Need verifiable oracle data for your project?
DIA provides transparent, customizable price feeds across 50+ chains with fully auditable methodology.
8 stablecoins active in Sub-Saharan Africa, across 5 peg currencies (GHS, KES, NGN, XOF, ZAR).
| Coin | Issuer | Peg | Type | Onchain supply | Chains |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| cNGNCompliant Naira (cNGN) | cNGN (WrappedCBDC / Africa Stablecoin Consortium) | NGN | Fiat-backed (non-USD) | 4.1B cNGN | |
| ZARPZARP Stablecoin | ZARP Stablecoin | ZAR | Fiat-backed (non-USD) | 67.6M ZARP | |
| Mento | NGN | Crypto-backed | 64.5M NGNm | ||
| NGNCNGN Coin (NGNC) | Linkio (NGNC) | NGN | Fiat-backed (non-USD) | 19.2M NGNC | |
| Mento | KES | Crypto-backed | 10.3M KESm | ||
| Mento | XOF | Crypto-backed | 5.3M XOFm | ||
| Mento | GHS | Crypto-backed | 276.7K GHSm | ||
| Mento | ZAR | Crypto-backed | 10.9K ZARm |
Sub-Saharan Africa carries the fewest coins of any populated region on this map, and the smallest number of independent issuers behind them. Most of the currencies represented here have exactly one token, and a single protocol issuer accounts for the majority of the roster.
That concentration is the region's defining fact. It means the answer to how a Ghanaian cedi or Kenyan shilling stablecoin behaves is largely one answer, given by one issuer's collateral model, rather than a comparison across a competitive field.
Two genuinely different models sit side by side here, and the difference is larger than it first appears. Mento issues most of the region's currencies, and it runs two backing models. Its documentation states that the protocol reserve backs the dollar and euro units and holds other issuers' fiat backed stablecoins against them, while a collateralised debt position system forked from Liquity v2 lets a currency token be borrowed against the dollar unit instead. When DIA read Mento's reserve dashboard on 5 August 2026, the African tokens were not among the borrowed markets; they were counted in the reserve backed set. Either way the chain ends in the same place, because that reserve holds other issuers' dollar stablecoins. A Mento shilling or cedi is a claim on those, and nothing in the chain touches a shilling or a cedi. Nothing in it produces an attestation either, because there is no offchain balance for an accountant to count.
cNGN takes the opposite route. It is issued by a bank and fintech consortium in Nigeria, structured around naira held in partner institutions, which is a model an outside party could in principle examine.
The Nigerian naira is the only currency in the region with more than one independent issuer, and the South African rand carries a protocol token alongside an independent one. Everything else here is a single coin per currency.
Sources: Mento protocol documentation, collateralized debt positions, Mento protocol documentation, the Reserve, Africa Stablecoin Consortium, cNGN developer documentation, Mento reserve dashboard
Nigeria is the only jurisdiction in this region where a stablecoin's regulatory position can be followed in a primary document, and reading that document carefully changes the answer.
A Securities and Exchange Commission Nigeria circular dated 2 July 2026 names Wrapped CBDC Ltd among firms admitted to its Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme with an Approval-in-Principle. The circular itself states that an Approval-in-Principle is not a final licence. Third party coverage has described cNGN as Nigeria's first licensed stablecoin, which overstates what the circular says.
DIA records the distinction rather than the summary, and treats regulatory standing as separate from reserve disclosure throughout this map. An Approval-in-Principle is a real step and it is not an examination of anyone's naira.
Sources: SEC Nigeria circular, 2 July 2026, Africa Stablecoin Consortium
DIA reads supply for the coins on this page from contract state on the chains it indexes, which is not always every chain a coin is deployed to. cNGN is the clearest case on this page. On the 2026-08-05 snapshot DIA held eight addresses for it, matching the eight deployments in the issuer's own public contract repository rather than a single address taken from an explorer listing. How many of those eight returned a reading has moved between runs, six on that snapshot and seven on the 2026-08-07 one, and the legs that returned nothing are named on the page rather than dropped from the figure. The Bantu leg is unread on both, for want of an RPC endpoint.
The region's protocol issued coins are readable by construction, since their reserves and their supply are both onchain. What is missing across the region is not data but disclosure: outside Nigeria, there is very little published about reserves at all, and the map records that as an absence rather than filling it in.
Sources: Wrapped CBDC contract repository, Mento
Not yet, on the primary document. A Securities and Exchange Commission Nigeria circular dated 2 July 2026 names Wrapped CBDC Ltd among firms admitted to the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme with an Approval-in-Principle, and the circular itself states that an Approval-in-Principle is not a final licence. Coverage describing cNGN as Nigeria's first licensed stablecoin overstates what the circular says.
Mento accounts for the majority of the currencies on this page, and its documentation is explicit that only its dollar and euro units are backed by the protocol reserve. The African currency tokens are borrowed against the dollar unit inside a collateralised debt position system, so a Mento shilling is a claim on Mento's dollar unit rather than on shillings. That concentration means most local currency answers in this region come from one issuer's collateral design rather than from a competitive field.
Very few. Protocol issued coins hold reserves onchain, so there is no offchain balance for an accountant to count, and outside Nigeria there is little published about reserves at all. DIA records that as an absence rather than filling it in with an assumption.