Original Title: Crypto and Fintech Are Colliding. Who Wins, and How?

Original Source: Unchained Podcast

Original Translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's Note: In the ongoing wave of global fintech and cryptocurrency convergence, the story of AZA Finance founder Elizabeth Rossiello provides a rare observation window—she is not only one of Africa's early cryptocurrency infrastructure builders but has also experienced and shaped the structural evolution of African fintech.

This 13-year entrepreneurial journey, starting from Bitcoin and culminating in stablecoins, has taken place from the fertile ground of mobile payments in Kenya to the remittance-intensive markets of Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa, and further to the merger with Latin American titan dLocal. Essentially, AZA Finance has witnessed an early eruption of a trend: in emerging markets, "crypto + fintech" is not the future, but the present.

In this Unchained interview, Elizabeth elaborates on the evolution of the African financial network, the real needs of the remittance market, how to find a liquidity hub between the dollar and local currency, and why stablecoins in Africa are infrastructure rather than speculative tools. At the same time, she also discusses the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs in the crypto industry and how, as a "Global South" company, to achieve autonomy in the global financial landscape.

The following is an excerpt from the interview:

Laura Shin: I remember you were our first guest on Unchained, nine years ago, and although we invited you back a bit late this time, the timing is just perfect as your company has just announced its acquisition by the Uruguayan payments company dLocal after receiving regulatory approval. We are also in the middle of the 'summer of stablecoins,' with the fintech and crypto industries basically competing in the same arena, so it's truly the perfect timing to have you back.

Elizabeth: It's absolutely crazy; it feels like a different world from when we first chatted.

Laura Shin: I recently listened to the first episode, and it was so interesting. You mentioned back then that if someone wanted to remit money to China, they would actually send a person with a bag of cash...

Elizabeth: Yes, that's right. Even when Barry Silbert made the first investment in me, he sent a check directly because there was simply no way to make a transfer. I received a check sent via DHL, with 'Bit Opportunity Fund' written on it, and then my bank sent this check back to the US from Kenya to verify it. I thought it was crazy at the time; it was truly an absurd situation.

African Payment System

Laura Shen: Indeed, so could you describe more about what the African payment system was like at that time? We can also continue to review the changes that have taken place over the past decade. Because to some extent, I feel like you have already experienced the kind of transformation that the United States is just beginning to face.

Elizabeth: The African fintech community often jokes that outsiders always love to say Africa "skipped traditional infrastructure and went straight into the mobile age," and we actually quite dislike that saying. Many investors or journalists would use these words, saying Africa was a blank canvas, and then when technology came in, everything changed. I don't think that is an accurate depiction.

I moved to Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, in 2009, which was just two years after the launch of the mobile payment platform M-Pesa. Although there had been many innovations in the telecommunications sector before, the emergence of M-Pesa truly changed everything. It was able to rapidly spread in Kenya for many reasons, such as government support, the "luck" of the competitive environment, coinciding with the "Kenyan economic boom," and the rise of the middle class, and so on. All these factors combined made that period a golden age dominated by M-Pesa.

I caught this wave, with research institutions, development organizations, private companies, and investors from around the world all focusing on this transformation in Kenya. Even after fifteen or twenty years, if you now attend any digital tech conference about Africa, everyone will start by saying, "Do you know M-Pesa?" It was truly an opportunity to change a generation.

At that time, there was a technology incubation space in the Kilimani area of Nairobi called iHub, with Google being one of the sponsors, like the prototype of Africa's "Silicon Valley oasis." There were only about twenty or thirty people in total, with a cafe where almost the same group of people came every day. There were some cool programming training classes, like AkiraChix, and some Ruby and Rails programmers.

We also held Bitcoin meetups, originally with just me, my co-founder Charlene, along with a few friends like Kelly and Brenda Guard, and some enthusiasts from the crypto community.

We founded BitPesa, which was Africa's first Bitcoin exchange platform that could transact cryptocurrency, and also the world's first Bitcoin exchange platform to directly connect to the mobile payment system. At the same time, as far as we know, it was also the world's first cryptocurrency exchange platform operated predominantly by women—there was me, Charlene, and later Amy. It could be said that we were the early pioneers who laid the first stake.

Later, Barry Silbert learned about our project, and he said, "Come to New York and tell me about it." We met with him, and he also invested in us. Soon after, people from Pantera found out about the news, and Blockchain Capital also got wind of us. Most importantly, at the time, Joe Bishero, who was then the General Manager for Google Kenya and later became a government cabinet minister, also learned about us and made an investment. All of these events took place in November 2013.

Laura Shen: You arrived in Africa in 2009, so in which year did you first encounter Bitcoin?

Elizabeth: In 2013. In the five years leading up to that, I had been working in microfinance. Microfinance, in a way, can be considered one of the earliest forms of fintech—providing banking services through mobile payments. Often, this process was very manual; for example, in Ethiopia, some institutions served hundreds of thousands of customers, all managed manually. But in countries like Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, they were already heavily using mobile payments through services like MTN or mobile financial tools like Kenya's M-Pesa.

My co-founder, Charlene, also worked in this field, focusing on asset financing projects such as providing funding for irrigation and water management. We were truly on the front lines at that time, going to extremely remote areas, engaging face-to-face with fisherwomen, agricultural workers, and livestock keepers, in various villages and huts in Botswana, Malawi, Ghana, to see how technology was truly transforming the financial accessibility of the bankless population.

I spent about five years doing fieldwork and writing numerous research reports, analyzing the operational effectiveness of these projects. Most of the projects were operating efficiently, and the data looked good, but the core issue was the source of capital. After all, the essence of microfinance is "re-lending"—you need funds to lend. And these funds often came from global aid organizations in "hard currency" such as the US dollar.

And that's where the problem lies—how can you operate in a country using the local currency but be burdened with a loan denominated in another currency? I often said if you operate in Kenyan Shillings, but it continues to depreciate against the dollar, how can you possibly repay that dollar-denominated loan?

This became a focal point of discussion in many of my reports at the time and was a direction I was particularly focused on. It wasn't until October 2013 that I first encountered Bitcoin, and I immediately thought that perhaps it could be the solution to bridging currency liquidity.

Perhaps we no longer need to always rely on a hard currency like the US dollar to provide financing for local financial institutions. Maybe we can directly use Bitcoin for inter-currency transactions, such as exchanging it between the Kenyan Shilling and the Nigerian Naira, or the Shilling and the South African Rand. It could even be used to facilitate smoother cross-border transactions within Africa.

