A Nairobi-based digital assets firm has asked the government to push back the rollout of Kenya’s virtual asset licensing regime by eight months, to August 2027. It says the market is still too young to regulate effectively.
Africa Digital Assets (ADA) wants authorities to suspend the licensing transition, which is due to close in November. The firm argues that Kenya does not yet have enough local use cases to guide the rules.
“Traffic should come before traffic lights,” said Prof Fredrick Onyango Ogola, the founder of ADA. “Regulators should first watch and understand how traffic flows. Meanwhile, financial literacy protects people better than regulation alone.”
The call came as the firm pre-launched a Kenya Token and opened an Africa hub at Mwanzo Gardens in Nairobi. Last week, it pre-launched a similar Namibia Token in Windhoek.
ADA says the Kenya Token is pegged at $1 (about Sh129) and will be sold to the public between December 16 and 25.
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The firm says 70 percent of revenue will fund token buybacks held in a 30-year vault. The remaining 30 percent will be paid to holders as staking rewards.
According to the firm, the money raised will go into real-economy projects, with five percent set aside to build a university that will train African blockchain engineers.
Faith-based pitch
ADA is marketing the tokens as faith-aligned products built on the Catholic Church’s teaching of preferential treatment for the poor.
“First and foremost, Africans’ wealth should work for Africans, and that includes those most in need,” Prof Ogola said.
The firm is targeting Kenya’s large mobile money base. Citing M-Pesa figures, ADA said Kenyans moved about $321 billion (Sh41.68 trillion) through the platform last year. Yet only 84,000 of Safaricom’s roughly 33 million M-Pesa users actively trade shares on the app.
In Namibia, ADA plans to tokenise minerals, renewable energy and trade infrastructure along the Walvis Bay–Windhoek–Cape Town corridor.
The firm wants regulators, industry, civil society, the church and educators to work together on a shift towards self-regulation rather than relying entirely on regulation.
It is also running an 11-course digital assets programme through its academy, with the first courses free. The courses cover how digital assets work and how to spot fraud.
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By Nixon Kanali
Tech journalist based in Nairobi. I track and report on tech and African startups. Founder and Editor of TechTrends Media. Nixon is also the East African tech editor for Africa Business Communities. Send tips to kanali@techtrendsmedia.co.ke.