Aptos Labs and Yellow Card have rolled out instant, gas-free stablecoin transfers across 20 African nations, a move set to lower transaction costs and remove barriers to digital payments across the continent.
The partnership allows users to send and receive USDT and USDC instantly, without gas fees, using Yellow Card’s infrastructure. Aptos will fully sponsor transaction fees during the campaign, giving users cost-effective access to cross-border transfers, payrolls, and daily spending.
According to Yellow Card, Sub-Saharan Africa now leads the world in stablecoin usage. This partnership solves a critical pain point, cost and speed, by eliminating transaction fees and delays.
Yellow Card, the first licensed pan-African stablecoin infrastructure provider, has now served over 54 million users, processing billions in transactions. It operates in 20 countries, supporting both retail and enterprise clients.
“By removing gas fees and enabling instant settlement on the Aptos network, we’re empowering millions to access faster, more affordable stablecoins,” said Gillian Darko, Chief of Staff at Yellow Card.
Aptos, a Layer-1 blockchain, brings speed and scale, with sub-second finality and over 11,000 transactions per second. It’s engineered to power high-volume stablecoin usage with reliability.
“Africa is leading the way in stablecoin adoption for real-world use cases, and our network is built to meet that demand,” said Alex Heuer, Head of Payments at Aptos Labs.
This collaboration addresses Africa’s longstanding challenges with slow, expensive, and unreliable payment channels. It enables small businesses to pay employees across borders, families to remit funds affordably, and institutions to manage liquidity with speed and stability.
Global stablecoin transfers hit $27.6 trillion in 2024, overtaking Visa and Mastercard combined. As adoption continues, this partnership positions Yellow Card and Aptos as leaders in the real-world blockchain payment economy in Africa.
