The Founding Five
Why these five.
We did not choose the five largest markets. We chose the five where our work is most likely to change outcomes, and which together represent every principal regulatory model and every stage of the regulatory lifecycle now present on the continent.
The scale anchor
Nigeria
The Investments and Securities Act 2025 expressly recognises virtual and digital assets as securities, placing digital-asset operators inside the Securities and Exchange Commission's perimeter. Nigeria received $92.1bn in on-chain value in the twelve months to June 2025, close to three times Africa's second-largest market, and was removed from the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring in October 2025.
Open questions: Subsidiary rulemaking under the ISA, bank and VASP account frameworks, stablecoin treatment, tax treatment, and the transition from the SEC incubation programme to full licensing.
Sources: Investments and Securities Act 2025; SEC Nigeria; Chainalysis Geography of Crypto 2025; FATF plenary outcomes, October 2025.
Country Chapters.
Each market operates a Chapter with a resident Country Lead, a Country Advisory Council, mapped regulatory and industry networks, a monthly roundtable, a maintained regulatory tracker and an annual country report.
Expansion beyond the Founding Five happens on evidence, not ambition, and only where there is active rulemaking we can inform, sufficient ecosystem depth, public-authority receptiveness, credible resident leadership, a funding pathway, and a regulatory model or region not already represented.