessage, Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram. In addition to USDC, other cryptocurrencies and stablecoins supported by Coinbase will be incorporated.
Highlighting the youth demographic in African markets, Coinbase expressed optimism that the partnership with Yellow Card would contribute to economic opportunities for the continent's younger population. Yellow Card's CEO cited by cointelegraph.com emphasised the potential of stablecoins such as USDC to address real-world problems, citing use cases such as international payments, remittances, and protection against inflation.
While South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Ghana lead in Bitcoin adoption in Africa, the Central African Republic briefly became the first African country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. However, this initiative was short-lived, as the government introduced its crypto token project, Sango Coin, shortly after enacting the Bitcoin law.
In January 2024, Coinbase decided to acquire a European Union MiFID-licenced entity based in Cyprus to improve access to derivative products for eligible customers.
Coinbase's recent efforts are in line with its goals of supporting economic freedom for individuals by focusing on the development and expansion of trusted, compliant financial products and services. Employing the 'Go Broad, Go Deep' strategy, the company is supporting a foundation of clear rules, licences, and registrations to facilitate international expansion, accompanied by the implementation of a Five-point Global Compliance Standard.
Coinciding with this global expansion initiative, Coinbase is in the process of acquiring a European Union MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) licenced entity based in Cyprus at the time of writing.
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