Azza

Azza is a WhatsApp-based AI agent that allows users to buy, sell, and transfer cryptocurrency — and cash it out to a local bank account — entirely through the chat interface most Africans already use daily.

The Problem It Solves

Crypto adoption in Africa collides with a set of structural barriers that most Western onboarding flows assume away. Wallet addresses are long and error-prone. Dedicated exchange apps require VPNs, English-first interfaces, and a baseline of technical confidence that new users often lack. Peer-to-peer markets — historically the default offramp in Nigeria and Kenya — are plagued by fraud and bad vendors. And for the growing number of gig workers and remote employees paid in USDT, converting stablecoin earnings into spendable naira or shillings has meant navigating multiple platforms with unpredictable fees.

Azza's premise is that WhatsApp — not a bespoke crypto app — is the right interface to solve all of these at once. By embedding a crypto-to-fiat conversion agent into the chat platform used by hundreds of millions of Africans, Azza removes every onboarding step that typically causes drop-off.

How It Works

New users open a WhatsApp conversation with Azza's AI agent and are guided through three steps: setting up an embedded wallet with a transaction PIN, completing a KYC check (national ID plus a liveness verification), and depositing assets. From there, every subsequent action — buying, selling, sending, or converting — happens via conversational messages. The entire setup takes roughly two to three minutes.

Transfers to other users do not require sharing wallet addresses. Azza maps phone numbers to wallets, so sending USDT to a contact works the same as sending a voice note. Offramp conversions — selling crypto for naira or Kenyan shillings and pushing the proceeds to a local bank account — settle in approximately 30 seconds.

A more recent feature addition extends this to USDT-to-USD conversions, allowing users to move funds directly into dollar-denominated domiciliary bank accounts through the same WhatsApp interface. This targets the segment of Nigerian users who want to hold or spend in USD without touching the parallel-rate naira market.

Supported Assets and Networks

Azza supports USDC and USDT across six networks — Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon, Base, Solana, and BEP20 — as well as SOL (native Solana), ETH, POL, and TRX. Across all assets, the platform's backend spans twelve blockchain networks including Lisk. Solana and Base are among the primary networks promoted to users, reflecting their low-fee, high-throughput characteristics suited to small, frequent transactions.

On the fiat side, Azza has registered eight African currencies: Nigerian Naira (NGN), Kenyan Shilling (KES), Ethiopian Birr (ETB), South African Rand (ZAR), Ghanaian Cedi (GHS), Ugandan Shilling (UGX), and both West and Central African CFA Francs. Live crypto-to-fiat offramp currently operates for NGN and KES, with broader support in development.

Team and Background

Azza is a product of USEAZZA LTD, a Lagos-based company founded in 2024 (company registration RC: 7810789). Co-founder Toochukwu Okoro built the early version of the platform as a WhatsApp trading bot before incorporating as a company; that bot processed roughly $4.9 million in transaction volume and validated the core thesis before Azza was formally launched. Victor Eluke is also listed as a team member with a direct role in the company.

Ecosystem Position and Recognition

Azza emerged through Nigeria's Superteam ecosystem — Solana's community-led adoption organization — which has produced a notable cluster of WhatsApp-native fintech products targeting African retail users. Azza has been backed by SuperteamNG and featured in Solana's Startup Village, the program that supports early-stage builders in the ecosystem.

In 2025 Azza was selected for Ignition Season 4, a two-week program organized by Superteam Singapore that connects early-stage Web3 founders with international venture capitalists and angel investors. The selection signaled institutional interest in Azza's model as a Solana-native distribution channel for stablecoin adoption in emerging markets. The team has also received a 2.5 ETH Base Builder Grant, reflecting multi-chain institutional recognition.

Coverage in TechCabal positioned Azza as part of a broader effort to build financial infrastructure for Africa on WhatsApp — a thesis that frames the product not merely as a consumer tool but as a potential settlement and payment rail for African commerce. Reported partnerships in exploration with Binance and Trust Wallet suggest the team is seeking to embed Azza deeper into the stablecoin distribution stack.

As of mid-2026 Azza is active in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, with expansion underway into Ghana, Singapore, and Argentina. The geographic diversity of the expansion suggests a thesis that the product travels wherever informal stablecoin use and limited banking access intersect — not only in Africa.

Security

No public smart contract audit has been disclosed. Azza's custody model is not fully detailed in public documentation; users are assigned embedded wallets and complete KYC before transacting. Prospective users should review current security terms on the Azza website directly.

Solana Relevance

Azza is one of a cohort of Nigerian startups using Solana as a primary settlement network because its fee structure is compatible with the small transaction sizes common in emerging-market retail use. SOL, USDC on Solana, and USDT on Solana are all natively supported assets. Azza's growth is a real-world test of Solana's ability to serve as a low-cost payment layer for consumer crypto adoption in markets where average transaction sizes — and tolerance for gas fees — look very different from DeFi-native use cases.