Opera Mini’s crypto wallet MiniPay now offers USDT and USDC

Major tech conglomerate Opera is expanding its cryptocurrency wallet on its mobile browser, Opera Mini, by integrating the largest stablecoins on the market, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC.

MiniPay, the stablecoin-based standalone wallet built into Opera Mini, is rolling out Pocket, a new feature that enables one-click exchanges between CNY dollars (cUSD) and newly minted stablecoins.

According to the May 3 announcement, Pocket MiniPay will allow users to easily exchange USD Coin (USDC), Tether (USDT) and cUSD with “subcoin fees and no hidden costs” by dragging and dropping.

“This feature enables the exchange of assets in Web3, allowing users to exchange coins effortlessly by simply dragging and dropping coins between virtual pockets,” Jørgen Arneson, vice president of mobile at MobileOpera, told Cointelegraph.

Most wallet users are concerned about high transaction fees

Launched in September 2023, Minipay is built on the Xelo blockchain and uses Mento's stablecoin cUSD, which is pegged to the United States dollar. The wallet extension was originally deployed to help local countries in Africa send and receive stablecoins using mobile numbers.

“Given the lack of permanent internet access and high internet costs, we recognize the huge potential of blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer solutions on the continent,” said Arneson.

“Our research showed that most consumers were concerned about high fees, unreliable service times and lack of transparency in the transaction process associated with local payment options. High mobile data costs were, and still are, a non-existent issue everywhere.

In addition to the new wallet feature, Minipay has also launched a discovery page for decentralized applications (DApps) integrated into the wallet. The page is designed to organize many native DApps and allows users to directly access tools such as universal basic income protocols, savings apps and games.

Mini Pay has seen significant growth in Africa.

In the year Since its launch in 2023, Minipay has seen over three million wallet transactions in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa, making it one of the fastest growing digital wallets on the continent.

Opera Mobile Exec Arneson said Africa has long been a mobile-first continent with a young population and widespread smartphone adoption.

“Opera Mini is currently the most downloaded mobile browser in Africa with nearly 100 million users,” he said.

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Africa has quickly become the continent with the greatest interest in cryptocurrency. As one of the youngest and fastest growing populations in the world, Africa has great potential to embrace digital assets.

According to BitcoinAfrica.io, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Ghana are the top five African countries to adopt Bitcoin by 2023.

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