Safaricom's Ziidi isn't a payments story — it's a wealth management leapfrog: Africa just built a money market fund with 4.3 million investors using infrastructure that didn't require a single bank branch, brokerage account, or KYC document beyond a SIM card, and Western asset managers have no response to this distribution model.
The same crypto rails enabling SEA scam compound money laundering (Telegram-based CMLNs, layered wallets, informal banking) are structurally identical to the rails that legitimate DeFi and ASEAN fintech growth is being built on — regulators face the impossible task of killing one without killing the other.