Digital asset companies Tether and Gnosis have co-led a $4.4 million seed round into Sorted Wallet, a Hong Kong-headquartered startup building a non-custodial stablecoin wallet designed to run on low-cost feature phones and entry-level smartphones. The investment marks a growing recognition among crypto infrastructure providers that the next wave of stablecoin adoption will come not from users upgrading their devices, but from builders meeting users on the devices they already own.
The round included $3.4 million in equity financing from Tether and Gnosis, with additional participation from Movement, Angel Invest, and angel backers including the founders of real-world asset platform RWA.io. Tether had previously invested $1.5 million in Sorted’s pre-seed round.
A Wallet for the $20 Phone
Sorted’s core proposition is straightforward: a cryptocurrency wallet that functions on the handsets that hundreds of millions of people across Africa and South Asia actually carry, not the ones the technology industry assumes they will eventually buy. The company’s app weighs under 10MB, making it the lightest crypto wallet available on any app store, and runs on both feature phones and low-end smartphones.
The idea originated in 2022, when founder Stephen Browne encountered a $20 handset and recognised the gulf between where fintech companies were building and where the majority of emerging-market consumers were actually operating.
“Three years ago we built a wallet for a $20 phone. Nobody else thought it was worth building for,” Browne said in a statement. “500,000 downloads later, we know better. This round is how we find the next 100 million.”
According to the company, Sorted Wallet has been downloaded more than 500,000 times across 160 countries, with the fastest-growing markets including Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The growth has come without paid advertising.
Why Investors Are Betting on Basic Phones
The investment thesis rests on a structural reality that much of the fintech industry has overlooked. In Sub-Saharan Africa, smartphone ownership stands at just 33% of adults, and 40% in South Asia, compared with roughly 80% in East Asia and Europe. While smartphone shipments in Africa continue to grow, feature phones still accounted for approximately 45% of the continent’s handset market in 2025, according to data cited by the World Bank’s Global Findex Database.
In Nigeria, an estimated 51% of mobile phones in use are feature phones. In Kenya, consumers bought over two million new feature phones in the first quarter of 2025 alone, reversing a years-long trend of declining keypad-phone adoption as economic pressures squeezed household budgets. Across Africa, 56% of mobile connections in 2025 came from feature phones, compared with 5% in North America and 30% in Asia.
“To achieve true inclusion, we must reach hundreds of millions of people who cannot afford smartphones or data plans,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “That’s why we have reinvested in Sorted Wallet, ensuring that everyone, regardless of device, economic status, or location, can participate freely in the global economy using the systems and devices they are most familiar with.”
For Tether, the follow-on investment reflects a broader push to extend its stablecoin distribution beyond crypto-native trading platforms and into everyday payment and savings use cases in emerging markets. Tether now reports serving more than 570 million users globally and has described feature-phone access as essential to achieving genuine financial inclusion.
Africa’s Stablecoin Surge
Sorted’s raise comes as stablecoin adoption in Africa accelerates rapidly. Nigeria now ranks first globally for stablecoin adoption and second for overall digital asset usage, with approximately 25.9 million users, representing 11.9% of the population. Stablecoins accounted for 43% of cryptocurrency transaction volume in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, with Nigeria alone processing nearly $22 billion in stablecoin transactions between July 2023 and June 2024, according to a report by Yellow Card, a licensed stablecoin payments platform operating across the continent.
Across Africa, over 54 million people now use digital assets. Adoption is driven less by speculation than by practical necessity: currency depreciation, dollar shortages, limited banking access, and expensive cross-border transfers have positioned stablecoins as a workaround. In Nigeria, where inflation has exceeded 30% and the naira has undergone repeated devaluations, freelancers and professionals routinely convert earnings into USDT or USDC to preserve value. In Kenya and Tanzania, stablecoins are increasingly used for cross-border freelancing payments and remittances due to lower fees and faster settlement than traditional channels.
“Stablecoin adoption in Africa is not driven by speculation but by necessity,” analysts note. Persistent limitations within traditional banking systems, such as delayed transfers, sudden foreign exchange controls, and limited access to dollars, have positioned stablecoins as a practical and resilient alternative.
Gnosis, which has spent a decade building decentralised financial infrastructure, framed Sorted as a distribution layer for real-world stablecoin payments.
“Gnosis views Sorted as a key distribution layer for bringing stablecoin-based payments into real-world use, extending accessible financial infrastructure to users beyond the reach of traditional fintech,” said Daniele Pinna.
Torab Torabi, CEO of Movement, added: “They are building infrastructure for the people who need it most, not the people who are easiest to reach. This is exactly the kind of real-world financial utility Movement is built to support.”
The Regulatory Context
Sorted’s expansion plans unfold against a shifting regulatory backdrop. Several African governments are moving to establish frameworks for digital assets. Nigeria passed the Investments and Securities Act 2025, formally classifying digital assets as securities, while Kenya signed its Virtual Asset Service Providers Bill into law in October 2025, establishing dual oversight by the Central Bank and the Capital Markets Authority. Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, and Ethiopia are among the countries actively developing regulatory frameworks.
Yet significant gaps remain. Many jurisdictions still lack clear rules governing stablecoins, creating uncertainty for wallet providers and users alike. Taxation is another emerging issue, with governments exploring how to classify and tax digital assets to boost revenue. In Nigeria, proposed SEC rules include a 0.5% transaction levy on crypto payments alongside a 7.5% withholding tax on gains, measures that critics argue could push activity into unregulated channels.
What the Capital Will Fund
Sorted said the new capital will deepen its presence across West and East Africa and South Asia, with a focus on partnerships with mobile network operators and distribution channels that reach users outside traditional app-store ecosystems. The company plans to add more payment features and refine its product for the specific constraints of low-cost devices, including limited storage, intermittent connectivity, and data affordability constraints.
The challenge is significant. Building a self-custody wallet that works reliably on a $20 feature phone with a 2G connection requires engineering trade-offs that most crypto projects have never had to confront. But the potential addressable market is vast: across Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, hundreds of millions of adults own mobile phones but lack access to banking services, digital payments infrastructure, or stable stores of value.
Sorted’s proposition — putting stablecoins onto the phones people already have — represents one approach to closing that gap. Whether the company can translate early traction into a sustainable business, and navigate the regulatory complexities of dozens of distinct markets, remains to be seen. The $4.4 million seed round gives it the runway to try.