The cost of moving money
Sub-Saharan Africa is the most expensive region on earth to send money to. The figures are not marginal:
| Average cost, $200 remittance | 8.78% (Q1 2025) |
|---|---|
| UN Sustainable Development Goal | 3% by 2030 |
| Corridors costing over 10% | 3 in every 4 |
| Corridors meeting the 3% target | approximately 7% |
| Nigeria inbound remittances, 2023 | $19.5 billion |
A worker sending $200 home may lose $20 or more to fees before the money arrives. Across the region's flows, the gap between prevailing costs and the international target represents billions of dollars a year — taken from the households least able to absorb it.
Why it costs so much
Correspondent banking
A payment from one African country to another often routes through Europe or North America. Each intermediary bank in that chain takes a fee and adds delay. Money travelling between neighbouring countries can cross two other continents on the way.
Double conversion
Many African currency pairs have no direct market. A transfer converts into dollars or euros and back again, paying the spread twice — a cost that never appears as a fee but is paid all the same.
De-risking
Global banks have withdrawn correspondent relationships from African institutions to reduce compliance burden. Fewer routes means less competition, and less competition means higher prices on the routes that remain.
Float
Settlement takes days. During that time the value sits in transit — exposed to currency movement and unavailable to the person waiting for it.
How Majestic settles
Value moves as MJX, our settlement stablecoin, across the Majestic network between corridor endpoints. It converts to local currency at each end. The correspondent chain in the middle — with its accumulated fees and days of float — is removed.
Settlement is near-instant and final. Because the network is a zero-knowledge rollup, transaction costs are a fraction of base-layer fees, and finality does not wait on a challenge period.
Stability is the point of MJX. A settlement asset that fluctuates simply moves currency risk onto the people using it, which defeats the purpose entirely.
Ezipay Global
Majestic Chain Technologies partnered with Ezipay Global, formalised in Accra, Ghana on 3 May 2023, to enable stablecoin remittance across a multi-country footprint.
The partnership pairs Majestic's settlement layer with Ezipay's payment network and local cash-out infrastructure. Blockchain settlement only helps if value can reach someone at the end of the corridor in a form they can actually spend — the last mile is where most crypto remittance projects fail.
Working with the grain
Continental payment infrastructure is an active priority for African institutions, including the Pan-African Payment and Settlement System established under the African Continental Free Trade Area.
Majestic is designed to complement that work, not compete with it. We are not asking any country to abandon its currency. We are building rails that make the existing currencies move better.
This page describes technology and plans under active development. Features, timelines and specifications are subject to change. Nothing on this page constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security or financial instrument, nor should any part of it be relied upon as investment advice.
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