Global blockchain venture capital rose by 28.8% in 2025 to $15.4-billion, while deal activity fell by almost a third, which indicates that investors were writing larger cheques, but doing so more selectively.

Africa, meanwhile, recorded a 26.6% decrease in funding, but deal activity dropped by only two transactions year-on-year, the latest 'Africa Blockchain Report', published by Swiss venture capital firm CV VC and sponsored by financial services firm Absa, shows.

The continent's share of global blockchain deals climbed to its highest level on record, but its share of global funding almost halved, the report shows.

This suggests that Africa is producing the deal flow, but not capturing the larger ticket sizes increasingly concentrated elsewhere.

The blockchain ecosystem is maturing across the continent, which coincides with the adoption of blockchain-native solutions and a growing emphasis on regulatory frameworks designed to strengthen market stability and consumer protection.

This is producing a market that is evolving differently from many of its global peers and raising questions about whether capital allocation is keeping pace with developments on the ground, says Absa Corporate and Investment Banking digital assets head Rob Downes.

Blockchain occupies a larger place within African venture activity than it does globally, both in terms of funding and deal participation. In 2025, it accounted for 5.3% of all venture funding on the continent and 6.9% of transactions, compared with 3% of venture funding and 3.6% of transactions globally.

Blockchain as a technology, despite attracting a relatively small share of global capital, is deeply embedded within African venture markets, which also indicates the kinds of problems entrepreneurs are trying to solve, he says.

Blockchain activity in Africa is focused on fairly ordinary economic functions. Startups finding new ways to confront longstanding constraints.

From agriculture and healthcare to mobility, climate solutions, property and digital identity, entrepreneurs are exploring where blockchain might offer a practical response to market frictions, lowering barriers to participation and broadening access along the way, says Downes.

Investor appetite has gravitated in much the same direction, with much of the 2025 transaction cohort concentrated around cross-border payments, stablecoin-backed lending, digital-asset payment rails, crypto-enabled trade and supply-chain finance, exchange infrastructure and tokenised real-world assets.

Data and verification tools are also finding applications in fraud detection and digital address validation, he notes.

There are many opportunities, but the depth of capital required to support it has yet to materialise.

The median blockchain deal size in Africa stood at $1.9-million in 2025, which is below an average of $3.2-million, while seed rounds accounted for nearly half of total funding and almost half of all transactions, he points out.

The market appears capable of supporting experimentation and early growth, but attracting the larger commitments needed to scale successful businesses is considerably more difficult.

Early-stage investors are often prepared to tolerate uncertainty, but larger pools of capital tend to look for clearer rules and stronger oversight in the environments in which they deploy capital. In this regard, the continent is moving in the right direction, he says.

Further, over the past two years, Kenya, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Morocco, Zambia and Ethiopia have all taken meaningful steps towards establishing regulatory frameworks for digital assets and stablecoins, alongside licensing regimes for operators providing related services.

Fifteen African countries have a statutory or regulator-issued framework for virtual assets or a licensing regime in force, even where implementing regulations are still being adopted, Downes says.

Despite this, Africa still accounts for only 0.58% of global blockchain funding. This should be a signal to capital allocators that there are significant blockchain opportunities in which to invest in Africa.