Because many of the companies I was serving at the time were not only operating in Kenya but were also active in Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, and several other countries. However, the problem was that there were no convenient cross-border payment channels within the African continent. Within Kenya, using M-Pesa for payments was fast and convenient, almost unbelievably sexy.

I think it was because we had already been exposed to the Lightning Network at that time, coupled with the extreme convenience of mobile payments. I never carried a wallet when going out; almost everything could be paid for with a mobile phone—tuition fees, airline tickets, or even buying a tomato. When my parents or family visited me from New York, they would instinctively pull out their wallets, and I would say, "Put your wallet away, I've already taken care of it."

At that time, we really felt like we were living in the future. But when we needed to make an international remittance, we had to regress to a "past" way of doing things, which felt particularly absurd. Why had no one solved this problem? So we started thinking: What if we layered Bitcoin technology on top of the transaction structure of the local currency market? Would there be an opportunity? These ideas gradually intertwined and eventually led to the founding idea of our startup.

Evolution of Payment Tools

Laura Shen: You just mentioned that initially, you were connecting through Bitcoin. In other words, you initially used Bitcoin as an intermediary technology to allow people in Canada or elsewhere to remit money to Kenya, right?

Can you talk about how this model has evolved? I assume you are now using more stablecoins, and I also noticed that you have integrated a lot of financial technology tools. Can you tell us about the process of this evolution?

Elizabeth: Back then, I was still repaying my student loans and had a USD account with CityBank. I was thinking about how to transfer this money. I tried to initiate a wire transfer through Barclay's Kenya branch and ended up being woken up in the middle of the night for a phone confirmation, which was very cumbersome.

So we thought about just selling Bitcoin to Kenyans, and then they could sell Bitcoin in the US, Canada, or Europe and proceed with the payment operation. At that time, there were some really cool cryptocurrency exchange platforms that could directly convert cryptocurrency into a bank account—although these services were later discontinued, they were really handy at the time.

So, to my international friends in Kenya, I said, "Awesome, I'll buy Bitcoin, and then I can directly transfer to my European bank account, or send money to CityBank, or a Canadian account." These were our earliest users.

Next, we met some local Kenyans at iHub, and they said, "We also want to use this thing to invest, remit to Asia, or just because we like other currencies and want to support a new project." We said, "No problem." And that's how they entered the crypto community.

So initially it was for international remittances, which gradually evolved to various demands around cryptocurrency—including how to onboard new users into the crypto world. Later on, our business expanded to more countries.

I remember when we first entered the Nigerian market, Jeremiah Layer helped us cash out payments. There was a Nigerian user at the time who needed to pay his daughter's tuition at Harvard, a one-time payment of thirty to forty thousand dollars. Jeremiah helped us interface with the banking system in Boston, and we conducted the transfer using cryptocurrency.

Thus, our model gradually evolved and expanded. However, the real issue we later realized was actually what I mentioned at the beginning—how to facilitate payments between African countries.

We found that at the time, Nigeria did not have a cryptocurrency exchange, and since we were a Kenyan exchange, we were also effectively a Nigerian exchange. So the question arose, did we really need to send cryptocurrencies back and forth between the two countries? Or could we just operate a local liquidity pool?

So we began exploring the concept of a "liquidity pool," meaning we didn't necessarily have to physically "send" crypto assets from one country to another; we could just hedge within an internal liquidity pool.

Then we shifted to direct forex trading. Sometimes users wanted to exchange Nigerian Naira for Kenyan Shilling, sometimes they wanted Bitcoin, and we treated all these demands equally.

During my speech, I mentioned that we weren't looking to establish a "crypto company," but rather a "company that can use cryptocurrency." There is a fundamental difference between the two—many people's initial approach is to "first establish a crypto company" and then find use cases; whereas we started from actual demands, then chose the most suitable tools, including cryptocurrency and fiat currencies. In many cases, fiat currency was actually more efficient and practical at the time.

Until today, our company has traded over 150 fiat currencies globally, while still being crypto-native. We always prioritize using the currency most needed by our customers, whether fiat or cryptocurrency.

More importantly, we have deeply integrated cryptocurrency across various levels such as risk management, technology, and knowledge systems. Recently, we have been integrating with dLocal, and they often ask us, "Where is your crypto team?" We reply, "Our entire team is the crypto team." Every compliance officer in our company understands crypto, every trader executes crypto transactions, and every new employee undergoes crypto training.

I believe this is one of the core differentiating advantages of our company because we start from the ground, personally engage in frontline development in emerging markets, and all of this comes naturally to us.

I didn't wake up one morning and suddenly decide, "I'm going to do crypto." Instead, we wanted to address the issues of "how to efficiently conduct cross-border payments" and "how to trade in local African currencies," with cryptocurrency being just a means to achieve these goals.

So, when I see individuals like Jack Zhang (Co-founder of Airwallex) or others say, "Crypto has no real-world use cases," I feel it is a pity because crypto indeed has numerous real-world applications.

Laura Shen: What were the typical fees charged by traditional payment service providers at that time? What challenges did users face when using these services? And then, tell us how your solution is unique, what is your pricing model?

Elizabeth: During the time we were starting our business, it coincided with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals setting "reducing the cost of remittances" as a development priority. At that time, the average remittance cost in Africa was almost twice that of Southeast Asia and South America. Those regions were around 2% to 4%, while in many African markets, it was 4% to 8%, and some even exceeded 10%.

This included structural issues of monopoly by traditional remittance companies in many countries and the fact that cross-border wire transfers globally almost always had to go through those two or three major banks—primarily Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered, along with the so-called "correspondent banking network." Additionally, the currency policies and banking infrastructure of sub-Saharan Africa also laid the roots of "high friction, high cost."

When we first started, there was a Bloomberg report about us with a headline that directly read "Western Union Killer," and that was indeed our goal back then. Under our impact, Western Union later reduced its prices.

You can imagine, for a startup, this kind of influence was almost intoxicating—we felt like we realized, "Wow, we actually have the ability to illuminate this dark corner!" And we were just a tiny insignificant company, yet we truly felt a tremendous power. Perhaps this made us somewhat arrogant, thinking that we could really change the world. But that feeling was truly exhilarating.

Today, 13 years have passed, and many projects have replicated our original model. Later on, we also adjusted our company name, changing it from the original name with the word "Pesa" (an East African term) to a brand name more widely applicable to the entire African continent.

Global financial trading centers like Hong Kong, Zurich, London, and New York house numerous asset managers, brokerages, prime brokers, traders, and market makers, with each part being indispensable. I believe that every major city in Africa should also have a comparable level of financial infrastructure. We need multiple market makers, multiple service providers; only then will competition be more intense, and the market will become more mature.

