When Chris Maurice landed in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2018, he had solely been on a airplane 4 instances in his whole life. After which he was on a special continent with two choices: make Yellow Card work, or reside in Nigeria completely.
Day 1
It began with $90.
In Alabama – “the capital of innovation,” Maurice says with apparent irony – he met a Nigerian man at Wells Fargo making an attempt to ship $200 to his household. The financial institution needed $90 to course of it.
“I believed, you recognize, properly, that’s insane, proper?” Maurice remembers. “How may it probably value that a lot?”
He did what any crypto fanatic would do: advised the man about Bitcoin. Free transfers! Instantaneous! Revolutionary! Then he went dwelling, and actuality hit.
“I simply began considering, you recognize, what on earth is that this man’s mother gonna do with $200 in Bitcoin?” Maurice says. “You possibly can’t purchase meals with that. You possibly can’t pay lease with that. What downside is that this truly fixing?”
That query led Maurice down a analysis rabbit gap about Nigeria, its forex, its banking system, and its economic system. And someplace in that analysis, he realised one thing vital: if he needed to know Nigeria, he wanted to talk to somebody from there.
So, he did what any cheap particular person would do. He put out an advert on-line.
“Trying to communicate to Nigerian males,” Maurice says, then pauses. “Which, you recognize, in hindsight, in all probability may have been worded higher.” The phrasing attracted precisely the unsuitable form of responses. However ultimately, he related with the correct Nigerian man. And that’s when Maurice realized his first lesson about Nigeria. Nigerians are probably the most convincing folks on the earth.
“Inside a couple of month and a half of assembly this Nigerian man on the web, he satisfied me to get a passport and take the primary worldwide flight of my life,” Maurice says.
He’d by no means left the USA. He knew nearly nothing about Nigeria past what he’d researched on-line, perhaps a YouTube video or two. None of that mattered.
“The choices, very actually, have been construct one thing that works or reside in Lagos for the remainder of my life,” Maurice says. It’s the form of founder dedication story that sounds insane till you realise: it labored.
The pivot no one anticipated
Maurice and his co-founder, Justin Poiroux, had gone to Nigeria with a remittance app in thoughts. Make it simpler for folks to ship cash dwelling. Easy, apparent, wanted.
Besides it wasn’t.
“The reality is that there are 500 remittance apps, proper?” Maurice says. “By the point I completed the sentence, you’ll be able to obtain 700 completely different apps that can assist you ship cash. The world doesn’t want one other remittance app.”
What Nigeria wanted, what the continent wanted, was one thing extra elementary: a greater method to facilitate worldwide funds and allow cash to work together with native economies.
“Stablecoins are the primary and solely expertise that truly allows that,” Maurice explains. “There’s an enormous alternative to do one thing right here with worldwide funds, with entry to {dollars}, and different elementary points that exist throughout the continent.”
The realisation shifted the whole lot. As a substitute of constructing one other remittance app competing with a bunch of others, Yellow Card would construct infrastructure – the rails that might make it simpler for each firm to function on the continent.
“How can we make it simpler for all of those remittance firms, slightly than construct a remittance app ourselves?” Maurice says.
Yellow Card launched in Nigeria in 2019. And for some time, the whole lot labored. Maurice discovered that Nigerians had one thing most different markets lacked: a real openness to new expertise.
“From the start, all people simply actually understood crypto,” he says. “Folks have such an openness and willingness to attempt new expertise and implement new expertise that solves their issues. That’s one of many largest advantages of doing enterprise in Nigeria—the tradition of innovation.”
Maurice compares it to his experiences in Europe, the place innovation strikes extra slowly, trip days pile up, and risk-taking is discouraged. In Nigeria, as within the US, folks hustle.
“There’s no such factor as work and life separation, prefer it’s all only one,” he says. “Nigeria, man, folks hustle. There are specific international locations around the globe the place folks simply hustle, proper? And people international locations, from a enterprise perspective, get alongside a lot better.”
By 2021, Nigeria accounted for over 90% of Yellow Card’s quantity and income. The corporate had constructed significant infrastructure in seven different African international locations, however Nigeria was the engine.
Then, in February 2021, the whole lot modified.
Day 500: The ban that separated winners from losers
The Central Financial institution of Nigeria issued a directive prohibiting banks from processing transactions from cryptocurrency firms or customers. It wasn’t technically a crypto ban—Nigeria by no means truly banned cryptocurrency—however it may as properly have been.
“Look, it was a serious hindrance to the business and to with the ability to develop in Nigeria,” Maurice says. For many crypto firms working in Nigeria, the directive was devastating. Firms that had raised seed funding across the similar time as Yellow Card began firing employees. Development stalled. Some shut down completely. Yellow Card didn’t fireplace anybody.
“We have been the one firm that got here out of that with out having to fireside anyone,” Maurice says. “We have been the one firm that got here out of that in a position to increase a Sequence A.”
The distinction? These seven different international locations.
