Busha

Busha is Africa's leading regulated digital asset exchange, built on the premise that traditional financial infrastructure excludes billions of people across emerging markets. Founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2019 by a five-person founding team — CEO Michael Adeyeri, COO Moyosore Sodipo, and co-founders Adeoye Ojo, Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi, and Babafemi Lawal — the platform set out to create an alternative financial system where Africans could access, save, move, and grow wealth through cryptocurrency and digital assets.

A Regulated First in Nigeria

Busha made regulatory history as the first digital asset platform to receive a license from Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), establishing itself as a compliant gateway in Africa's largest crypto market. This first-mover advantage in regulatory compliance has been central to Busha's positioning, earning trust from both retail users and enterprise clients in a market that historically lacked formal oversight for crypto businesses. The platform is also ISO-certified and compliant with Nigeria's National Data Protection Regulation (NDPR).

Comprehensive Digital Asset Services

Busha operates as a full-stack financial platform built around four core pillars: trading, savings, payments, and business infrastructure.

Trading: Users can buy, sell, and swap more than 80 digital assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins like USDT, and major altcoins. The platform offers an Auto Buy feature that enables users to schedule recurring purchases, making it accessible to those looking to dollar-cost average into positions over time.

Savings: Busha offers interest-bearing savings products denominated in both Nigerian naira (NGN) and US dollars. NGN savers can earn up to 20% annual interest, while USD savers receive 7.5% annually. Accounts come in flexible and fixed-term formats. In September 2026, Busha launched Halal Savings, a sharia-compliant savings product designed to serve Nigeria's Muslim population by growing money without interest-based mechanisms — a significant product expansion into underserved demographics.

Payments and Spending: The platform enables users to hold USD accounts for international transfers, issue virtual USD Visa cards for global spending, pay utility bills, and top up airtime and data directly from the app. In August 2026, Busha launched stablecoin-backed virtual USD cards, allowing users to spend their crypto holdings at any Visa-accepting merchant worldwide. Users can also take out crypto-backed loans using eligible digital assets as collateral, providing liquidity access without requiring holders to sell their positions.

Business Infrastructure: Busha operates a dedicated B2B vertical, Busha Business, which provides payment infrastructure for Nigerian enterprises. The service enables businesses to accept USDT payments, receive international transfers, and manage crypto treasuries. A published case study highlighted how fintech company Paylign used Busha Business to build a more reliable crypto payment experience for its customers.

Mastercard Partnership Expands Reach

In November 2026, Busha announced a major partnership with Mastercard to expand the Mastercard Crypto Credential program across Africa. Through this integration, eligible Busha users in Nigeria can send and receive cryptocurrency using a simple alias — their email or phone number — rather than long blockchain wallet addresses. The system automatically verifies that recipients meet Mastercard's compliance standards before transactions complete, dramatically reducing the risk of sending funds to incorrect addresses.

Busha was among Africa's first digital asset exchanges to offer this capability. CEO Michael Adeyeri framed the collaboration as helping Busha achieve its core mission of making digital assets more practical, accessible, and trusted for everyday Nigerians and businesses. Mastercard's Africa division president Gabriel Swanepoel noted that digital asset transfers should be as intuitive and trusted as other forms of digital payments.

Backing from Global Investors

Busha has attracted investment from a distinguished group of global crypto-native and fintech investors, including Jump Capital, CMT Digital, Cadenza, Nexo, Emurgo, YOLO, Raba Capital, CoinDCX, Greenhouse Capital, and Blockwall. This backing reflects confidence in both the African crypto market opportunity and Busha's regulatory-first approach to building in the space.

Scale and Market Position

The platform has grown to more than one million users and maintains strong app store ratings: 4.6 stars on the Apple App Store (over 5,000 reviews) and 4.5 stars on Google Play (over 11,000 reviews). Busha currently operates across Nigeria (NGN) and Kenya (KES).

Africa represents one of the world's most compelling crypto adoption frontiers. Nigeria consistently ranks among the top countries globally for peer-to-peer crypto trading volume, driven by currency instability, restrictions on dollar access, and a young, tech-savvy population. Busha's combination of SEC licensing, comprehensive financial products, and deep local market knowledge positions it uniquely to serve this demand while operating within the region's evolving regulatory frameworks.

The platform's expansion beyond spot trading — into savings, payments, business banking, and now Mastercard-integrated credential verification — reflects a broader ambition to become the primary financial infrastructure layer for digital asset adoption across Africa. By addressing both the retail investor building savings in a hard currency and the business seeking reliable cross-border payment rails, Busha is assembling a multi-sided ecosystem with growing network effects across sub-Saharan Africa.