Canza Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) network building payment and liquidity infrastructure for Africa’s digital economy, has crossed a major milestone. On Jan. 6, the platform announced it has processed over $131 million in cumulative native USDT transaction volume, underscoring the growing demand for efficient, stablecoin-powered financial services across the continent.
The achievement represents a 300% increase quarter-over-quarter, driven by strong adoption of Canza’s early P2P and B2B forex services, on-chain USDT market making, and OTC settlement solutions. All of these services are currently facilitated on the Aptos blockchain, which provides the speed and cost efficiency needed to operate at scale.
The milestone positions Canza Finance as one of the fastest-growing DeFi payment networks focused on solving Africa’s long-standing cross-border finance challenges.
Strong Market Fit Amid Africa’s Broken Cross-Border Payments
The $131 million transaction volume is more than a vanity metric, it is a clear validation of product-market fit in a region where moving money across borders remains expensive, slow, and fragmented.
Across Africa, businesses and individuals continue to grapple with currency volatility, limited dollar access, and inefficient settlement rails. Canza’s growth indicates that stablecoins like USDT are increasingly becoming the preferred alternative for managing cross-border trade, treasury operations, and liquidity.
According to Pascal Ntsama, CEO of Canza Finance, the milestone reflects both trust and urgency within the market:
“Surpassing this volume is a testament to the trust our community has placed in us. We are not just building a platform; we are empowering thousands of businesses and individuals across Africa to participate in the global economy on their own terms.”
He added that while the growth confirms strong stablecoin liquidity demand, it also exposes the urgent need for infrastructure capable of handling true continental scale.
Why Legacy Payment Systems Continue to Fail African Businesses
Canza’s rapid growth has also highlighted the deep inefficiencies embedded in Africa’s traditional financial rails. Every transaction processed through the platform reinforces the structural limitations of legacy systems, including:
High transaction costs: Sending money across African borders still costs an average of 8.9%, significantly eroding business margins.
Slow settlement times: Cross-border payments often take three to five days, disrupting cash flow and limiting operational agility.
Fragmented mobile money ecosystem: Africa has over 156 isolated mobile money services, making interoperability expensive and difficult to scale.
These challenges have long constrained intra-African trade and prevented businesses from operating efficiently beyond their local markets.
Canza’s Autonomous Payment Protocol
To address these bottlenecks, Canza Finance has unveiled the Canza Autonomous Payment Protocol (CAPP), a next-generation, multi-agent AI payment system designed to power Africa’s future cross-border economy.
CAPP is built to support what Canza estimates could become a $1 trillion African cross-border market by 2035, eliminating friction at every layer of the payment stack.
Key capabilities of CAPP include:
Drastic Cost Reduction
By automating payment routing and liquidity optimization, CAPP targets transaction costs below 1%, compared to the current regional average of 8.9%.
Near-Instant Settlement
CAPP reduces settlement times from days to under 60 seconds, enabling real-time cash flow management for African businesses.
Universal Financial Inclusion
A standout feature of CAPP is its Mobile Money Bridge Agents, which unify Africa’s fragmented mobile money landscape. This allows seamless access for more than 400 million unbanked users, including those relying solely on feature phones.
Powered by Aptos Blockchain Infrastructure
Both Canza and CAPP are built on the Aptos network, leveraging its sub-second finality and ultra-low transaction fees, averaging $0.0005 per transaction. This makes profitable micro-payments viable while ensuring high throughput and security through Move smart contracts.
Canza Finance has surpassed $131M in USDT cumulative transaction volume on Aptos while empowering African commerce.
Additionally, Canza Finance has unveiled the Canza Autonomous Payment Protocol (CAPP), a new multi-agent AI system operating on Aptos. pic.twitter.com/JrwHMKoQoN
Commenting on the milestone, Corey Sheft-Tannenbaum, Head of Investments at Aptos Foundation, emphasized the broader significance:
“Canza’s milestone underscores a simple truth: legacy payment rails cannot support the scale or speed African businesses need. Their growth shows what’s possible when deep market expertise meets world-class blockchain technology.”
He added that Canza is setting a new benchmark for how decentralized finance can deliver real-world economic impact at scale.
What’s Next for Canza Finance
Reaching $131 million in transaction volume is not the finish line for Canza, it is the data-backed proof needed to accelerate its next phase of growth.
The company is now expanding CAPP deployments across additional African markets, refining its autonomous agents, and rolling out new features informed by real transaction behavior. With demand continuing to surge, Canza is positioning itself as foundational infrastructure for Africa’s evolving digital and stablecoin-powered economy.
