Who controls the infrastructure behind Africa's $205 billion cryptocurrency market?

Nigeria's crypto-asset inflow reaches US$59 billion. Analysis of the current situation of node infrastructure in Africa

According to the latest recorded data of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from July 2023 to June 2024, Nigeria received approximately US$59 billion in crypto-asset inflows. However, at the infrastructure level, the situation is quite different. Ethereum public node tracker Ethernodes shows that there are only about 28 nodes across the entire African continent, compared with a global total of about 8,000. Nodes are computers running blockchain networks such as Ethereum. Although African users are rapidly adopting the technology, the identity of its underlying operators is difficult to determine.

Nigeria is the most representative case. The IMF pointed out in a report released on June 16 that since 2019, Nigeria has accounted for approximately 60% of stablecoin inflows to sub-Saharan Africa. The fund linked this demand to a significant devaluation of the naira, high inflation and limited foreign exchange access in 2023 and 2024.

Technical architecture behind stablecoin transfers

Tether的USDT和Circle的USDC等稳定币是与美元挂钩的代币。从拉各斯或内罗毕的手机发送一枚USDT，涉及多个层级：区块链本身、连接钱包的节点、托管应用程序的云服务器，以及发行代币的公司。大多数应用程序并不运行自己的节点。以太坊文档指出，开发人员通常从Alchemy、Infura、QuickNode或Blockdaemon等服务提供商处租用访问权限，这在一定程度上实现了产品中心化。文档还提到，更换提供商通常只需更改一行代码。

目前，公开信息中难以找到关于非洲加密公司使用哪些服务提供商的具体数据。

非洲拥有多少以太坊节点？

Ethernodes列出非洲约有28个执行层节点，约占全球总数的0.3%。南非以13个节点领先，其次是毛里求斯的9个。尼日利亚有4个节点，全部位于拉各斯，截至10月9日，其中只有1个与网络完全同步。马里和阿尔及利亚各有1个节点。肯尼亚、埃及和加纳则未出现在列表中。

相比之下，美国拥有2,398个节点，德国拥有1,109个。在共识层（其节点负责确认哪些区块被添加），在全球约5,800个节点中，只有南非（30个）和毛里求斯（11个）出现。

It should be pointed out that trackers may miss nodes, and cloud hosting may also hide the true location of nodes. This data only shows where nodes appear to be operating, not who actually controls the network.

Crypto issuers are also located overseas

The IMF said widespread use of U.S. dollar stablecoins may be similar to "digital dollarization." It warned that this could weaken the transmission effect of domestic monetary policy by reducing demand for naira.

Tether is entering distribution in Africa. It invested in Kenya-based Kotani Pay, which connects cryptocurrency users to local payment channels. In addition, Tether and Abu Dhabi based financial technology giant Shiga announced plans to launch autonomous custody products in Africa and the GCC region based on Tether's open source wallet development kit.

According to crypto.news, Tether has not released a list of banks or fintech companies that have agreed to deploy its institutional product Pulse.

African companies take on last-ditch services

If people cannot exchange stablecoins for local currencies, stablecoins are useless. The "deposit" channel converts local currency into stable currency, and the "deposit" channel converts it back. African companies deal mainly with this step. Onafriq operates a payment network that connects banks, mobile money operators and merchants in more than 40 African markets. Circle said that Onafriq now uses USDC through the network and Circle has a commercial partnership with Onafriq.

Kotani Pay, Yellow Card and Quidax do similar work. Neither of them runs the Ethereum network nor publishes USDT or USDC.

Data center ownership

A mapping study released in June 2026 by British consulting firm Data Landscapers showed that the final owners of 306 data centers in 46 sub-Saharan countries have been traced. Of these, 213 (70%) are classified as African-controlled, and 39 (13%) are operated by U.S. controllers, mainly in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.

Hyperscalers (large global cloud providers) exist in 112 of the 213 African control facilities, accounting for 53%. The authors call it a preliminary analysis, which was compiled using AI tools and its own classification, and an April version reached the opposite conclusion.

According to February 2026 data from Intelpoint, the research arm of Techpoint Africa, 21 of the 25 data centers in Nigeria are located in Lagos.

Can African companies switch service providers?

dataset stated that building owners are not the only ones with influence. Tenants, lenders and equipment suppliers also have influence.

The Ethereum documentation states that node providers can replace them with one line of code. However, whether African companies can switch stablecoin liquidity as easily as changing cloud contracts is not yet documented.