“The future isn’t about crypto replacing Naira. It’s being able to spend crypto as Naira.”
– Casweeney Ojukwu (CEO)
Introduction
You can tell your friends that Nigeria is one of the most active crypto markets in the world. Between 2024 and 2025, the value of the cryptocurrencies received into Nigeria rose by 56% to $92 Billion. Stablecoin deposits have also grown over 9000% between 2018 and 2025. But guess what? 83% of these stablecoin deposits were withdrawn to fiat for spending. These stats not only show that Nigerians already use crypto, it also reveals a pattern. Nigerians want to spend crypto instead of just holding it. However, the reality is that trying to spend crypto for your everyday life in Nigeria often involves a lot of steps that makes things slow and stressful.
Normally, one of the best things about crypto is speed. In fact, sending digital assets across borders can take seconds with crypto. But turning that value into spendable Naira for rent, business payments, school fees, or daily transactions is often where the stress begins. You deal with delays, risky transactions, inconsistent exchange rates, failed transfers, and multiple conversion steps. As an everyday crypto holder, this makes it difficult for you to spend crypto. This gap between your crypto ownership and real-world use is where Resolva is positioning itself.
Resolva is a crypto-to-fiat payment platform that allows individuals and businesses to have crypto payments settled instantly in Naira directly into any Nigerian bank account. Instead of manually converting USDT or other digital assets before making payments, Nigerians can now move from crypto to bank transfer in a single flow. What this means is that you or your business can send or receive crypto payments without the recipients having to hold or even understand crypto.
In this interview, Resolva’s CEO Casweeney Ojukwu shares the story behind Resolva, the infrastructure challenges of building crypto-to-fiat settlement systems in Nigeria, the future of Web3 payment rails across Africa, and the lessons he has learned building in fintech.
1. What inspired you to start Resolva?
Resolva was inspired by a personal experience.
I was at a conference and needed to pay for books, but I was waiting for my crypto to be converted into Naira before I could make a bank transfer. I ended up waiting for about 20 – 25 minutes and the money still hadn’t dropped. The delay made the situation frustrating and honestly embarrassing.
That moment made me realize something bigger: crypto liquidity exists, but access to fast, reliable local settlement doesn’t. The gap between Web3 value and real-world crypto spending is still too wide.
Resolva was built to close that gap, to make moving from crypto to fiat seamless, instant, and dependable.
2. What were the biggest challenges in the early stages of building the product?
One of our biggest early challenges was reliability at scale.
We could control and optimize our own codebase, but resolving real-world crypto-to-fiat settlement requires integrating with multiple external payment providers. The difficulty wasn’t building the product, it was ensuring consistent uptime, speed, and successful payouts across third-party systems we don’t control.
That forced us to rethink architecture early and build intelligent routing and redundancy into our infrastructure to minimize failure rates and improve settlement reliability. Today, no matter the number of transactions coming in, Resolva settles payments in mere seconds.
3. Can you share a defining moment in the Resolva journey?
A defining moment for Resolva came before we even wrote a line of code.
I conducted a small but intentional market validation exercise with active crypto users to understand whether the problem I experienced was isolated or widespread. The feedback was immediate and consistent; fast, reliable crypto-to-fiat settlement was a real pain point. People wanted to be able to spend crypto easily
That was the turning point. It shifted Resolva from being just an idea born out of personal experience to a problem validated by the market. At that moment, I knew it wasn’t optional, it had to be built.
4. What are the core values that guide Resolva’s decisions and actions?
Reliability guides every decision at Resolva. We design for consistent, predictable settlement because financial products are built on trust. Our goal is to provide seamless and dependable ways to spend crypto every time.
5. How do you see Resolva evolving in the next 5 years?
In the next five years, I see Resolva evolving into a core crypto payment and settlement infrastructure for people and businesses across Africa and emerging markets. We will move from just helping people and businesses to spend crypto in Nigeria to providing an infrastructure that make this possible across Africa.
Our focus is on building reliable liquidity, deeper merchant integrations, and seamless cross-border settlement rails that make moving between crypto and local currencies frictionless.
Long term, the goal is for Resolva to power not just individual transactions, but entire ecosystems; exchanges, fintechs, and Web3 platforms that require dependable fiat settlement at scale.
6. What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs in the Nigerian fintech space?
My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs in the Nigerian fintech space is to deeply understand the infrastructure before building on top of it.
Fintech in Nigeria is not just about building a sleek product, it requires navigating regulation, liquidity constraints, third-party dependencies, and real operational risk. Spend time understanding how money actually moves, where failures occur, and what trust means in financial systems.
Also, validate your idea early. Speak to real users before writing code. The ecosystem moves fast, but fundamentals matter more than hype.
7. What is your favorite thing about working at Resolva?
Beyond solving a problem I experienced personally, my favorite thing about working at Resolva is the team.
The Resolva team embodies what it means to be “Resolvers.” They take ownership, think critically, and stay solution-focused even when dealing with complex infrastructure challenges. Building financial systems isn’t easy, but having a team that is resilient and mission-driven makes the journey meaningful.
That culture of accountability and problem-solving is what I value most.
8. How do you stay motivated and inspired in the face of challenges?
I stay motivated by focusing on the bigger picture.
Building in fintech, especially infrastructure comes with constant challenges, from technical hurdles to external dependencies. But I remind myself why Resolva exists: to solve a real, persistent problem in how people spend crypto.
Ultimately, challenges don’t discourage me. They only clarify the mission.
9. What role do you see crypto playing in the future of finance in Nigeria?
In Nigeria, crypto will serve as a payment system existing side by side with the traditional bank transfer system. This will improve cross-border payments, access to liquidity, and financial inclusion. But mass adoption will require having reliable bridges between crypto and Naira.
The future isn’t crypto replacing Naira. It’s being able to spend crypto as Naira.
10. What is the most important lesson you’ve learned as Resolva’s CEO?
The most important lesson I have learned so far as CEO is adaptability.
Coming from a background where I believed strongly in having a laser focus on one task at a time, I quickly realised that leading a startup requires wearing multiple hats simultaneously from product to operations, partnerships, strategy, and team leadership.
I’ve also learned that building a company is as much about people as it is about technology. Managing different personalities, emotions, and expectations requires empathy, clarity, and strong communication.
Tech builds products, but people build companies.
Conclusion
As stablecoin adoption and Web3 payments continue growing across Africa, reliable crypto-to-bank infrastructure will be important. The next phase of crypto adoption will depend on how easily you can spend cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum, USDT, and USDC in your everyday financial life.
You should be able to move money faster, pay seamlessly, receive funds reliably, and use digital assets in ways that fit naturally into your everyday life. But for that future to become real, the infrastructure connecting crypto and fiat must become faster, more reliable, and easier to use. By focusing on dependable crypto-to-fiat settlement, local bank integration, and real-world usability, Resolva is building the infrastructure layer for powering Web3 payments across Africa.
To you, the promise is simple: You can spend crypto like Naira easily and quickly using Resolva.
Ready to Spend Crypto like Cash?
Become a Resolva Pal today and experience a faster way to move between crypto and Naira.
