Minisend to Handle Payments at Africa Blockchain Festival 2026

Minisend has been named the official payment partner for the Africa Blockchain Festival 2026, bringing the Nairobi-founded stablecoin startup into the event's payment infrastructure.

The festival runs from October 15th to 17th at Sarit Expo Centre, where Minisend will handle payments as the regional blockchain community gathers in Nairobi.

The product targets a familiar bottleneck: stablecoins can move across blockchains quickly, but turning that digital cash into local fiat remains a headache. While USDC and USDT move across networks like Base, Solana and Arbitrum, a user in Nairobi still needs Kenyan shillings in their M-Pesa account to buy groceries. Businesses face the same hurdle when trying to accept onchain funds without building connections to different blockchain networks and regional payment providers.

Minisend bridges that gap. Its software connects stablecoin flows across more than 20 networks to local payment systems, converting deposits to M-Pesa in Kenya, bank accounts in Nigeria, and mobile wallets in Ghana and Uganda. The team recently landed a $5,000 Base Builder Grant to expand those settlement links and make stablecoin payments easier to integrate into African businesses.

And they've got traction: More than $500,000 processed across 10,000 orders for roughly 1,000 users, with M-Pesa payouts landing in about ten seconds once deposits settle.

Kenya's Virtual Asset Service Providers Act is now in force, and existing digital asset businesses have until November 4 to comply with the new licensing regime. Payment-related virtual asset services fall under the Central Bank of Kenya, while investment-related activities are overseen by the Capital Markets Authority.

For now, it's still day one.