Although as a founder, of course, I also hope to lead the market. But from a higher perspective, as someone who truly cares about the development of this continent, I would rather see the entire ecosystem thrive.

Why Expand to Africa?

Laura Shen: As time went on, how did you decide which African markets to expand to? And in different regions, what types of clients do you mainly serve?

Elizabeth: It was very clear at the time that the biggest buyers of African currencies were remittance companies. In the past, the annual remittance inflow to Africa was approximately $34 billion. Now, I quickly checked, and the current annual remittance volume in Africa has exceeded $500 billion, the growth over these 13 years is truly remarkable.

In the first few years when we were just starting out, the remittance market was very attractive. Our idea at the time was to get a piece of the pie because these cross-border remittance companies were the real "buyers of African currency." On the other hand, we also had many corporate clients who were "selling African currency."

Initially, we focused on retail business for individuals, but later on, we realized that we simply didn't have enough marketing budget to scale that, so we decided to move up the ladder, shifting towards institutions and wholesale clients.

What really made us realize the value of this shift was when a customer remitted $35,000 through us to Harvard University - that amount was far better than a retail customer transferring just $5, so we began focusing on B2B and partnering with remittance companies.

Our first major breakthrough was when we partnered with a U.S. publicly traded cross-border remittance company who was preparing to launch in the Nigerian market. Their finance team secretly decided to pay us in Bitcoin, and we settled in Naira to their Nigerian account, all coordinated over Skype. They were astonished to find that our exchange rate and settlement speed far surpassed traditional methods, and the overall product performance was excellent.

Later, we continuously improved our compliance capabilities, obtained a financial license in the UK, obtained a license in Spain, and also acquired some companies with local licenses. We chose to prioritize entering the Nigerian market because it is the largest remittance receiving country in Africa, and then entered Ghana, which is also an important remittance market.

We mainly assessed two factors: first, whether the local remittance market is large or not; second, whether it is convenient to access the banking system for settlement. This was the basic logic behind our market expansion at that time.

However, Nigeria later went through a politically unfriendly phase towards financial technology and cross-border remittances. So we decided to turn to French-speaking Africa—a region that almost no one was exploring at that time. We were among the first to enter the French-speaking African market, launching our services in Senegal in 2016, very early on.

Today, Senegal, the entire West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) region, as well as Central Africa's Cameroon and Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) region, have become one of the hottest markets for FinTech in Africa.

So the situation is completely different now. Just like this morning, right after finishing a phone call, we marveled at the many market makers and competitors in the market today—a sight that is actually very reassuring. You see, when we were just starting out, there really were hardly any others in the space, and we only partnered with one or two remittance companies.

And now, we have partnerships with the top 35 global cross-border remittance companies, including Western Union and MoneyGram, who now transact on our platform. Of course, most of them have not yet started using cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, with only a few who have attempted (I won't name names). However, a large number of our corporate clients on the other side are mainly using stablecoins now, and there has indeed been a significant change in recent years.

How to Transition from Bitcoin to Stablecoins?

Laura Shen: So, tell us about the process of this transition. How did you transition from Bitcoin to stablecoins? I assume you started with stablecoins, such as USDT? When did you make this transition? Why? And how did it affect your business?

Elizabeth: The initial market demand was mainly focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum. The demand for other smaller coins was actually not that high. Many customers initially entered through us and then went to other global trading platforms for short-term trading or other operations. We were more like an entry point, allowing them to convert from African local currency to crypto assets, or vice versa, exchange crypto assets back to local fiat currency, while also getting a good exchange rate.

However, to make this model work, a significant amount of liquidity is required, so we basically stick to dealing with mainstream coins. Occasionally, in any given year, a particularly popular token may emerge, people will come and ask about it, and we will sell it, but overall, we have always focused on the most liquid coins.

Back about four or five years ago, clients started actively asking us if we had USDT, so we started selling it. Unexpectedly, about 95% of our cryptocurrency trading volume later flowed into stablecoins. This really caught us off guard, and at the time we were thinking, "Do you really think this is more stable compared to other cryptocurrencies?"

Even today, this question has not reached a definitive conclusion, but evidently, the market believes it is more "secure." We do not judge the users' choices; we simply listen to their needs and adapt to them.

Laura Shen: You mentioned earlier, "the market believes it is more secure." What exactly do you mean? Are you referring to the centralized risk posed by these reserve-backed stablecoins? Or are you talking about the U.S. dollar itself, such as its relationship with the Federal Reserve?

Elizabeth: I just think that fundamentally stablecoins are still a form of privately issued currency, right? And it was unregulated for a long time. So... how should I put it, I initially had a lot of belief in the security and stability of Bitcoin. So I was quite surprised at the time—why would everyone think that a stablecoin issued by a private company is more stable, even stable by tenfold?

Many companies in the past used to kick us out of their offices when we talked about Bitcoin, but later on, they were extremely excited about stablecoins. This initially left me perplexed. Nevertheless, I suppose this is more due to the successful marketing of stablecoins and people being more receptive to it.

So, I do not judge at all; this is the choice of the clients. After we started selling it, we did see a significant market demand.

Now, even the remittance industry—the group that was originally slowest to adopt new technology (except for one or two early adopters)—is now saying, "It's very convenient to trade with us using stablecoins, especially during weekends, Fridays, or in Ramadan when our transaction volumes surge."

For example, holidays like Memorial Day and Labor Day in the United States, the dollar system is closed. But people may forget that once the U.S. banking system enters the weekend or a holiday, companies engaged in transactions must bear two to three days of credit risk, or even longer. If you add in the fact that the local banking systems themselves are very slow, for instance in some countries in French-speaking West Africa, domestic transfers take 24 to 48 hours, so the overall settlement period could be extended by two more days.

So, may I ask, who has been "prefunding" the liquidity these past few days? This is no longer just a remittance issue; it's a systemic issue across the entire financial system.

Therefore, a tool that can achieve 7x24 settlement is truly in line with the operational logic of this world. China talks about a "7-day work system," and in many parts of Africa, people do indeed work seven days.

A few years ago, when I spoke on stage at Money 20/20, a very well-known fintech CEO said to me, "Elizabeth, only illegal activities happen on weekends." I wanted to refute her on the spot, even though I won't name names now. But you see, the market operates around the clock, and transactions don't care whether it's 2 p.m. as the settlement deadline.

Laura Shen: I feel like I've learned something new again. I didn't know that Africa and China actually have a seven-day work system. I used to live in Indonesia, where it's a six-day system, but the things you're saying are quite unfamiliar to me.

Elizabeth: Yes, for example, Nigeria's banking system supports 7x24-hour settlement.

