Ghana is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency market in sub-Saharan Africa, according to an International Monetary Fund technical assistance report published after a mission with the Bank of Ghana and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Fund said data suggested that between 8% and 17% of the population had bought or sold crypto, with estimated annual transactions around $21 billion. In the same report, market-participant data put a mid-range adoption figure closer to 10%, with 8% as a lower bound and 17% as an upper bound. USDT was described as the single most popular crypto asset.
Those figures are estimates, not an audited official total. Crypto transaction values can count the same coins more than once as they move between wallets and exchanges. Earlier private and regulatory estimates for different periods were lower, including about $3 billion from July 2023 to June 2024 and later SEC comments of about $6 billion rising to around $10 billion by November 2025. The IMF’s $21 billion figure is the current cited estimate, not proof of $21 billion in unique real-economy payments.
The report, Regulation and Supervision of Crypto Markets and Activities, followed a Monetary and Capital Markets mission to Accra. The IMF’s high-level summary was issued in late September 2026. It reviewed prudential and conduct rules for crypto-asset service providers and stablecoin arrangements against standards from the Financial Stability Board and the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
Stablecoins are growing quickly, the Fund said, but the main uses remain crypto trading and a hedge against inflation. Use in cross-border settlement in the informal and semi-formal economy is also rising. Use in retail remittances is still negligible, though the IMF said that may grow. Asset tokenization remains a small but expanding part of the market. Inflows and outflows of tokens, including stablecoins, appear broadly balanced, which the Fund said suggests remittances are not the main driver.
Ghana already has a statute. Parliament passed the Virtual Asset Service Providers Act 2025 in December 2025. The law gives the Bank of Ghana and the SEC power to register, license and supervise virtual-asset activity. Under the split set out in the IMF note, the BoG covers stablecoin issuance and dealing, wallets, payment processing including Bitcoin ATMs, mining and validating, and lending and borrowing. The SEC covers trading platforms, initial coin offerings, asset tokenization, crypto exchange-traded funds, fund management, advisory services and brokers. The Act also provides for a coordination committee, sandboxes and enforcement powers.
The IMF’s warning is about implementation, not the existence of a law. It said Ghana’s rules are directionally aligned with global standards, but more guidelines are still needed. Licensing and supervision will be difficult because the market is already large and the regime is due to go live in December 2026. The Fund called for clearer rules on foreign-currency and cedi-denominated stablecoins, reserve quality, redemption at par, custody, market abuse, reporting and coordination between the two regulators.
Ghana has a large and growing crypto market by regional standards. Dollar stablecoins are already used as a trading tool and a store of value. They are not yet a major official remittance channel. The state has now claimed the market through the 2025 Act. The test over the next year is whether the BoG and SEC can license that activity, police stablecoin reserves and protect customers without pushing the $21 billion estimate back into the informal system.
