Busha Exchange Milestone: Serving 800,000+ Crypto Users in Africa

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In Brief

• Busha Exchange’s proactive SEC engagement and compliance-first strategy secured its survival through Nigeria’s regulatory turmoil, earning it a provisional license.
• Features like Busha Earn (7.5% stablecoin yields) and Busha Spend (daily cashback) transformed crypto from speculative trading to practical financial tools.
• Busha’s resilience during the 2021 CBN ban, including manual withdrawal support, solidified user trust and positioned it as Africa’s leading crypto exchange.

Nigeria is Africa’s leader when it comes to crypto trading, but its success goes beyond individual trade; rather, it’s those facilitating its immense transactions that are shouldering its rapid growth.

One such platform is Busha Exchange, a rising beacon of innovation, resilience, and compliance with Africa’s shifting regulatory stance.

The firm currently boasts over 800,000 registered users, representing the tireless efforts of the organization, ensuring that its products are up-to-date, secure, and user-friendly.

This is the story of how a homegrown solution became a cornerstone of crypto trading in Africa.

From Friction to Foundation: The Early Days (2018-2019)

The spark for Busha ignited from a common frustration that plagued most of Africa during Bitcoin’s hype in 2016-2017.

Co-founder Moyo Sodipo, like many Nigerians, saw the potential of Bitcoin but hit a wall.

“I had to ask someone in the U.S. to help me buy Bitcoin,” he recalls.

The cumbersome means of relying on intermediaries highlighted a c glaring gap: the lack of simple, accessible, and local platforms for Nigerians to buy and sell crypto, and well, the light bulb sparked for Sodipo.

He, alongside lead engineer Michale Adeyeri, collaborated to write the first line of code in early 2018, operating entirely bootstrapped.

The small team wore multiple hats: development, support, operations, and marketing. This intense period forged a unique camaraderie, described by Sodipo as feeling “almost like brothers.”

In addition, Sodipo was forward-thinking; instead of waiting for regulators to knock on their door, Bush proactively engaged the SEC.

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Even in 2018, we reached out to the SEC and said, ‘Here’s what we’re building. We know there’s no framework, but regulate us anyway,'” Sodipo recounts.

This early commitment to Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols and transaction monitoring wasn’t just good practice; it became an existential strategy.

After a successful private beta phase, Busha launched publicly in 2019, with their user-friendly app quickly resonating with many upcoming traders in Nigeria.

Validation arrived unexpectedly during the global market turmoil of the 2020 COVID-19 lockdowns. While traditional assets plummeted, Busha observed users confidently “buying the dip” – a powerful signal they had built something essential and trusted.

Crypto Black Friday: Navigating Existential Threat (February 2021)

Busha’s early approach toward the SEC paid off immensely when the Central Bank of Nigeria effectively banned regulated financial institutions from even touching crypto.

The industry dubbed it “Crypto Black Friday.”

Fortunately, at the time, Busha had stabilized and even secured a $4.2 million seed round led by Jump Capital.

Despite this, some backlash was received when payment processors vanished overnight, customers panicked, and the team worked entirely to process withdrawals manually.

“If users couldn’t access funds, we were finished,” Sodipo says.

In times of crisis, human beings have means of collaborating, and firms who were once competitors band together in WhatsApp groups, sharing strategies and support.

The personal toll was severe; even employee bank accounts, including salary accounts, were abruptly closed.

Yet, Busha’s small team of 30-40 individuals persevered, working tirelessly to keep the platform functional for its users.

Rebuilding and Resilience: The Path to Legitimacy (2021-2024)

Building user trust became a core mission for Busha, with them reaching out personally to returning customers, guiding them through new, often manual, processes, and encouraging referrals.

Transparent and persistent customer support became their lifeline. “We went back to the trenches and rebuilt everything from scratch,” Sodipo stated.

When the tide changed in December 2023, the CBN lifted the ban, allowing banks to service crypto firms again. To Sodipo, the news brought profound relief: “It was the happiest day of my life as a founder.” The era of complex workarounds was ending.

CHECK OUT: Nigeria Stablecoin Transactions Boom: A Positive Financial Shift

The momentum climbed with Nigeria’s SEC launching the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Program (ARIP) to license crypto platforms formally. This is where Busha’s compliance-first approach paid off, with the firm becoming the first exchange to receive a provisional SEC license.

“That license was a reward for all the hardship. Now we can walk into any bank, any boardroom, and say: we’re licensed,”

Sodipo emphasized.

Internally, it lifted a cloud of uncertainty, allowing the team to operate with newfound pride and legitimacy.

Beyond Nigeria: Expansion and Evolving Utility

Among Top Nigerian crypto exchanges, Busha strategically expanded into Kenya, offering KES(Kenyan Shilling Trades).

Simultaneously, Busha exchange understood that simply facilitating how to buy crypto in Nigeria and Kenya wasn’t enough.

This led to features like the following:

• Busha Earn: Offering users the opportunity to earn up to 7.5% annual interest on dollar stablecoins, paid daily, with flexible withdrawals.
• Busha Spend:  Revolutionizing daily crypto use by allowing users to spend their holdings directly on everyday essentials like airtime, data bundles, and shopping vouchers, often with instant cashback rewards.
• Added Features: offering $SUI for trading against USDT and KES and plans for cNGN pairs

The Core Lesson: Resilience Rooted in Compliance and Education

Currently, as a regulated crypto platform, Busha has over 800,000 users, redefining remittance solutions in Africa.

As seen, the journey wasn’t filled with roses and petals but marred with regulatory backlash and low trust.

“Back in 2019, crypto was synonymous with Ponzi schemes. Now, with stablecoins and real-world use cases, it’s different. People are seeing the utility,” he notes.

“If you’re building in a misunderstood space like crypto, pushback is inevitable. Resilience in crisis isn’t optional – it’s the only way to survive. We reached out to regulators before they had rules. We didn’t wait to be caught off guard,”

Sodipo asserts.

By prioritizing compliance from day one, weathering from day one, weathering an existential crisis through teamwork and user focus, securing crucial licensing, and expanding its services with practical products like Busha Earn and Spend, Busha has cemented its place in Africa’s crypto industry.

Their journey, as Sodipo would affirm, is indeed “wild” and one they are clearly committed to continuing.