Laura Shen: That's really interesting. So, you're saying Nigeria can do this, but other parts of Africa might still be relatively slow. In other words, even for your "intra-Africa business," you still need to deal with different settlement cycles, right?

Elizabeth: Sometimes banks may not be open all day, but they usually operate on Saturdays, and in many parts of Africa, people work as usual on Saturdays. Especially in East Africa, on Saturdays, at least half a day is usually worked, and in many places, even more. Apart from the market being open, people also schedule business meetings on Sundays. Not everyone goes golfing every weekend. For many people, weekends are also working hours.

Moreover, remittances are often for celebrating holidays or family gatherings, which usually happen on weekends or holidays. So, the volume of remittances on weekends is actually very high, and weekend business activities are also very frequent.

Laura Shen: I see. So, your business structure must have been changing over the years. Can you talk about the rough distribution between your remittance business and B2B business at that time? How many different types of payments did you actually handle?

Elizabeth: We are actually a very balanced structure — 50% are buyers of African currency, and 50% are sellers.

And remittance companies have always been the "buyers" — they need to use currencies such as USD or EUR to exchange for African local currency. Remittance companies that can actually "remitt funds out of Africa" are actually very few, with very few exceptions, such as some cross-border remittances within Africa.

Therefore, roughly half of our business comes from remittance companies, and the other half comes from corporate clients. Corporate clients include fintech companies, cryptocurrency exchanges, banks, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, and so on. Over the years, the client structure has also changed — from initially being mainly traditional enterprises to now mainly fintech companies and banks. This has been a very interesting evolution process over the past 13 years.

On the inbound side, remittance companies still dominate, but we have also started to onboard some payment companies.

I think that networks like Circle's payment network, or other payment networks that have tried to integrate remittance flows in the past, many of them were initially very ambitious and excited, but the biggest problem was that — they ultimately failed to truly "onboard" these companies.

Their network may have been built very nicely, but even though the road was paved, there were no cars driving on it.

What makes us different is: we have truly executed these remittance transactions and have already onboarded these companies.

So when you want to build an intermediary network and say, "Everyone come and use my network," others will think: Why should I switch? We are already cooperating with these companies.

Many people want to build things like a "remittance infrastructure network" or a "payment channel network," saying that everyone will come onboard. But the problem is, you have to go door to door to bring in customers, provide competitive exchange rates, stable services, good APIs, embed yourself into their payment chain, and become a trusted intermediary.

Currently, globally, there are not many companies like us that have completed this entire process. For example, Bitso — they and we started almost at the same time in Latin America, like parallel universe counterparts, and are now very successful.

There are also some other companies that have achieved this deep integration, but they are indeed few.

Laura Shen: Returning to the topic of stablecoins, you just mentioned that many people have started requesting to use USDT. Have they specifically requested to use it on a particular chain? After all, USDT has gradually expanded from the original Omni network to more chains. Do you handle these choices in the background based on factors such as transaction fees, or do users explicitly request, for example, "I want a certain type of USDT"?

Elizabeth: I don't have a particularly "smart" answer to this question (laughs). This trend has gradually emerged, and in most cases, users have chosen the most basic network, such as the Ethereum ERC-20 chain. We have hardly seen much diversified demand.

In fact, the vast majority of the transaction volume is concentrated in a few mainstream wallets and exchanges. You might find this answer boring, but the fact is that many users repeatedly use the same three wallets and three exchanges. For those who engage in day trading or pursue new projects, they may feel that the ecosystem is flourishing and technology is constantly evolving. However, for most users, they are just using the same three wallets and three exchanges over and over.

What Changes Have Occurred in the African Environment?

Laura Shen: I see. So, from a more macro perspective, it has been twelve years since your company was founded. How do you feel the overall cryptocurrency usage in Africa has changed?

Elizabeth: Actually, the change is not as significant as many would imagine. Yes, from the early days of Bitcoin and Ethereum, we have indeed shifted more towards USDT, using ERC-20 wallets. But overall, there hasn't been much change in the types of wallets, and users don't seem to care much about the wallet type because their transfer actions are very fast, and they do not hold assets for long periods.

Laura Shen: Okay, I understand. But what I really wanted to ask—setting aside your company, from your perspective living in Africa, do you feel the overall environment has changed?

Elizabeth: Oh, definitely. Now, as soon as you walk into Lagos Airport, you see fintech and cryptocurrency advertisements everywhere, with slogans like "Crypto is legal" covering the walls. Although from a legal perspective, it might not be entirely legal, the scene you witness is a whole different story.

There's a massive Binance ad on one entire wall of the airport. Even though Nigeria was cracking down on cryptocurrency at that time, they didn't care; the ads were still displayed everywhere. There was even a Nigerian superstar who appeared on a US TV show, sponsored by Binance.

It was a crazy time—every company was rushing into this space, everyone was saying "I am the only one with a license" or "I am the only one who can do this business," slogans were everywhere, and few truly understood this industry. But a substantial amount of funds did indeed flow into this market, and startups sprang up like mushrooms after the rain.

We attended an event called the Africa Tech Summit in April, where there were hundreds of companies present, half of which were related to cryptocurrency. This happened even before the so-called "Stablecoin Summer," serving as a prelude to it. You can see a trend emerging from Africa that later influenced the globe.

Everyone was there, and the scene was truly awe-inspiring. The venue where the event was held was only about a kilometer away from the coffee shop where we hosted our Bitcoin Meetup years ago. At that moment, I really felt like a grandmother crying at her grandson's kindergarten graduation ceremony, thinking, "Oh my, this is all so wonderful." My team was also present, and at that time, we were actually already in the process of being acquired by dLocal, but it hadn't been publicly announced yet. Some people knew, but we didn't disclose it fully. There were also those who couldn't get into the cryptocurrency-themed party because they didn't have tickets, so we were in line, and someone said, "We know her, she's that lady from the crypto circle, let her in." At that moment, I didn't know whether to feel proud or amused.

Our team even joked, "Are we attending a boring event?" But you know, at that moment, we all realized that the ecosystem had completely transformed.

This wasn't the world from ten years ago when I emailed you. We have truly entered a new era now. I'm hearing that many banks in Nigeria are asking, "How do we enter this field? How do we offer these services?"

This is truly like being on another planet.

Laura Shen: Was that explosive period around 2021?

Elizabeth: Definitely after the onset of the pandemic. You could say it's "PC" – Pre-Covid and "AC" – After-Covid, with a significant difference between them. During the pandemic, companies with digital capabilities basically dominated the entire market. We also had one of our best-performing years during that time, while many traditional brick-and-mortar banks suffered. At the same time, wallet services that were not dependent on SIM cards and not tied to telcos quickly rose.

