[PRESS RELEASE – Johannesburg, South Africa, December 23rd, 2025]
South Africa has been on the forefront of crypto innovation and has produced one of many main regulatory frameworks internationally. Since April 2024, over 300 crypto asset service suppliers have obtained a licence. VALR, which was among the many first to acquire such a crypto licence in South Africa, additionally lately obtained an Over-the-Counter Derivatives Supplier (ODP) licence from the Monetary Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA). This permits VALR to offer a variety of over-the-counter derivatives, together with Contracts for Distinction (CFDs), Quarterly and Perpetual Futures Contracts, Choices, Forwards, and Swaps, all with crypto property because the underlying. This marks one of many first events in South Africa {that a} monetary service supplier is licensed to supply these merchandise with crypto property because the underlying.
In 2025, VALR has made vital strides in rising its international consumer base to over 1.7 million registered customers, with a whole lot of hundreds of month-to-month energetic customers and tens of hundreds day by day. Whereas the alternate has listed a substantial variety of new crypto property, with now greater than 100 cash accessible for commerce on the app throughout Easy Purchase & Promote, Spot and Futures, USDT/ZAR, BTC/ZAR, and XRP/ZAR proceed to be the preferred crypto pairs on VALR.
Over the course of the previous seven years, VALR – in tandem with an more and more refined crypto business – has moved properly past its preliminary providing of alternate providers solely. In an effort to supply an ever extra expansive suite of monetary providers, each catering to folks’s on a regular basis wants and establishments wishing to combine with crypto, VALR now allows its clients to make use of the VALR app for funds at over 31,000 shops and 700,000 areas in South Africa. That is achieved by way of the app’s integration with Zapper, Scan-to-Pay, and Peach Funds. As well as, the VALR platform now additionally makes it simple for customers to earn a yield on their financial savings by way of lending and staking.
Over the course of this yr alone, VALR customers have been rewarded with over $1 million through the use of the platform. These rewards got here from staking and lending, but additionally from airdrops, promotions, and buying and selling competitions.
Farzam Ehsani, VALR’s Co-Founder and CEO, mentioned: “We’ve labored to construct a complete platform that serves everybody – people and establishments alike. We’ve made our app and web site easy sufficient for our grandparents to make use of, whereas making our API one of the crucial refined out there to permit company purchasers and establishments to plug into our liquidity, pricing, custody, and rather more.”
Bridging Crypto and Conventional Finance By means of RWAs
Highlighting the progressive integration of crypto and conventional finance, this yr, globally, so-called actual world property (RWAs) have gained vital traction. In easy phrases, RWAs are tokens issued on the blockchain that symbolize property that don’t natively reside on a blockchain resembling gold, shares, and even actual property. One of many foremost advantages of this innovation is that it could actually considerably enhance entry to international or in any other case illiquid markets when it comes to worth publicity, for folks all world wide who might need beforehand been structurally excluded, or at the very least hindered, from taking part.
According to this significant pattern, in July of this yr, VALR listed the Garrington Capital USD Personal Credit score Token (USDPC), Africa’s first such tokenised asset, enabling retail traders to realize publicity to the North American high-yield personal credit score market, an asset class beforehand unavailable to most particular person traders. This was adopted in September by VALR’s itemizing of xStocks, enabling its customers to realize simple worth publicity to U.S. shares and index funds like Tesla, NVIDIA, Robinhood, Circle, Coinbase, Technique, and the S&P 500. VALR was the primary crypto alternate on the African continent to make this product accessible. This yr additionally noticed the launch of Crypto Bundles on VALR, making it simpler for newcomers in crypto to construct a diversified crypto funding portfolio.
Badi Sudhakaran, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, famous: “Our improvements intention to serve the wants of shoppers in any respect ranges, making finance truthful and monetary devices accessible so everybody can confidently take management of their monetary freedom and independence.”
Institutional Adoption and Neighborhood Engagement
2025 was additionally the yr of the rise of establishments coming into crypto. Particularly within the U.S., except for BlackRock, numerous different massive asset managers entered the house, together with Vanguard. Moreover, quite a few corporations, following within the footsteps of Michael Saylor’s Technique – the most important company Bitcoin holder on the planet – have began to allocate Bitcoin to their company treasuries. In South Africa, there have likewise been vital developments within the institutional house.
VALR has partnered with a number of of the most important establishments in Africa – a few of that are but to be disclosed – offering the wanted crypto infrastructure for companions to construct and ship crypto merchandise to their very own clients. With Mukuru, VALR improved US greenback stablecoin entry in Africa, and VALR is now facilitating the construct of crypto asset providers at a number of of South Africa’s most outstanding banks.
Lastly, in a push to lift extra consciousness across the potential of crypto to enhance the lives of many, this yr VALR signed a multi-year cope with the DHL Stormers rugby staff. VALR’s brand now seems on jerseys, kits, and at DHL Stadium, the place VALR hosts a VIP suite. In assist of this effort, the alternate has been flying a helicopter across the nation with a banner that reads “Crypto For Everybody.”
As Farzam Ehsani put it: “We’re devoted to a world the place finance unites us, turning alternative right into a proper for all. Heading into 2026, we glance with optimism on the alternatives earlier than us, not only for VALR and our customers, and never only for the crypto business, however for the nation, the continent, and the world.”
About VALR
Based in 2018, headquartered in Johannesburg, and backed by main traders together with Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures and Constancy’s F-Prime Capital, VALR is a world crypto alternate providing a complete suite of merchandise—together with Spot Buying and selling, Spot Margin, Perpetual Futures, Staking, Lending, Borrowing, OTC providers, VALR Make investments, Crypto Bundles, and VALR Pay. Licensed by South Africa’s FSCA, with regulatory approval in Europe, VALR serves over 1.7 million customers and 1,800 company and institutional purchasers worldwide. The alternate is devoted to advancing a simply monetary future that upholds human dignity and the unity of mankind. For extra info, go to valr.com.
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