Fonbnk

Fonbnk is a stablecoin settlement infrastructure company built to serve mobile-first, cash-based economies—primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa—where traditional banking rails are slow, expensive, and often inaccessible. The platform converts prepaid mobile airtime, mobile money transfers (such as M-Pesa), and bank deposits into stablecoins that users can hold, spend, or withdraw on a choice of 15 blockchain networks including Solana.

The Problem

Hundreds of millions of people in emerging markets hold wealth in the form of prepaid mobile airtime. These credits are already widely trusted as a store of value and informal payment method, but they cannot easily cross borders or integrate with global financial infrastructure. At the same time, local currency devaluation in countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana has driven strong grassroots demand for USD-denominated stablecoins. Fonbnk's thesis is that mobile airtime and mobile money are the most accessible on-ramps for these populations, and that connecting them to on-chain stablecoins can unlock both financial inclusion and cross-border commerce at scale.

How It Works

Fonbnk operates a two-sided marketplace. On one side, users who hold airtime or mobile money credits seek to convert them into stablecoins. On the other, liquidity providers—ranging from individual market makers to institutional partners—offer to accept airtime or mobile money in exchange for stablecoins.

The flow works as follows: a user opens a Fonbnk widget embedded in a partner wallet or app, specifies how much airtime or mobile money they want to exchange, and the platform's matching algorithm identifies a liquidity provider offering a competitive rate. The user transfers value directly to the provider's phone number or account. Once the provider confirms receipt, Fonbnk credits the user with MIN tokens—a proprietary internal ledger unit fixed at a value of 1 cent USD each. MIN tokens are not blockchain-based; they represent reserves of USDC held in Fonbnk's treasury and can be used for peer-to-peer transfers within the app or converted to stablecoins on any supported blockchain network.

For the off-ramp direction, the process reverses: users deposit stablecoins and receive local currency via mobile money or bank transfer, with Fonbnk agents handling the fiat side of the settlement.

Transaction completion takes under 30 seconds from the moment the liquidity provider confirms funds received. Individual airtime transactions are capped at KES 5,000–10,000, and daily wallet limits are set at 200 USD, aligning with the FinCEN de minimis threshold for U.S. regulatory compliance.

Liquidity Provider Model

Liquidity providers are the engine of Fonbnk's marketplace. Fonbnk charges providers a 1% fee on facilitated swaps, while providers set their own spreads—typically exceeding 1%—making the business attractive relative to traditional foreign exchange desks. Two categories of providers operate on the platform:

• P2P providers: Individuals or small operators with a minimum 10 USD stake, handling micro-transactions as small as 1 cent USD.
• Institutional providers: Unlimited capacity; current participants include Flutterwave, Kotani Pay, and Bitmama.

To become a liquidity provider, participants deposit USDC from an external wallet, which mints corresponding MIN credits to their Fonbnk accounts. Fonbnk is not exposed if a telecom operator shuts down its API—users transfer airtime autonomously to market makers—a design the company built explicitly to avoid the vulnerability that killed earlier airtime-to-crypto services.

Supported Assets and Chains

Fonbnk supports ten stablecoins including USDT, USDC, USDe, cUSD (Celo Dollar), cKES (Celo Kenyan Shilling), and cGHS (Celo Ghana Cedi). Stablecoin delivery or receipt is available across 15 blockchain networks: Solana, Base, Ethereum, Polygon, TON, Celo, Stellar, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, XRPL, Tron, Tempo, and Lisk. The multi-chain approach reflects that different user communities and partner wallets favor different networks; Fonbnk is chain-agnostic at the protocol level.

Geographic Reach

The platform operates in 17 markets spanning primarily Sub-Saharan Africa—Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Senegal, and others—with additional coverage in Brazil and the Philippines. Each market uses the local banking, mobile money, and airtime rails already familiar to users, lowering the barrier to first conversion. Fonbnk has announced expansion targets toward 24 countries across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Developer and Merchant Integration

Fonbnk offers three integration modes for businesses:

• Zero-code widget: A drop-in embeddable component for wallets and apps with no backend work required.
• Merchant dashboard: A web interface for monitoring orders, managing reconciliation, and overseeing liquidity.
• Signed REST API: A server-to-server integration with webhook support for real-time order-status-change notifications, suitable for backends requiring programmatic control.

Partner integrations already live include MiniPay (Celo's mobile-first wallet), MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Brave, Cenoa, and the onramp aggregator Onramper. Fonbnk has also partnered with Tanda, tapping into a network of 40,000+ agents, and integrated with Opera Mini, which reaches 2.2 million users in the region. Institutional liquidity partners include Flutterwave, Kotani Pay, and Bitmama.

The Stellar Development Foundation published a case study documenting approximately 90,000 Stellar wallet addresses served and roughly 10 million USD in gross merchandise volume facilitated through Fonbnk's rails—evidence of meaningful adoption at the time of writing.

Team and History

Fonbnk was co-founded by Christian Duffus (CEO) and Sergey Shevchuk (Co-Founder and Head of Engineering). Duffus is a serial fintech entrepreneur with three prior successful exits—LEAF College Savings (acquired by SoFi), Vite.money (acquired by RoundlyX), and Govolution (acquired by First American Payments)—and earlier experience at Goldman Sachs. The company was incorporated in 2019 and reached product maturity around 2021, with Duncan Muchangi also named as a co-founder contributing to African market operations.

In March 2022, Fonbnk closed a 3.5 million USD seed round led by New Form Capital, with participation from Kraken Ventures, MEXC Global, North Island Ventures, and several other investors. The company is headquartered in Washington, D.C.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Solana is one of Fonbnk's 15 supported settlement networks, meaning users who already hold assets on Solana—or who prefer Solana's low fees and fast finality for stablecoin activity—can receive USDC or USDT directly to Solana wallets after converting airtime or mobile money. For Solana-native wallets and applications looking to reach underbanked markets in Africa and Southeast Asia, Fonbnk provides an accessible fiat on-ramp path that does not require traditional bank accounts. The integration also enables Solana-based merchants to accept payments sourced from mobile money networks in markets where card infrastructure is limited.