Many payment companies focusing on local payments emerged at that time, such as Flutterwave, Chipper Cash, and wallets like Wave that were not SIM-dependent. It was also the first time these large payment companies received massive investments, rapidly expanded, and proved to telcos that they could "cut through traffic" – let me use that term – challenging the existing monopoly. It was an exciting period.

Of course, we did not go for that $300 million large-scale financing ourselves, as that is usually what retail payment companies do. Retail payments are a completely different game—high funding requirements, high profitability, but equally astonishing expenses. We have been following a different business model, always focusing on the B2B business sector. However, indeed during that time, some unicorn companies started to emerge, and although some of them later went bankrupt, they had at least attempted a "moonshot" breakthrough and had indeed entered the market.

Now you will see more and more regulatory agencies truly issuing licenses. South Africa is usually the first-mover country, having issued licenses to 50 exchanges in one go last year, which is great. Nigeria, after years of discussion and a decade-long cycle of whitepapers, finally also issued two licenses—though not for the companies you might have thought of. You can look it up; almost no one has heard of these two companies. So many companies now claiming to be "legitimate and compliant" in Nigeria actually do not hold any licenses.

Moreover, in Central Africa, they have also started to issue the so-called "VASP" licenses (Virtual Asset Service Provider). So, the current market is no longer a place of disorderly free competition but rather a space gradually moving towards regulation. I believe this is a necessary development for the future.

How Does an Acquisition Business Work?

Laura Shen: You mentioned earlier that you acquired two companies, sounding like it was to obtain relevant licenses. Could you talk about how you decided which company to acquire and how these acquisitions have driven your business growth?

Elizabeth: Yes, the first acquisition was during the UK's Brexit. Back then, we were concerned about losing our market access in the UK due to Brexit, and we happened to hold a UK payment license at the time. So, we started considering acquiring one of our client companies, which was TransferZero. It held a license from the Bank of Spain, and its founder was outstanding—his father also had a background in the remittance business, with deep connections and experience in the field. We eventually completed the acquisition of TransferZero in 2016, and this acquisition was very successful. Now we have an office in Spain, which we use as a base. The whole process went very smoothly, and it can be considered a very positive story.

The second time was during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was when the Nigerian crisis broke out as we discussed earlier. At that time, 90% of our transaction volume came from Nigeria, and suddenly Nigeria closed the related channels, so we had to quickly achieve business diversification. We adopted two strategies: one was to expand into the French-speaking Africa region, and the other was to acquire a company in South Africa. This company was also our client, and the acquisition process was very natural. We obtained a very good price, and the other team was excellent. We integrated their team of about 50 people and became one of the largest remittance processing service providers in South Africa.

We still focus on the remittance field. Actually, we also did some cryptocurrency-related transactions in South Africa in the early days, when the market was in a regulatory gray area. Sometimes they talked about regulation, sometimes they said there was no regulation, and sometimes regulatory agencies even said they didn't want remittance companies to get involved in crypto transactions, but in reality, they left some legal loopholes. So our strategy in South Africa has always been very cautious and conservative. It can be said that we never truly "pressed the start button" but rather remained more watchful. South Africa is a country with a very hot crypto market, and we did participate in some early stage activities, but after the South African Reserve Bank's position became clearer, we decided not to engage in any business that might be in the gray area anymore.

Laura Shen: I remember you were also involved in FTX's payment services in Africa at that time, and it seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding about your role when it later went bankrupt. Can you explain this experience?

Elizabeth: Yeah, my personal resume is already like a biography with too many chapters, and to be honest, this chapter is completely unnecessary and really quite messy. At that time, we announced a partnership with FTX, a move that the internet will never forget—there are still some promotional materials online with the FTX Africa logo. We had high hopes for this company at the time, believing they could provide financial support for regulatory advancement in the African region. They were indeed actively lobbying many banks, their compliance team was very active, delving into four, five, six countries, discussing the legalization of crypto derivatives with local regulatory agencies.

This was very attractive to us because the cost of obtaining licenses in multiple countries is very high. It's not like the trading platforms in North America, where getting a license in Canada and the United States is almost enough, at most you just need to apply state by state. But we had to deal with French-speaking regions, English-speaking regions, South America, South Africa... For a startup, it was really too much of a burden.

So when FTX entered this market, and was willing to make efforts on the regulatory front, lobby central banks, and strive for licenses in securities and futures, we were very supportive and signed a cooperation agreement to help them launch their business in several markets. But when FTX went bankrupt, everything collapsed, and we were also affected.

At that time, we spent a lot of time helping them "clean up the mess", having to re-communicate with regulatory agencies, clients, and partners to explain the nature of our relationship. It was a huge restructuring for us and also an emotional blow. Because we have been working hard to prove that African enterprises can also operate legally and compliantly, and stand on the right side of the law.

We spent a lot of time lobbying regulatory agencies, actively cooperating with policies, never wanting to cut corners, and definitely not wanting to go live hastily when regulations were unclear. However, FTX's bankruptcy implicated everyone associated with it, making it look like we were all "accomplices", and overnight, external trust disappeared.

During that time, we went through a very tough period and spent a lot of effort rebuilding trust. Luckily, many customers and partners eventually came back. However, the environment had completely changed—many banks were closing one after another, Silvergate went under, Reserve Trust went under, Silicon Valley Bank went under... It was a series of chain explosions, and financing almost came to a standstill.

That period was really challenging. If we were a new company, we might not have survived. But precisely because we had gone through so much, we managed to pull through and achieved the beautiful exit (through acquisition or IPO) that we have now.

Laura Shen: Let's talk about this exit, how was this deal struck? Also, please introduce who dLocal is.

Elizabeth: dLocal is a company that has achieved tremendous success in its local region and is a leader in its field of expertise. They started in Uruguay—a small country in central South America but full of innovative spirit.

Initially, their business model was "buying local currency," which is a forex term—they would purchase local currency from merchants and sell USD, EUR, and other hard currencies to payment processors. For example, companies like Netflix and Alibaba, after receiving user payments in local currency, need to convert these currencies into USD or EUR. dLocal does this, does it very well, and quickly expanded into key markets such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

Later on, they soared high and even succeeded in going public on the Nasdaq, which is very admirable and became one of the earliest unicorn cases in the region. Their performance can be described as a "home run."

