Johannesburg, South Africa, December 23, 2025, Chainwire
South Africa is at the forefront of crypto innovation and has produced one of the leading regulatory frameworks in the world. Since April 2024, more than 300 crypto asset service providers have been licensed. VALR, one of the first to obtain such a crypto license in South Africa, also recently obtained an Over-the-Counter Derivatives Provider (ODP) license from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). This allows VALR to offer a range of over-the-counter derivatives, including Contracts for Difference (CFDs), quarterly and perpetual futures contracts, options, futures contracts and swaps, all with crypto assets as the underlying asset. This is one of the first times in South Africa that a financial services provider has been licensed to offer these products with crypto assets as the underlying asset.
By 2025, VALR has made significant progress in expanding its global user base to more than 1.7 million registered users, with hundreds of thousands of monthly active users and tens of thousands of daily users. While the exchange has listed a significant number of new crypto assets, with over 100 coins now available for trading on the app via Simple Buy & Sell, Spot and Futures, USDT/ZAR, BTC/ZAR and XRP/ZAR remain the most popular crypto pairs on VALR.
Over the past seven years, VALR – along with an increasingly sophisticated crypto industry – has expanded far beyond its original offering of exchange services only. In an effort to offer an increasingly comprehensive suite of financial services, meeting both the everyday needs of people and institutions looking to integrate with crypto, VALR now allows its customers to use the VALR app for payments in more than 31,000 stores and 700,000 locations in South Africa. This is achieved through the app’s integration with Zapper, Scan-to-Pay and Peach Payments. Furthermore, the VALR platform now also makes it easy for users to earn returns on their savings through borrowing and staking.
Over the course of this year alone, VALR users were rewarded with more than $1 million by using the platform. These rewards came from staking and lending, as well as airdrops, promotions and trading competitions.
Farzam Ehsani, co-founder and CEO of VALR, said: “We’ve worked to build a comprehensive platform that serves everyone – individuals and institutions alike. We’ve made our app and website simple enough for our grandparents to use, while making our API one of the most advanced on the market, so that corporate clients and institutions can benefit from our liquidity, pricing, custody and much more.”
Bridging crypto and traditional finance through RWAs
Highlighting the ongoing integration of crypto and traditional finance, so-called real world assets (RWAs) have gained significant traction globally this year. Simply put, RWAs are tokens issued on the blockchain that represent assets that do not naturally live on a blockchain, such as gold, stocks, or even real estate. One of the key benefits of this innovation is that it can significantly improve access to global or otherwise illiquid markets in terms of price exposure, for people around the world who may previously have been structurally excluded from participation, or at least hindered.
In line with this meaningful trend, in July this year VALR listed the Garrington Capital USD Private Credit Token (USDPC), Africa’s first tokenized asset, allowing retail investors to gain exposure to the North American high-yield private credit market, an asset class previously unavailable to most individual investors. This was followed in September by VALR’s listing of xStocks, which allowed users to easily gain price exposure to US stocks and index funds such as Tesla, NVIDIA, Robinhood, Circle, Coinbase, Strategy and the S&P 500. VALR was the first crypto exchange on the African continent to make this product available. This year also saw the launch of Crypto Bundles on VALR, making it easier for crypto beginners to build a diversified crypto investment portfolio.
Badi Sudhakaran, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, commented: “Our innovations aim to meet the needs of customers at all levels, making financial instruments accessible so that everyone can confidently take control of their financial freedom and independence.”
Institutional adoption and community engagement
2025 was also the year of the rise of institutions dealing with crypto. In addition to BlackRock, a number of other large asset managers, including Vanguard, entered the market, especially in the US. Furthermore, following the strategy of Michael Saylor – the largest corporate Bitcoin holder in the world – numerous companies have begun to allocate Bitcoin to their corporate bonds. There have also been important developments in the institutional field in South Africa.
VALR has partnered with some of the largest institutions in Africa – some of which have yet to be announced – providing the necessary crypto infrastructure for partners to build and deliver crypto products to their own customers. With Mukuru, VALR has increased access to US dollar stablecoins in Africa, and VALR is now facilitating the build-out of crypto asset services at several of South Africa’s leading banks.
Finally, this year, in an effort to raise awareness around crypto’s potential to improve the lives of many, VALR signed a multi-year deal with the DHL Stormers rugby team. The VALR logo now appears on jerseys, uniforms and at the DHL Stadium, where VALR houses a VIP suite. In support of these efforts, the exchange flew a helicopter around the country with a banner reading “Crypto For Everyone.”
As Farzam Ehsani put it: “We are committed to a world where finance unites us and turns opportunity into a right for all. As we move towards 2026, we look with optimism at the opportunities ahead, not just for VALR and our users, and not just for the crypto industry, but for the nation, the continent and the world.”
About VALR
Founded in 2018, headquartered in Johannesburg, and backed by leading investors including Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital, VALR is a global crypto exchange offering a comprehensive suite of products including Spot Trading, Spot Margin, Perpetual Futures, Staking, Lending, Borrowing, OTC services, VALR Invest, Crypto Bundles and VALR Pay. VALR is licensed by the South African FSCA and has regulatory approval in Europe. It serves more than 1.7 million users and 1,800 corporate and institutional customers worldwide. The exchange is dedicated to promoting an equitable financial future that upholds human dignity and the unity of humanity. For more information, visit valr.com.
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