For many Nigerians who use cryptocurrency, buying or receiving digital assets is no longer the difficult part. The friction often begins when they want to use those assets for something outside the crypto ecosystem.
You may have USDT or Bitcoin sitting in a wallet, but paying an electricity bill, buying data, or simply getting naira to spend can mean moving between wallets, exchanges, off-ramp services, and bank accounts.
SpaceTrade wants to make that experience much simpler.
The fintech platform is built around the idea that utilising digital assets should feel much closer to using the money people already spend every day.
It is a direction that reflects how cryptocurrency use is evolving in Nigeria. The country ranked sixth globally in Chainalysis’ 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index, while receiving more than $92 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025. Beyond trading and speculation, digital assets are increasingly being used for savings, payments, and moving money across borders.
For SpaceTrade, the opportunity is to bring more of those use cases together.
From holding crypto to actually using it
SpaceTrade started by making it possible for users to sell cryptocurrencies and gift cards for naira. Now, the company is expanding what users can do within the platform.
Users can hold supported digital assets in crypto wallets, swap and transfer crypto, fund their accounts with fiat, and convert digital assets when they need naira.
But SpaceTrade wants the experience to go beyond moving money in and out of crypto.
The platform is integrating services people already pay for regularly, including airtime, mobile data, electricity and cable TV. It also offers global eSIM services, while its broader roadmap includes naira cards and proposed international USD cards. And for the first time in Nigeria, a digital asset wallet combined with a naira card can be used to make offline payments nationally.
Put together, the idea is to reduce the number of steps between owning a digital asset and actually getting something done with it.
Someone receiving crypto for freelance work, for example, should not have to think about several platforms before that money can become useful. SpaceTrade wants users to be able to receive or hold their assets and move naturally into the things they need to do, whether that means converting to naira, sending money, or paying a bill.
That focus on utility is increasingly important as crypto matures. Across Sub-Saharan Africa, retail crypto activity is particularly strong, with smaller transactions accounting for a greater share of transferred value than in the rest of the world. Stablecoins are also increasingly being used for payments and cross-border transactions.
SpaceTrade’s bet is that the next opportunity is not simply giving people another place to trade those assets, but making them easier to use.
Crypto & Everything In Between
SpaceTrade wants to build at the intersection of digital assets, payments, and everyday financial services. Its future development will continue to explore products across payments, cross-border access, cards, utilities and other services that can make digital assets more practical.
On September 11, the company will host Crypto & Everything In Between, alongside the launch of its new headquarters and unveiling of its new identity.
The event will bring together industry voices to discuss some of the issues shaping crypto’s next phase, from regulation and Web3 to payments, cross-border exchange, accessibility and adoption.
The name captures the question SpaceTrade itself is trying to answer.
If cryptocurrency is going to play a bigger role in the financial lives of everyday Africans, what needs to exist between acquiring crypto and actually using it?
For SpaceTrade, making that gap smaller is the mission. Crypto may run on entirely different rails from the naira, but for the person spending it, the experience does not have to feel that way.
