Amid Kenya’s efforts to boost investments in the cryptocurrency sector by implementing clear-cut rules, the East African country’s lawmakers have now passed a bill to regulate digital assets. The “Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill” was passed in October 2025, said Kuria Kimani, the chairman of the finance committee in the national assembly, while seeking to address concerns over the lack of clear regulations to govern the sector.
According to Kimani, the breakthrough now puts the East African nation one step away from joining regional peer South Africa as the only African nation with laws to govern the digital assets industry. The bill, which now awaits President William Ruto’s signature to become law, designates the central bank as the licensing authority for the issuance of stablecoins and other virtual assets, while the capital markets regulator will license those who wish to operate crypto exchanges and other trading platforms.
The government’s move comes as countries brace for a boom in US dollar-backed stablecoins that global rulemakers have warned could undermine less developed economies’ own currencies. Kimani further added that the legislative reform will attract increased investments into the East African country’s fintech sector, including from crypto exchanges like Binance and Coinbase.
“We are hoping that Kenya can now be the gateway into Africa. Most of the young people between 18 and 35 years of age are now using virtual assets for trading, settling payments, and as a way of investment or doing business,” he remarked.
Although the digital assets industry has grown exponentially across the world in the last decade, regulation has been an area of concern as governments grapple with the challenge of preventing criminals from exploiting the systems’ anonymity. The new Kenyan law has borrowed from established practices in other countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.
Kenya has already been recognised for pioneering mobile-phone-based financial services, with its M-Pesa technology, operated by telecom company Safaricom, providing services like money transfers, savings, and investments to tens of millions of people.