New Industry Brief on Stablecoin Adoption and Infrastructure Trends Across African Markets

Stablecoins are reshaping African finance, and institutions now demand compliant, modular infrastructure to move value at scale across borders.

PARIS, FRANCE, December 4, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Arrel today announced new details on the deployment of its non-custodial infrastructure components, AAMP and Arrel Pay, as part of expanding institutional activity in Africa’s digital-asset ecosystem. The announcement comes amid rising stablecoin usage, increased regulatory engagement, and growing interest in infrastructure systems designed for custody, compliance, liquidity access, and settlement.

Stablecoins now play a significant role in financial workflows across several African markets. Banks and payment service providers use them to manage FX exposure and shorten settlement timelines, while startups rely on them to provide access to global financial services and reduce operational bottlenecks. Sub-Saharan Africa processed more than 100 billion dollars of on-chain value over the past 12 months, reflecting the scale at which digital-asset activity is taking place across the region.

As volumes increase, institutions are prioritizing systems that integrate custody providers, compliance engines, and liquidity venues in a transparent and controlled manner. Interest continues to grow around infrastructure that can support regulated environments and operational continuity. This shift aligns with broader global trends in institutional digital-asset adoption.

As part of today’s announcement, contextual industry data is included below.

=== What VCs are currently Investing in African Startups ===

Available market activity shows sustained investor participation in settlement, liquidity, and infrastructure platforms. Global investors remain active across foundational digital-asset categories, including:

• Andreessen Horowitz, investing across infrastructure, Layer 1s, and stablecoin ecosystems
• Polychain Capital, supporting early-stage protocol and infrastructure teams
• Polymorphic Capital, focusing on execution and settlement systems
• Firstminute Capital, active at the intersection of fintech and digital assets

Africa-focused investors are also deeply engaged, backing companies building regulated and high-volume financial systems, including:
• Raba Capital
• Future Africa
• Launch Africa Ventures
• TLcom Capital
• 4DX Ventures
• Musha Ventures

Strategic investors and corporate venture groups maintain significant involvement in infrastructure categories:
• Visa Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Tether
• CVVC Africa
• Blockchain venture arms such as Stellar Enterprise Fund and RippleX Ventures
• Exchange-related funds including Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, and Binance Labs

These groups represent a broad range of capital participating in the development of custody, compliance, and settlement systems across African and global digital-asset markets.

=== What are investors focusing on when backing startups ===

Investor priorities remain aligned around operational value. Core areas of evaluation include platforms that can:
• Provide reliable access to dollar-denominated value
• Enable predictable cross-border settlement
• Reduce remittance and treasury processing costs
• Integrate compliance functions within standard workflows
• Provide access in underserved regions
• Support digital-asset deployment without increasing operational complexity

Capital continues to flow into platforms addressing these requirements at meaningful scale.

Consolidation Among Global Infrastructure Providers

The digital-asset sector has also experienced consolidation as global firms acquire infrastructure providers operating in regulated environments. Notable recent acquisitions include:
• Stripe acquiring Bridge and Privy
• Chainalysis acquiring Alteryra, Hexagate, and Nash
• Ripple acquiring Rail.io, Metaco, HiddenRoad, and Palisade
• Circle acquiring Hashnote
• Coinbase acquiring Utopia Labs, Echo, Liquify, and Deribit

These transactions highlight the continued emphasis on institutional tools used for compliance, execution, settlement, and infrastructure reliability.

=== Arrel’s Participation in the Infrastructure Segment ===

Arrel is part of the group of companies developing non-custodial infrastructure used by institutions working across multiple markets. Its architecture integrates MPC custody providers such as Fireblocks through a single orchestration layer, allowing institutions to maintain full control of their assets while coordinating custody, compliance, liquidity, and settlement processes.

Arrel’s Digital Asset Platform provides access to MPC custody options, compliance tooling, multi-venue liquidity routing, automated treasury functions, and wallet creation across more than ten blockchains. These components support institutions aligning their operations with regulatory requirements and technical standards across different jurisdictions.

A practical example can be seen in how a PSP processes merchant payments. Using Arrel, the PSP can receive stablecoins, perform KYT screening in real time, convert across liquidity venues, route settlement, and access fiat off-ramps without maintaining separate custody or compliance systems. Arrel coordinates these workflows while the institution retains full control of its assets.

Arrel has processed 3.5 billion dollars in historical orchestrated volume and more than 250 million dollars in verified transactions since 2024. Its modular architecture provides a single API through which institutions can access specific infrastructure components or the full platform. As part of its ongoing deployment, Arrel is introducing two primary components:

• AAMP, a system supporting portfolio monitoring, execution tooling, and governance workflows for asset managers
• Arrel Pay, an interface for businesses and PSPs managing stablecoin transactions with KYT and fiat conversion capabilities

The Arrel team has worked together for nearly two decades across payments, treasury systems, and high-volume execution environments.

=== Executive Commentary ===

“Institutional focus is shifting toward orchestration,” said Nicholas Allen, CEO of Arrel. “As firms grasp each layer of the value chain, they see the gap between digital asset infrastructure and business outcomes. Arrel’s middleware unifies custody, liquidity, and compliance to unlock scalable value.”

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