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Fonbnk, an African fintech startup, just announced a partnership with Avalanche that will change the way millions of Africans who don’t have bank accounts get cryptocurrency.
The Fonbnk Avalanche partnership wants to turn airtime into crypto instead of a simple bank account or mobile money wallet. The model enables prepaid mobile airtime to be spent as digital dollars on-chain.
TL;DR,
- The Fonbnk-Avalanche partnership turns airtime into crypto by matching airtime sellers with P2P market makers, settling value on Avalanche in USDC.
- Fonbnk is building a bankless on-ramp for Africans who have airtime but limited access to traditional finance, using Avalanche for settlement and stablecoins for dollar value.
- It’s a practical bridge for cross-border earners and merchants, but success depends on liquidity, user education, and navigating uneven regulation across African markets.
It’s a different approach that focuses on building a conversion rail for areas where 41.8% of adults don’t have bank accounts, but over 80% of adults own smartphones, and 40% have access to mobile money. Tapping into nearly 570–580 million prepaid SIM cards Fonbnk has turned airtime into a permissionless on-ramp for Web3 on-ramp solutions.
What the Fonbnk Avalanche partnership enables
The airtime-to-crypto model focuses on simplicity and access, especially given their target demographic has little access to banks and even less knowledge about cryptocurrency.
Here’s how to on-ramp crypto with airtime:
- Register with a mobile number, no KYC required at the entry level.
- Load prepaid airtime onto your phone through any supported carrier (available across eight African countries: Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania, and Mozambique).
- Initiate a swap on the Fonbnk platform or via the Fonbnk Pay Widget.
- Get matched with a “market maker” (a liquidity provider on Fonbnk’s peer-to-peer marketplace) who purchases your airtime.
- You can get USDC or other Avalanche-native tokens in a non-custodial wallet and settle them on the Avalanche C-Chain using Circle Mint.
The process is simple. The Fonbank Avalanche partnership is focused on risk-free, dollarized payments for cross-border earners, merchants, and agents who get local airtime but need stable, chargeback-free settlement in USDC.
Matthew Schmenk from Ava Labs explained the reasoning behind this:
“Sub-Saharan Africa has the greatest adoption of blockchain by the percentage of the population… The partnership forged with Fonbnk will unlock this region for the Avalanche community.”
Christian Duffus, founder and CEO of Fonbnk, explained the vision as
Empowering individuals to take control of their financial destiny starts with access. At Fonbnk, we’re leveraging mobile technology to break down barriers to financial empowerment. Our integration with Avalanche, renowned for its speed and affordability, amplifies our vision, making financial inclusion a reachable reality for every mobile user.
The Technicalities behind the Airtime into Crypto Model: Avalanche C-Chain and Circle Mint
The airtime into crypto model is only possible via a dedicated Web3 on-ramp built on the Avalanche C-Chain, Avalanche’s EVM-compatible smart contract layer.
The repaid airtime value is settled into USDC (with plans to support EURC) using Circle’s institutional-grade minting infrastructure. This ensures stablecoin liquidity is backed 1:1 by regulated reserves.
Fonbnk provides a Pay Widget (low-code embeddable solution) and APIs to enable Avalanche developers and dApps to integrate airtime into crypto payments directly into their applications. This generally cumulates into a near-instant transaction, eliminating chargeback risks and reducing foreign exchange costs for cross-border merchants.
Avalanche as the infrastructure choice was well thought out, with the organization having a Total Value Locked (TVL) surpassing $2.2 billion, 80 active interconnected L1 chains, and 834 validators as of Q3 2025.
DeFi in Africa: The Signal that Enabled the Partnerships
DeFi in Africa is taking a drastic turn, with top ecosystems shifting regulation and encouraging local participation. Nigeria lifted its banking ban in 2023, which gives local startups the tools they need to connect the crypto world with the fiat world.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Investment and Securities Act 2025 (ISA 2025) into law in March 2025. This law formally put virtual assets under SEC supervision as securities.
Earlier, South Africa made its regulatory position official. In October 2022, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) called crypto assets a “financial product” under the FAIS Act. This meant that all Crypto Asset Service Providers (CASPs) had to get licenses.
In June 2023, Kenya put in place a 3% Digital Asset Tax and is moving forward with the Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASP) Bill, which will set up licensing through the Capital Markets Authority and the Central Bank of Kenya.
These frameworks legitimize the industry but make it harder for those without bank accounts to use it. Fonbnk’s permissionless airtime-to-crypto model is still crucial for people who don’t have access to formal financial systems.
GSMA says that Africa is likely to have 634 million mobile subscriptions by 2020, which is 52% of the population. This includes both prepaid and postpaid connections, with the former accounting for 90% of mobile users in Africa. This vast adoption creates a large, familiar “liquidity pool” that on‑ramps like Fonbnk can tap.
Benefits and trade-offs for this project.
The obvious benefit of an airtime-to-crypto model is that it:
- Bankless access: Converts the most common mobile asset (prepaid airtime) into USDC without requiring a bank account.
- Speed and cost: Avalanche is tuned for rapid, low‑fee settlement; the ecosystem’s TVL surpassed $2.2B in Q3 2025 with 834 validators, indicating growing on‑chain depth.
- Developer‑ready: Low‑code widgets and APIs reduce integration time for wallets, remittance apps, and merchant tools.
- P2P liquidity incentives: Market makers keep the market deep by buying airtime and sending crypto, which earns them yield.
But it does have some problems. Regulation has improved things there, but Africa as a whole is still very divided, with different markets using different rules. Additionally, prepaid airtime systems vary by carrier and country, and fraud (SIM-swapping, stolen credit) is a known issue.
One of Fonbnk’s biggest hurdles is educating users. Converting airtime into crypto requires smartphone literacy and wallet management. Not understanding seed phrases or transaction finality can cause you to lose money.
A Bridge, Not a Silver Bullet
Fonbnk gives people in Africa a way to get into DeFi by letting them use a familiar asset, prepaid airtime, to save money, send money, and earn interest. This is especially true in Nigeria, which came in second in the world for crypto adoption in the 2024 Chainalysis report.
85% of transfer value was under $1 million, which shows that most people were using it for retail purposes. Retail-sized stablecoin transfers in Ethiopia grew by more than 180% from one year to the next, showing that people want dollarized savings because of inflation.
The Fonbnk-Avalanche partnership makes it easy for freelancers and e-commerce in Africa to switch to USDC right away, which keeps the value of their money from going down and saves them money on currency exchange fees. Developers can embed Fonbnk’s Pay Widget to accept airtime into crypto payments, opening new revenue streams.
Akshi Federici, operating partner at Kraken Ventures (an investor in Fonbnk’s $3.5 million March 2022 seed round), noted:
“Prepaid airtime minutes are currency across most of the under- and unbanked populations globally. Fonbnk’s solution is a perfect use case to bridge decentralized finance with mass fintech.”
However, this is not a universal solution. Success depends on sustained liquidity, evolving regulatory clarity, and user trust. As a Web3 on-ramp solution, it’s a unique approach to a saturated market.
