Ask a venue who its competitors are and it will name companies that sell the same product. There is another way to answer. Look at where its depositors also send their money. Two venues that share depositors are serving some of the same people, whatever each one calls itself.
This piece maps those links across 27 venues in Nigeria and South Africa over the last full year.
First, the words
Venue. A company in Africa where people put stablecoins in and get local money out, or keep them as dollars. It might be a crypto exchange like Quidax or Luno. It might be a payout desk like Breet or Jeroid, where you send USDT and get naira in your bank account. It might be a dollar account app like Raenest or Grey Finance, or a prediction market like Bayse. They look like different businesses, but they all do one thing we can measure: they take in stablecoin deposits from customers. For this piece we follow 27 venues in Nigeria and South Africa.
Deposit. When you sign up at a venue, it gives you your own address to receive stablecoins, like an account number that only works for you. A deposit is any USDT or USDC that lands at that address. We count only customer deposits. Money the venue moves between its own wallets doesn't count, and neither do business accounts.
Depositor. The wallet the money came from. If you keep USDT in your own wallet (Trust Wallet, a Tron wallet, anything you control) and send some to your Busha address, that wallet is the depositor.
This matters because it is the only thing that links one person across two venues. Your Busha deposit address and your Quidax deposit address have no visible connection. But if the same wallet of yours pays into both, we can see it.
One exception. If you withdraw straight from Binance or Bybit into a venue, the money comes from the exchange's own wallet, which sends to thousands of people. That wallet isn't a person, so we leave it out.
Shared depositor. A wallet that deposited at two venues in the same quarter. If your wallet sent money to Roqqu in March and to Spenda in February, you are a shared depositor of Roqqu and Spenda for the first quarter of the year.
"1 in N of A's depositors also deposit at B." This is the one number the whole piece rests on. Take everyone who deposited at venue A in a quarter, and count how many also deposited at venue B. When we say more than 1 in 5 Raenest depositors also deposit at Spenda, it means that out of every five wallets that paid into Raenest, at least one also paid into Spenda in the same quarter.
The number only works one way. More than 1 in 5 Raenest depositors use Spenda, but only about 1 in 400 Spenda depositors use Raenest. Spenda is much bigger, so the same group of shared wallets is a large slice of Raenest and a tiny slice of Spenda.
The period. October 2025 to September 2026, measured one quarter at a time and added up.
Three venues almost everyone links to
Make a list of each venue's top three links and the same names keep coming up.
Spenda is in the top three for 24 of the other 26 venues. Monica and Quidax are each in the top three for 18.
Size explains most of it. Spenda has more depositors than any other venue we track, roughly four times as many as Monica. When a venue's customers deposit somewhere else, the most likely place is the one most people already use.
Spenda's draw is strongest among smaller venues:
- Bayse Markets: just over 1 in 4
- Raenest: more than 1 in 5
- Payrit: nearly 1 in 5
- Roqqu and Timon: about 1 in 7
Obiex is the odd one out. By depositor count it is about as big as Monica, but it makes the top three for only five venues: Jeroid, Daya Pro, SFx, Monica and Quidax. Its links are concentrated among exchanges and payout desks, and its depositors spread less widely than Monica's.
Pairs that link both ways
Most links run one way, from a small venue to a big one. A few run both ways, where each venue is a real slice of the other.
| Pair | Share of the first | Share of the second | Shared wallets |
|---|---|---|---|
| Luno ↔ VALR | 13.2% | 12.9% | 1,634 |
| Busha ↔ Quidax | 8.5% | 4.6% | 1,950 |
| Busha ↔ Roqqu | 5.7% | 8.7% | 1,310 |
| Monica ↔ Quidax | 5.0% | 7.0% | 2,947 |
| Breet ↔ Jeroid | 4.8% | 8.5% | 840 |
| Luno ↔ Roqqu | 7.7% | 6.3% | 950 |
Luno and VALR are the closest pair in the data. About 1 in 8 depositors at each also deposits at the other, almost equal both ways. They are South Africa's two big exchanges, and a good part of their customers keep money at both.
Monica and Quidax share more wallets than any other pair: 2,947 over the year.
Breet and Jeroid are both payout desks, where you send USDT and get naira. About 1 in 12 Jeroid depositors also use Breet.
Busha, Quidax and Roqqu form a small triangle of Nigerian exchanges, and each one links to the other two. About 1 in 12 Busha depositors also use Quidax, and about 1 in 11 Roqqu depositors also use Busha.
Venues that look alike
Group the links by the kind of venue and a few families appear.
