Africa recorded the highest median stablecoin-to-fiat conversion spreads in January at 299 basis points, or about 3%, according to data from payments infrastructure firm Borderless.xyz covering 66 corridors and nearly 94,000 rate observations.
The regional median compared with roughly 1.3% in Latin America and 0.07% in Asia, while conversion costs ranged from around 1.5% in South Africa to nearly 19.5% in Botswana.
The data measures spreads as the gap between a provider’s buy and sell rate for a stablecoin-to-fiat pair, reflecting the execution cost paid when converting digital dollars into local currency.
Borderless.xyz found that markets with multiple competing providers generally posted costs between 1.5% and 4%, while corridors served by a single provider often saw spreads exceeding 13%, with Botswana and Congo among the highest.
The report also compared stablecoin mid-rates with traditional interbank foreign exchange benchmarks, finding a global median “TradFi premium” of about 5 basis points, though Africa’s median gap was wider at roughly 119 basis points, and following the announcement the South African rand was unchanged at $XX.
On Jan. 24, economist Vera Songwe said at the World Economic Forum in Davos that stablecoins are helping to reduce remittance costs across Africa, where traditional transfer services can charge about $6 per $100 sent.
The findings suggest that while stablecoins may offer faster settlement and potential savings over legacy remittance rails, actual conversion costs in African corridors remain heavily influenced by local liquidity and competitive dynamics.