Professor Fredrick Onyango Ogola, founder of ADA speaks during the launch on October 8, 2026./HANDOUTAfrica Digital Assets (ADA) has pre-launched the Kenya Token and opened its Africa hub in Nairobi as part of an initiative aimed at expanding access to digital finance.
The launch took place at Mwanzo Gardens in Nairobi and follows the pre-launch of the Namibia Token in Windhoek on October 5.
ADA, the organisation behind the Africa Digital Assets Summit, said both tokens are designed to democratise finance and provide opportunities for people living in poverty.
“First and foremost, Africans' wealth should work for Africans, and that includes those most in need,” said Professor Fredrick Onyango Ogola, founder of ADA.
Professor Fredrick Onyango Ogola, founder of ADA during the launch on October 8, 2026./HANDOUTOgola said tokenisation could give ordinary people greater participation in wealth generated on the continent.
“Tokenisation gives ordinary people a way to answer that for themselves. The moral code of digital assets must be written with the poor in mind,” he said.
The Kenya and Namibia tokens are based on the Catholic Church’s teaching on preferential treatment of the poor in financial decisions and product launches.
ADA said the Kenya Token is designed to expand access to digital assets through mobile phones. The organisation cited Kenya’s use of mobile money, saying Kenyans moved about $321 billion, equivalent to Sh41.68 trillion, through M-PESA last year.
The Kenya Token is planned to be pegged at one token to $1 when launched. According to ADA, 70 per cent of revenue will fund buybacks held in a 30-year vault, while 30 per cent will be paid to holders as staking rewards.
Funds will also go towards real-economy projects, with 5 per cent set aside to build a university to train African blockchain engineers.
In Namibia, ADA said tokenisation could help keep resource wealth on home soil. The country has approximately three million people, while its ports and corridors serve six countries and more than 300 million people.
The organisation said minerals, renewable energy and trade infrastructure along the Walvis Bay-Windhoek-Cape Town corridor could be tokenised.
“Namibia can become Southern Africa’s ethical tokenization gateway, creating opportunities for Namibians to participate in, own, and benefit from the wealth generated by their country,” Ogola said.
ADA also called for Kenya to suspend implementation of its virtual asset licensing transition by about eight months to August 2027.
“Traffic should come before traffic lights,” Ogola said. “Regulators should first watch and understand how traffic flows. Meanwhile, financial literacy protects people better than regulation alone.”
The organisation said its Africa Digital Assets Academy offers an 11-course programme covering digital assets, fraud detection and safe participation.
The public sale of the tokens is scheduled for December 16 to 25, 2026, with the whitelist already open.