Dollar account apps link to exchanges and payout desks. More than 1 in 5 Raenest depositors also deposit at Spenda, and nearly 1 in 5 also use Quidax or Monica. At Grey Finance it's about 1 in 8 for Spenda and about 1 in 13 for Monica. Chipper Cash and Timon follow the same pattern. People who hold dollars in an app often also use a place that turns stablecoins into naira.
Payout desks link to each other and to exchanges. About 1 in 8 Breet depositors also use Monica, and 1 in 10 also use Spenda. At Jeroid, about 1 in 7 also use Monica and 1 in 10 also use Obiex.
South African exchanges link to each other first. VALR's top link is Luno and Luno's top link is VALR. Next for both come Spenda and Monica, the two big Nigerian names.
Newer and smaller venues borrow their neighbours from the hubs. 1 in 5 SFx depositors also deposit at Obiex, and about 1 in 6 also use Quidax. Nearly 1 in 3 Hisa depositors also use Spenda, and more than 1 in 5 also use Grey Finance. These venues have only a few hundred depositors each, so one quarter can move their figures a lot.
Every venue's top three links
Share of each venue's depositors who also deposit at the venues listed.
| Venue | Also deposit at |
|---|---|
| Accrue | Quidax 2.7%, Spenda 1.4%, Monica 1.1% |
| Azza | Spenda 7.0%, Quidax 2.8%, Onboard Global 2.7% |
| Bayse Markets | Spenda 26.8%, Monica 6.6%, Grey Finance 5.5% |
| Bitoshi | Monica 13.4%, Spenda 10.9%, Quidax 10.5% |
| Breet | Monica 12.0%, Spenda 9.8%, Quidax 8.9% |
| Busha | Monica 9.9%, Quidax 8.5%, Spenda 8.2% |
| Chipper Cash | Spenda 13.2%, Monica 8.8%, Quidax 8.2% |
| Daya Pro | Quidax 13.4%, Obiex 12.8%, Spenda 11.2% |
| Divest | Quidax 9.5%, Monica 6.9%, Spenda 4.6% |
| Evolution | Spenda 11.5%, Azza 4.2%, Monica 3.0% |
| Grey Finance | Spenda 12.7%, Monica 7.7%, Quidax 7.2% |
| Hisa | Spenda 31.7%, Grey Finance 22.4%, Quidax 21.1% |
| Jeroid | Monica 13.9%, Obiex 10.1%, Quidax 9.4% |
| Luno | VALR 13.2%, Spenda 9.4%, Monica 9.1% |
| Monica | Spenda 7.4%, Quidax 5.0%, Obiex 4.4% |
| Obiex | Monica 4.9%, Quidax 4.4%, Spenda 3.4% |
| Onboard Global | Spenda 9.0%, Quidax 5.8%, Grey Finance 5.3% |
| Paj Cash | Spenda 4.5%, Grey Finance 2.3%, Evolution 1.3% |
| Panta | Grey Finance 11.5%, Spenda 11.5%, Paj Cash 11.5% |
| Payrit | Spenda 18.4%, Azza 9.7%, Onboard Global 9.7% |
| Quidax | Monica 7.0%, Spenda 6.9%, Obiex 5.5% |
| Raenest | Spenda 22.5%, Quidax 18.8%, Monica 18.6% |
| Roqqu | Spenda 14.9%, Monica 11.6%, Quidax 11.1% |
| SFx | Obiex 20.5%, Quidax 16.3%, Onboard Global 15.0% |
| Spenda | Monica 2.1%, Quidax 1.4%, Roqqu 1.1% |
| Timon | Spenda 14.3%, Monica 9.5%, Grey Finance 9.5% |
| VALR | Luno 12.9%, Spenda 8.7%, Monica 7.5% |
What a venue can do with this
A venue's shared depositors show where its customers already go. A dollar app whose depositors also use Quidax and Monica knows which exchanges they turn dollars into naira through. A payout desk that shares wallets with Breet knows its customers compare payout desks. An exchange that sits next to Luno knows its customers keep money in South Africa.
None of this says anyone is ahead. It says who sits next to whom.
How we measured this
- Coverage is 27 venues in Nigeria and South Africa that AfriFlux tracks. It doesn't cover all of Africa.
- Only USDT and USDC deposits from customer wallets are counted. Exchange withdrawal wallets, venue infrastructure, and bridges are left out.
- Shared means the same wallet deposited at both venues in the same quarter. We add up four quarters, October 2025 to September 2026. A wallet that used two venues in different quarters isn't counted as shared.
- One wallet usually means one person, but not always. One person can hold several wallets.
- Solana deposits are undercounted.
- VALR and Luno figures leave out flows of $1M or more.
- Venues with only a few hundred depositors (Hisa, Panta, SFx, Payrit, Daya Pro) can move a lot from one quarter to the next.