Whereas rivals had gone all-in on Nigeria, Yellow Card had truly opened entities, secured financial institution accounts, obtained licencing approvals, and constructed infrastructure throughout the continent. When Nigeria went offline, it may shift assets instantly.
“We have been the one Pan-African crypto participant that had truly constructed significant infrastructure exterior of Nigeria,” Maurice explains. “When that occurred, we have been the one firm truly in a position to shift assets to different international locations, to different markets, to have the ability to develop.”
The ban lasted about two months earlier than issues largely returned to regular. Yellow Card labored with fee service suppliers to keep up operations, even when it was ‘slightly bit uglier from an operational standpoint.’
However the harm to rivals was carried out. And the lesson was clear.
“It despatched a shock wave to us and to others that, like, oh shit, we have to have a presence in additional than simply Nigeria,” Maurice says. “One nation has an excessive amount of concentrated threat.”
Yellow Card diversified aggressively. Right this moment, it operates in 20 African international locations. Nigeria stays a really massive market, “however it’s not at all 90%. It’s not even half of the enterprise.”
Of all of the crypto firms that launched across the similar time, Yellow Card was the one one to boost a Sequence A. It constructed a sustainable enterprise. And it did it as a result of it’d ready for the worst earlier than it occurred.
Past the large three
Considered one of Yellow Card’s core assumptions—one which’s confirmed appropriate—is that chance exists past Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
“Most firms don’t actually function in Africa,” Maurice says. “They function in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, proper? And typically Ghana. That’s it. Three to 4 international locations, the place there are 54 on the continent.”
The second nation Yellow Card was launched after Nigeria? Botswana.
“To at the present time, I feel we’re nonetheless the one firm truly working regionally in Botswana,” Maurice says. “And it’s an enormous marketplace for us, as are a few of these different markets that individuals don’t often take into consideration.”
The technique required working carefully with regulators nation by nation—one thing earlier crypto firms had did not do successfully.
“We weren’t the primary firm to be doing crypto on the continent, however we have been the primary firm that mentioned, as a part of this, we have to assist the business as an entire,” Maurice explains. “We went nation by nation and labored with regulators on the event of licensing regimes. A number of the payments which have come out just lately—we have been those that wrote them.”
It’s unglamorous work. It’s sluggish work. Nevertheless it’s the work that creates sustainable companies.
Day 1000: The information-driven method to failing quick
Maurice is candid about errors. Yellow Card has made errors in advertising and marketing campaigns, product choices, and operational selections. Nevertheless it has developed a philosophy: don’t be unsuitable for lengthy.
“You possibly can go in, you may make assumptions, you might be unsuitable, however don’t be unsuitable for a very long time,” he says. “Fail quick and fail rapidly.”
It’s a philosophy born from necessity. Working throughout 20 African international locations means navigating 20 completely different regulatory environments, 20 completely different person cultures, 20 completely different market dynamics. You possibly can’t afford to remain unsuitable.
“We attempt to be fairly data-driven,” Maurice says. “Apart from the basic enterprise mannequin—we’re going to function in all these international locations, and there is a chance in these international locations—we don’t actually make assumptions over the long term.”
It’s additionally why Maurice thinks Africa’s crypto market is massively underestimated by outsiders.
“Africa is the main continent by a variety of metrics within the house,” he says. “Seven international locations have been out and in of the highest rankings globally for adoption. It’s only a huge market that I feel is essentially ignored.”
Why the oversight? Maurice factors to illustration, or lack of it.
“Africa is simply largely undercovered within the media. It’s underrepresented in popular culture, films, issues like that,” he says. “Folks exterior of the continent simply usually don’t perceive it.”
Even inside the continent, understanding is fragmented. “In case you discuss to the typical particular person in Nigeria, I don’t assume they actually perceive Francophone Africa and among the cultural nuances there, and vice versa.”
Evaluate that to American or British tradition, which dominates international media.
“I couldn’t let you know a film that’s set in Congo off the highest of my head,” Maurice says. “Until you’re truly getting down to do analysis, it’s fairly troublesome to be taught extra.”
What’s subsequent: Constructing for the long run
Yellow Card now operates throughout 20 African international locations, has raised a Sequence A, and has positioned itself as crypto infrastructure for the continent. In 2025, the Yellow Card discontinued its retail providers to focus solely on enterprise purchasers. The 2023 lifting of Nigeria’s banking restrictions on crypto created new alternatives.
Maurice’s recommendation for founders? Are available with an open thoughts.
“I didn’t expertise tradition shock in Nigeria as a result of I went in with completely no preconceived notions,” he says. “I feel so as to expertise tradition shock, you anticipate issues to be a sure manner, after which issues are completely completely different. I had no thought what I used to be entering into.”
That openness—mixed with aggressive diversification, regulatory partnerships, and the willingness to fail quick—turned a one-way ticket gamble right into a pan-African success story.
Wanting again, Maurice’s evaluation of that preliminary choice to fly to Lagos on a six-day-old passport is easy: “The choices have been construct one thing that works or reside in Lagos for the remainder of my life.”
He constructed one thing that works. Throughout 20 international locations. And counting.
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