Over the years, like some other global South companies from Asia and Latin America, they attempted to enter the African market. Many global companies say they want to enter Africa, but they have been saying it for many years, always saying, "Africa is still two years away"—they say this every year. So, in reality, we have not seen those North American or European companies really step into Africa, except perhaps for Stripe's acquisition of Paystack, which they knew during their time at Y Combinator. But even so, we should applaud Stripe, after all, they really did it.

Many other companies only talk but do not act, not really allocating resources. In recent years, we have begun to see some Asian companies and a few Latin American companies truly beginning to heavily invest in Africa, and dLocal is one of them.

We initially maintained a cooperative relationship with them, starting out as a client-service provider model. Later, we gradually deepened our cooperation, and the more we did, the smoother it became. This time, they invested in us and plan to formally acquire the company after regulatory approval, which is very exciting for us. This means that perhaps we don't need to "go north" anymore to seek development momentum, perhaps the internal strength of the global south is already powerful enough.

And this precisely touched the deepest resonance within me—the global south actually has tremendous potential. It can not only operate in compliance but also engage in cross-border business. The innovation here is not "cutting corners" but truly built upon the existing foundation, an upgrade iteration rooted in the existing energy, embracing constructive innovation.

Laura Shen: So, will your role in the company change next? Or will it remain basically the same? What does all of this mean to you?

Elizabeth: Currently, my role has not changed. We are still awaiting regulatory approval, the company's product is still online, customers remain active, and the product is continuously iterating. We have a lot of synergies in cooperation with the dLocal team, such as partner networks, transaction interconnection, and more. They are actually one of our largest transaction partners, which is very exciting.

In addition, dLocal's investment has been very timely for us, especially after everyone has experienced a long period of "fintech capital drought." It's truly rare to receive capital support now; at the same time, having a significant transaction partner is very valuable. More importantly, they have rich experience in local collections, merchant payment processing, which complements our business—we mostly serve local currency buyers, such as remittance companies, payment companies, while they mainly serve currency "sellers," various merchants.

So, this is like a perfect match, each with its strengths, and the synergy is very natural.

The Relationship Between Stablecoins and Fintech

Laura Shen: Okay, let's discuss a more macroscopic topic, such as cryptocurrency and Asia, as well as the convergence of stablecoins, crypto, and fintech. In my view, the United States is gradually entering a new stage, where these areas, although seemingly in competition, are actually entering the market from different angles and may gradually merge in the future.

However, I believe that in Africa, this process may have already occurred. You should have witnessed this evolution firsthand. I am particularly interested to hear your thoughts on these various types of participants—what advantages do you think they each possess? How do they ultimately compete or coexist?

For example, let me randomly give an example. Perhaps a fintech company has an advantage in compliance because it has more banking partners? While a purely crypto company may be more tech-savvy and sensitive to innovation? What trends have you observed in this competitive landscape? How do these trends affect various types of market participants?

Elizabeth: First of all, I no longer categorize companies into those that "understand encryption" and those that "do not understand encryption." At least in emerging fintech companies, what I see is: they basically all have encryption knowledge. I have hardly seen any new fintech company say, "We don't touch encryption, we don't do this." Of course, some traditional companies still say that, just like some startups still say "we don't do AI" — but you know, they more or less still use it in some aspects, especially the younger employees who have been exposed to and proficient in using these technologies during their university years.

So the growth of startups we see today is not unrelated to encryption. And those old-school companies still exist, like I won't name names but let's just mention Airwallex, whose founder recently publicly stated that he has no interest in encryption and does not want to delve into this area. However, I believe that the awareness of the new generation of entrepreneurs in this regard is becoming more mature and practical.

Especially now that the U.S. has enacted new legislation, the attitude of banks has undergone a major shift, and they are starting to collaborate more openly with companies involved in encryption. On the one hand, this is because more and more people are using encryption, and this is no longer a fringe activity; on the other hand, it is because they also have to face reality. It's no longer the time when "Elizabeth is in the corner doing Pesa, and no one talks to you about encryption."

Before, when I went to conferences, I might have been the only speaker talking about encryption, and everyone looked at me like, "What is this person doing?" It really felt like being an outsider. But it's different now — wherever you go, everyone is using it. I recently attended a Money20/20 conference, and the presence of encryption was ubiquitous. This indicates that banks no longer have a reason to reject it, and investors can no longer say, "I don't invest in encryption," because ultimately, every company is more or less involved in some encryption elements. This is the biggest change.

I also observed that the influence of Asia is growing. Many of the goods imported into Africa actually come from Asia, such as medicines, daily necessities, and electronics. We have a client who is one of the largest mobile device importers in Africa, and the number of accessories they import from China is astonishing.

And it is these export leaders who truly drive the demand for technology applications. If a Chinese supplier says, "I only accept QR code payments" or "Please use a specific app for payment," then customers in Africa will come to us to help process these payment flows. Therefore, the demand actually originates from the "seller's market" side.

I find this point very interesting and exciting. It is completely different from the story path imagined by many people.

Laura Shen: So in a sense, you originally started from 'Crypto + Mobile Payments,' and later gradually evolved into a 'Crypto + FinTech' company. Meanwhile, those traditional FinTech companies started from 'Fintech' and then evolved into 'Fintech + Crypto.' Everyone actually entered the same competitive field from different paths, right?

Elizabeth: First of all, we must remember that mobile payments themselves were actually the earliest form of FinTech. Back then, people working on mobile payments at conferences were considered 'eccentric.' They would say, 'I have an MIS management system'—that's what it was called back then. And they were not willing to use those mobile wallets. For example, when we entered Senegal in 2015, there wasn't even legislation regarding mobile payment wallets in the local context, and it was gradually introduced later on.

So, fundamentally, mobile payments are a form of FinTech, but they are attached to USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) or SIM cards. Later on, FinTech started moving towards web-based and online platforms, and many companies embedded hardware systems directly through Chinese smartphones or purely operated online.

Now we see it evolving towards the metaverse and even more futuristic directions. But essentially, they are still performing those fundamental financial actions: lending, transferring, saving, and paying. These core services have actually remained unchanged; it's just the way you interact with them that has changed—whether it's through landlines, the internet, blockchain, or even the metaverse. No matter how the channels change, the core products are still the same.

I believe that as long as the infrastructure is not forcibly controlled by the government (such as state-owned telecom companies or ISPs), the barrier to entry into this field will become lower and lower. This also means that market competition will become more intense, and the number of participants will increase.

In the past, there might have been only one mobile payment provider covering 10 countries in a region; now, there are thousands of companies developing their mobile financial apps, and even more companies have moved to the blockchain or even the metaverse. The process of market opening is very exciting.

