Nigeria\u2019s Web3 startups, including crypto, blockchain, and stablecoin-based fintechs, raised $43 million in 2025, doubling the previous year\u2019s figure, according to a report by Hashed Emergent, an India-based venture capital firm that backs early-stage African startups.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report, Nigeria Web3 Landscape Report 2025<\/a>, shows that while capital is returning, it is heavily concentrated: 89% of funding\u2014about $38 million\u2014went to finance products tied to stablecoin use cases, such as payments and fiat-crypto exchanges. Early-stage deals accounted for $13 million, with most activity clustered around pre-seed and seed rounds, underscoring the limited depth of growth capital.<\/p>\n Series A funding returned modestly in 2025 after a slowdown the previous year, with its first deal in two years, according to the report.<\/p>\n The rebound masks an ecosystem still dominated by early-stage bets and a narrow focus on stablecoin-driven payments. That imbalance points to a market still in its formative phase, where startup formation is accelerating faster than scale capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA wave of stablecoin-focused startups is driving increased investment activity across the ecosystem,\u201d said Tak Lee, chief executive officer and managing partner at Hashed Emergent. \u201cThis momentum led finance to dominate. Consumer adoption has also surged, further cementing Nigeria\u2019s position as a global stablecoin hub.\u201d<\/p>\n The funding concentration mirrors a wider shift in Nigeria\u2019s crypto market away from speculation toward utility. Stablecoin adoption is driving much of the activity, with deposits growing more than 9,000% between 2018 and 2025, while on-chain transaction value rose 56% year-on-year to $92 billion, according to the report.<\/p>\n Despite the rebound, the deal volume still tilts to traditional funding avenues, signalling that global venture capital attention has yet to fully return to Nigeria\u2019s Web3 sector.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nigerian Web3 startups recorded 82 deals in 2025, up from 72 in 2024, according to the report. Yet, 73 of those deals were grants, with just one Series A round recorded in 2025. The remaining deals were spread across seed, pre-seed, and token sales, highlighting the early-stage skew and reliance on crypto-based funding rounds.<\/p>\n Sector performance also fell short in 2025. While the finance sector dominated, infrastructure-first startups, including those building stablecoin rails, developer, and payment interoperability tools, raised only $4 million in 2025, down from $11 million recorded in 2024, their peak in the last five years, the report noted.<\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s Web3 entertainment sector, including gaming and social apps, declined to $1 million, down by 50% from 2024.<\/p>\n Investor interest remained concentrated around stablecoin infrastructure, cross-border payments, and crypto-fiat withdrawal services, with limited appetite for emerging categories like gaming, creator platforms, or AI-driven infrastructure.<\/p>\n The shift to utility as trading cools<\/p>\n Crypto usage patterns are also changing. Withdrawal and deposit volumes for both fiat and crypto declined in 2025, signalling a cooling in speculative trading activity, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n More Nigerians are using digital currencies, especially stablecoins, for remittance payments. According to the report, remittance flows between Nigeria and other countries expanded rapidly across intra-African and global corridors, recording transfers to and from Ghana, Kenya, the UK, Canada, China, and parts of Europe.<\/p>\n Stablecoins are functioning as a payment rail rather than a store of value. The report shows that Nigerians recorded an 83% withdrawal-to-deposit ratio on exchanges; out of every $100 received in wallets, about $83 is quickly withdrawn, signalling that stablecoins are becoming money in transit, as users treat them as payment and transactional means, rather than savings.<\/p>\n Get The Best African Tech Newsletters In Your Inbox<\/p>\n Regulation advances, but clarity lags<\/p>\n Across Africa, regulators in countries like Kenya<\/a>, Ghana<\/a>, and Rwanda<\/a> are moving toward formal oversight of digital assets. Nigeria has also shifted toward regulation after years of sidelining crypto firms from accessing the formal financial system. Yet, clarity remains uneven.<\/p>\n Nigeria\u2019s Investments and Securities Act, passed in March 2025<\/a>, formally recognised digital assets as securities under the oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).\u00a0<\/p>\n However, a February Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) white paper introduced a broader approach for crypto oversight<\/a>. Nigeria created the Virtual Asset Regulatory Council (VARC), a multi-agency coordinating body for non-security virtual assets not under the SEC\u2019s purview, including payment tokens, exchange tokens, stablecoins, utility tokens, and other digital representations of value.<\/p>\n The country designated the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor and the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), the country\u2019s tax authority, as co-chairs of the agency, overseeing payment-linked activities in the digital asset sector.<\/p>\n