Sending an email from Nigeria to a supplier in China takes just a few seconds. However, actually paying that supplier can take several days.
Tomiwa “Aleph” Lasebikan saw this frustrating delay all the time. He used to work at Microsoft before leaving in 2018 to co-found Helicarrier, a cryptocurrency startup. While working there, he noticed that his customers weren’t just interested in crypto they had a much bigger, everyday problem: they struggled to get US dollars, pay their overseas suppliers, and move money across borders smoothly.
Lasebikan believes that stablecoins (digital currencies tied to the value of the US dollar) are the answer.
He started a new company called Daya. It is a payment platform designed to help businesses easily get US dollars, pay international bills, and send money across borders using these dollar-backed digital currencies. The idea is already gaining traction: in 2025, Daya raised $350,000 from Alliance DAO, a crypto startup accelerator based in the United States.
Daya joins a rising wave of fintechs leveraging stablecoin infrastructure to modernize cross-border B2B payments. The core thesis is simple: blockchain-based settlement can do for global money movement what the internet did for communication make it instant, frictionless, and borderless.
In 2024,Stablecoins were used to settle $15.6 trillion in transactions globally. That is about the same amount of money processed by Visa, and nearly double what Mastercard handled.By 2025, that number jumped by 79%, reaching a massive $28 trillion.
Most of this growth isn’t from people speculating or trading crypto. Instead, real-world business needs are driving the boom. Companies are using stablecoins for everyday economic tasks like paying overseas suppliers (B2B payments), managing company funds, and sending money across borders.
Companies move much more money than regular people, but they still have to rely on slow, traditional banking networks to do it.
“We live in a world where sending a message across borders takes seconds,” Lasebikan said. “But trying to send money across borders is a complete nightmare.”
Daya helps African businesses receive payments from abroad easily using stablecoins (digital dollars).
First, a business signs up and proves they are a legal, registered company. Once approved, they get a US bank account. When an international customer sends US dollars to this account, Daya’s US banking partners automatically turn those dollars into stablecoins and put them into the business’s digital wallet.
From there, the business can keep the money as digital dollars, pay global suppliers, or convert it into Naira to withdraw into their local bank account. Daya charges a very small fee (0.1% to 0.3%) for each transaction. Customers don’t need to understand crypto or blockchain; Daya handles all the technical stuff in the background.
According to this report, for decades African banks relied on correspondent banking relationships (CBRs) partnerships with major global banks that allowed them to clear international payments and handle foreign currencies.
As far back as 2016, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) warned that global banks were cutting ties with African institutions. Because of strict anti-money laundering (AML) laws and high regulatory costs, international banks decided that doing business in emerging markets was simply too risky and expensive to be profitable.
Because traditional global banking networks continue to shrink across emerging markets, African businesses need an alternative. Dollar-backed stablecoins (digital currencies tied to the US dollar) are now stepping in to fill this gap, offering a faster, cheaper, and more direct way to move money across borders without relying on traditional international banks.