Laura Shen: In the current landscape, where almost all companies are offering increasingly similar services, and even the backend operational models are alike, where do you think the ultimate competitive focus will lie? Will it turn into a pure price war? Or will it be about efficiency? What ultimately determines who the winners are and who gets eliminated?

Elizabeth: No matter which company it is, they still have to touch the local currency at some point. Because we haven't reached the era where "everyone pays rent with cryptocurrency," right? Right now, you can maybe transfer with cryptocurrency, but ultimately, you have to convert it to local currency for payment; you can also transfer through mobile payments, but it still lands in local currency. We are still in an era of the "local currency economy" — just to mark it, this is June 2025. Maybe the situation will change in a few years, but for now, this is how it is.

And when you are doing currency exchange transactions, whoever holds the most liquidity wins. So the core of the competition is: who has the most liquidity on their platform, with the most companies transacting frequently on the platform — this way the trading is not so volatile, the slippage is smaller, and the quotes are more accurate.

This logic is simple. You will see many new players entering the scene, but they don't necessarily acquire customers. How do those customers come? The reality is, many of these customers are regulated institutions, and the onboarding process is slow. So, whoever can quickly complete customer compliance onboarding has an advantage.

Moreover, the technical integration for these clients is also complex, such as API integration; some clients take four or five development cycles, or even longer, to get it done. So, the team with the strongest engineering capability that can smoothly complete integrations will be more competitive.

Additionally, if you have compliance issues, banks will immediately shut you out. Conversely, if you have very robust compliance capabilities, banks are more willing to cooperate. Therefore, it has now become who has the strongest compliance, wins.

In the end, these things are actually the basics of a good company: customer relationships, compliance capabilities, sales processes, onboarding efficiency. These are the core. It's not about which company uses what flashy technology — now everyone's technology is becoming more and more similar, and what truly sets them apart is these operational fundamentals.

I often talk about these, and some people will say, "Elizabeth is always pouring cold water; she is pessimistic about those fast-growing, innovative companies." But what I want to say is that Africa has infrastructure, real people, and places with rules. This is not a market where you can just come and do whatever you want, break all the rules.

Because, in the end, you still have to come back to the local currency, which operates through the banking system and is regulated by the government. In this reality, whether you want "everything to be tokenized" in the future or not, until that day arrives, you must participate in this "local currency economy" game, and this requires companies to have a solid foundation and good governance structure.

Laura Shen: I would like to first add a point before asking the next question—It sounds like your acquisition of dLocal was actually to enhance overall liquidity, right? This should be one of your key strategic considerations.

Next, I would like to ask you, for users or businesses in these countries currently using stablecoins, how do you observe them making decisions between using stablecoins, mobile payments, local fiat currency, or more broadly, cryptocurrencies? What roles do these different tools play in their lives and operations?

Elizabeth: That's a very good question. Over the years, I have always said that mobile payments perform exceptionally well in some countries. For example, the mobile payment penetration rate in some countries can reach over 95% of the entire economy, although it may fluctuate based on seasons and times.

In these countries, promoting cryptocurrency for domestic payments, especially peer-to-peer (P2P) small-value payments, is very challenging. This is because mobile payments are already deeply embedded, functioning well, and users are accustomed to using them. They are not only widely adopted but also come with various discounts and conveniences that make them hard to replace.

However, when it comes to cross-border payments, sending money from one country to another, cryptocurrencies or "internet wallets" have a significant role to play. For instance, you may have a great digital wallet in Nigeria provided by a local fintech company, but if this company has not successfully expanded its wallet service to Kenya, you won't be able to remit from Nigeria to Kenya. Similarly, if it is not connected to a wallet in China, you can't transact between Central Africa and China.

Many people overlook this point: to achieve cross-border payments, you actually need to establish entities in various countries, pay taxes, and build local compliance structures, which is a very heavy lift in infrastructure work. The advantage of cryptocurrency is that it bypasses these obstacles and can be sent globally without borders.

But then again, if you ultimately need to convert cryptocurrency back to fiat for use, you still need on-ramp and off-ramp channels for fiat to crypto and vice versa, and this infrastructure still needs to be established.

So, our observation is:

For local small-value P2P payments, if the country is already a "mobile payment-centric country," people will generally opt for mobile payments. Examples include countries like Ghana, Tanzania, and Kenya.

However, in countries like Nigeria and South Africa, where the penetration of mobile payments is not as high, but their banking systems are very advanced. For example, Nigeria's NIPS (National Payment System) can settle transactions 7 days a week, and South Africa's clearing system is also very efficient. Therefore, in these countries, local payments tend to lean towards using bank transfers.

If it involves intra-Africa cross-border payments, then it becomes more complex. The traditional Swift cross-border banking system is still in use, but now many emerging alternative methods are also emerging, such as services provided by fintech companies, some using cryptocurrency, some like us adopting a pooling mechanism, and some operating in a broker model.

Although accurate statistics are currently hard to come by, given the size of Africa's **informal economy**, we have indeed become increasingly competitive in this field.

Laura Shen: There has recently been a wave of "Stablecoin Craze" in the U.S., and I'm quite curious about your opinion on this. For example, Circle just went public, and I remember its stock price recently around $240, significantly higher than the offering price. At the same time, the U.S. may soon introduce stablecoin-related legislation.

Based on your experience, how do you view the current wave of development in the U.S.? How do you think the stablecoin competitive landscape will evolve? What impact will this rising popularity have?

Elizabeth: Well, many of my clients' trading partners are in Asia, not the U.S., so they are more concerned about stablecoins that can settle in Asia.

Laura Shen: Are they still denominated in USD? Or other currencies?

Elizabeth: Yes, currently, it is mainly USDT, and many trades are completed using USDT. Will this change in the future? Perhaps, I can't say. But the reality is, they are primarily importing from Asia now, not from the U.S.

However, if you need to make USD payments outside of Asia, such as sending money to Europe or the U.S., you will rely on the U.S. banking system, and these banks clearly prefer USDC over USDT. So, the world is currently somewhat "fragmented" – different regions use different stablecoins, and we are right in the middle of this.

We have to operate based on actual trade flows, and currently, trade between Africa and Asia is the largest and is continuing to grow. So, we cannot imagine that the world will use only U.S.-dominated stablecoins (such as USDC) 100% globally and completely ignore the usage preferences in Asia.

Of course, we will still use many services from US banks, and indeed, there are quite a few clients who need to make payments to Euro-American banks, but this is not everything.

Laura Shen: So, to summarize, USDT is more commonly used to bypass US or non-US payment routes, while USDC is more suitable for interfacing with the US or US-dominated banking system? It sounds like most people understand it this way now.

