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IOTA revealed in the latest announcement that Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco will become the first three countries to integrate the new ADAPT program.
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ADAPT is a blockchain-based trade program that uses digital IDs along with other technologies like AI and IoT.
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These new technologies will replace paper documents and reduce cross-border transaction costs.
On May 19, IOTA, a blockchain-based platform for global trade and supply chain, revealed the list of three countries, including Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco, to become the first countries to implement the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) program.
Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco have been selected as the first countries to implement ADAPT – the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade initiative. pic.twitter.com/WOc60fFOiW
— IOTA (@iota) May 19, 2026
The ADAPT initiative was announced via the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat. There are major partners in this blockchain-based initiative, including the IOTA Foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and the World Economic Forum.
According to the official statement, Kenya, Nigeria, and Morocco will implement the ADAPT initiative by becoming the first pilot countries.
Africa has one of the biggest economic potentials, and its current GDP is standing at over $3 trillion. Despite the large economy, there is very low trade between African countries, and this is only accounting for only about 17% of total trade.
There are many issues that are affecting the growth of the African economy. This includes paper documents, slow border crossings, high fees, and a lack of trust between trading partners.
Apart from this, there are also high fees for these trades that can be around 6% to 9%, and these transactions take weeks to complete the entire process. The ADAPT program is expected to resolve these problems by creating a shared digital system, which will help the region to enhance identity verification, data sharing, and payment processing.
What is the ADAPT Program?
ADAPT is the program linked to open-source digital public infrastructure (DPI), which is mainly designed for cross-border trading. It will leverage blockchain technology powered by IOTA along with decentralized identities, artificial intelligence, and stablecoins. This transparent digital infrastructure will help them to make trading easy and boost trust among trading partners due to its transparency.
The official announcement stated that, “Implementation of ADAPT means getting to work on the concrete building blocks of digital trade. In each pilot country, this involves establishing ADAPT Country Implementation Forums, integrating digital identity systems and payment rails, and aligning national infrastructure with continental interoperability standards – built on TWIN, the open digital trade infrastructure that underpins ADAPT.”
The program includes many different parts. One of the major parts of this program is digital identity, which will provide digital passports to trading partners by using decentralized identifiers (DIDs). These digital identities will be linked to national systems such as Kenya eCitizen or Nigeria NIMC.
This will be a one-time verification, and after that, there will be no need to submit paper work because this verification will be valid across borders.
Apart from this, the initiative will use a data exchange component, which will convert all trade documents into a digital format, including invoices, certificates, and custom forms. The use of blockchain technology will allow the program to make this data exchange process tamper-proof and easy to access.
Apart from blockchain technology, there will be other technologies like artificial intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) that will help the program to get real updates about cargo shipments.
Dominik Schiener, Co-Founder and Chair of the IOTA Foundation, stated in the press release that, “Africa has a unique opportunity to leapfrog fragmented, paper-based trade systems and establish digital trust infrastructure designed for the future. ADAPT is not only digitising processes, but it is also creating a shared, interoperable foundation where trade data can be trusted, verified, and exchanged securely across borders.”
ADAPT Program to Integrate Stablecoin Payments
The initiative will also use an advanced finance and payments component. This includes mobile-based platforms along with traditional banks.
The program will leverage stablecoins such as USDT to improve cross-border transactions. The integration of stablecoin payments will allow trading entities to cut down transaction costs while improving the speed of settlements. The program also mentioned that it will use tokenization.
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