Recently, some have speculated that China may promote the overseas adoption of the Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP), especially in regions where Chinese companies are active, such as Africa. For example, China may say, "If you want to do business with us, you must use the digital yuan for payment." Have you seen any signs of this so far? Any relevant indications?

Elizabeth: I can only provide some insights based on personal experiences, as there are no specific statistical data. But for instance, when I moved to Nigeria in 2015, for about six months, I often visited the market and found that many vendors were using Chinese smartphones, running native Chinese apps, and even communicating with suppliers directly in Chinese.

Many of these merchants already spoke four or five languages, so this was not a barrier to them at all. At that time, many people were traveling back and forth to Guangzhou, and locals even called that area "Chocolate City" or "Wangfujing," in short, there were a large number of Nigerians frequently traveling between China and Central Africa.

I also met many young West Africans who had studied in China. Even in our company, many job seekers had a background of studying in China. Clearly, China is their largest trading partner, so it's natural for them to speak their language, use their applications, and adopt their preferred payment methods—this is very reasonable and not "reinventing the wheel;" this is just the normal operating logic of global business. So we have actually seen this trend for a long time.

When I was living in Senegal, I also encountered many people who had returned from studying in China. I believe that the connections between China and Africa are growing stronger at the government level as well. For example, China once held a sovereign bond denominated in the Zambian currency, which is one of the earliest examples of a major country holding an African local currency bond, still valued in Chinese Yuan. There was also a large-scale currency swap agreement between the Kwacha (Zambian currency) and the Renminbi.

I remember early appearances of payment products like the Pompey Wallet that were used in conjunction with handheld devices, and many people began to shift towards these new tools. So I believe this trend will continue.

Laura Shen: But have you observed whether the Chinese government is attempting to promote their Digital Currency Electronic Payment (DCEP) through these commercial activities in Africa?

Elizabeth: I'm not really comfortable commenting on that. As far as I know, none of our major clients have actively requested to use the digital renminbi.

Laura Shen: Alright. Then my last question— as a female professional, I actually don't like asking other women this question, but you probably already guessed what I'm about to ask (laughs).

Elizabeth: You're going to ask me how I balance work and life?

Laura Shen: Not (laughs), don't worry, it's a bit better than that question.

Elizabeth: I thought you were going to say, "Laura, oh my..."

Laura Shen: Haha, something like "How to be a mom and still start a business." No, I just wanted to ask, at the beginning of the interview, you mentioned that you might have been the first cryptocurrency exchange platform founded by a woman at the time. I simply wanted to hear how you view this journey because I believe it must be very different from most of your male counterparts.

Of course, this topic can be discussed at length, with many dimensions to explore. But I'd rather hear, what is the most immediate feeling you have now?

Elizabeth: You know, I'm not just a female founder, I'm also a female founder in her thirties. I'm not the kind of female entrepreneur who wears a bikini and has a hacker vibe, I'm more like the "middle-aged female boss" type (laughs). That's already pretty unique. I remember the first time I attended a cryptocurrency event; it was the "Satoshi Roundtable." They said, "We have a party tonight," but when I arrived, every man had three or four girls with him. And me? I had to call a babysitter to take care of my child, then sit in the bedroom exchanging Naira for Dollars, and then go back to talk to them about investments.

So this is not just an issue of "female identity," but rather the environment one is in is very nuanced.

I also tried to "fit in" with the circle, telling everyone, "I'm pretty cool too, let's hang out together," but deep down it's very hard to judge where I truly belong.

Being a female entrepreneur in the financial industry, if you want to "fit in," you may have to tolerate some behavior and speech that you wouldn't tolerate from someone of the same gender; sometimes you even have to "genderize yourself," or be automatically genderized, like "Do you want to go to a nightclub and discuss collaboration?" or "Let's have a meeting by the pool tonight." If you want to participate, you have to say, "Alright, let me change into a dress and go," or "I'll go to the pool too."

I will always remember an event where a female representative from the European Parliament was present. She was dressed in a business suit while everyone else was in swimwear. She said, "I wouldn't wear a swimsuit to the European Parliament, so why would I wear one to an investment forum?" At that moment, I truly admired her.

But it also made me wonder, is this the culture of the tech industry, the crypto community, or the U.S. venture capital circle? At that time, I myself was not sure. Sometimes I would set boundaries, sometimes I wouldn't; sometimes I would engage, sometimes I would choose to step back. To be honest, that experience was both strange and challenging.

We did our best to hold on, but I often felt like I didn't belong to the "boys' club."

Sometimes they would say, "We really want to help you, we are very supportive of Africa, we are not investing because of you as a person, nor your product or data, but because we love the theme of Africa." This kind of support was not nonexistent. But in the end, we are a company building infrastructure, which is not the type of model that venture capital typically loves to support. We have to set up a large number of on/off-ramps, obtain a bunch of licenses, the whole project took thirteen years, which clearly doesn't align with the 3 to 4-year quick exit VC rhythm.

So, I think, at that time, the market actually paid too little attention to these types of projects, and there were not many people who truly understood it. I also mistakenly thought that I had "integrated" into the crypto community, but what we were doing was very different from what they were doing, and this mismatch itself was not easy.

Of course, I also learned a lot from it. For a while, I built an almost all-female team, and later gradually added male members. Now, 55% of our employees are women, and we also have many great male allies. Our team culture has also received many awards.

This became my "safe haven," where I could always find support within the team when I experienced chaos and external misunderstanding, which really helped me a lot.

Laura Shen: That's amazing, Elizabeth. Is there anything that I haven't asked about but you really wish people knew?

Elizabeth: What I want to say is, actually, one of the most difficult parts throughout the entire entrepreneurial process is securing investment for Africa. I have always been very grateful for the support from the early crypto community - their openness to Africa far exceeded that of traditional tech investors.

I think this is because cryptocurrency itself pursues "globality" and "inclusivity," so the fact that so many investors were willing to explore the African market at that time was truly touching. We were the first African project in many investment portfolios, and I am very proud of that. We did a lot of educational work for the investors, bringing them into this ecosystem. But I think many investors did not realize how early they were getting in.

Now, after experiencing the fintech bubble, some people might say, "Oh, we tried Africa, we're going to look elsewhere now." But I would say, don't give up on this region, please come back. When you first invested, Africa was still in a very early stage—not like Silicon Valley with two or three decades of development history. What Africa needs is time.

By the end of this century, the majority of the Earth's population will be African. **Now is the best time to deeply understand, to root in and develop.** Of course, do not believe those entrepreneurs holding a pitch deck saying, "We're expanding to 50 countries in one year," but truly understand what is needed behind the growth of this continent, and how long it will take.

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