Airtel Africa on Tuesday announced a sweeping partnership with SpaceX to deploy Starlink’s direct-to-cell satellite technology across all 14 countries where the telecoms group operates, a move that could significantly reshape mobile connectivity in some of Africa’s hardest-to-reach regions.

The partnership is also seen as a strategic play that could reshape competition across Africa’s telecom sector, particularly in Nigeria, the continent’s largest and most lucrative mobile market, where network coverage has long been a decisive battleground.

The service is expected to begin in 2026, initially supporting text messaging and limited data services for selected applications. Over time, Airtel says the offering will expand as satellite capabilities improve and more smartphones become compatible with direct-to-cell connectivity.

Under the partnership, Airtel Africa subscribers will be able to connect directly to Starlink satellites in areas where terrestrial mobile networks are unavailable. This effectively removes the need for traditional cell towers in some remote and sparsely populated regions, allowing Airtel to extend coverage into locations that have historically been difficult or uneconomical to serve.

The agreement also covers Starlink’s first broadband direct-to-cell system, which will rely on next-generation satellites designed to deliver significantly higher data speeds directly to smartphones. Airtel Africa says these systems could offer data speeds up to 20 times faster than earlier satellite-to-mobile technologies, narrowing the gap between satellite connectivity and conventional mobile broadband.

For Airtel Africa, which serves tens of millions of customers across markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, and Zambia, the partnership offers a way to scale coverage without the heavy capital expenditure required to build towers, lay fiber, or secure power infrastructure in remote areas. It also strengthens the company’s pitch to governments and regulators focused on closing digital divides and expanding rural connectivity.

Nowhere is the competitive implication clearer than in Nigeria. The country is Africa’s largest telecom market by subscribers, and MTN has historically led on network coverage, particularly in rural and semi-urban areas. That coverage advantage has been a key reason MTN has maintained its dominant market position despite intense price competition.

Through the SpaceX partnership, Airtel is now expected to gain a potential edge in regions where MTN’s terrestrial network still struggles or where further expansion would be costly. The ability to offer coverage in deep rural communities, border regions, and hard-to-reach terrain could allow Airtel to narrow, or in some cases leapfrog, MTN’s long-standing coverage lead. In a market where network availability often matters as much as pricing, that shift could influence subscriber growth, churn rates, and enterprise contracts.

The deal also comes at a time when Nigerian telecom operators are under pressure from rising operating costs, foreign exchange constraints, and energy challenges. Satellite connectivity offers an alternative path to expansion that reduces reliance on diesel-powered base stations and extensive physical infrastructure, both of which have become increasingly expensive.

For SpaceX, the partnership deepens Starlink’s push into Africa by embedding its technology within established mobile networks rather than relying solely on direct-to-consumer satellite broadband. Starlink has been expanding rapidly across the continent and recently launched services in São Tomé and Príncipe, bringing the number of African countries with Starlink access to 26.

That expansion has not been smooth in every market. In South Africa, Starlink is still not fully operational due to regulatory hurdles, particularly Black Economic Empowerment rules that require 30% local ownership. Those requirements clash with SpaceX’s corporate structure. While the government issued a directive aimed at allowing satellite providers to operate without ceding ownership, a parliamentary committee overseeing the telecoms sector has since recommended that the directive be revoked, creating renewed uncertainty.

Even with those challenges, the Airtel Africa partnership underscores the growing role of satellite-to-mobile technology as a competitive weapon in Africa’s telecom industry. Rather than replacing traditional networks, the technology is increasingly being positioned as a complement.

Coinbase is executing its most ambitious strategic pivot to date, moving far beyond its origins as a digital asset exchange to become a comprehensive “Everything App” for global finance.

In a major “System Update” announced on December 17, 2025, the company unveiled a robust slate of products designed to challenge traditional brokerages like Robinhood and Charles Schwab. CEO Brian Armstrong’s vision is to replace the fragmented legacy financial system with a unified, always-on platform where stocks, ETFs, prediction markets, and crypto coexist on a single on-chain rail.

The cornerstone of this expansion is the immediate rollout of commission-free stock and ETF trading for U.S. users. In a significant departure from the constraints of traditional finance, Coinbase is enabling 24/5 trading, allowing investors to react instantly to overnight earnings or global macro events.

Users can fund these trades using either traditional USD or the USDC stablecoin, effectively bridging the gap between the speed of crypto and the stability of equities. This integration simplifies portfolio management by housing diverse asset classes under one account, with plans to add thousands of additional stocks in the coming months.

Early next year, Coinbase intends to further blur these lines by introducing stock perpetuals, allowing international traders to bet on equity price movements with up to 50x leverage. This move signals Coinbase’s intent to capture the sophisticated derivatives market that has historically been the domain of major investment banks and offshore crypto platforms.

A pivotal element of the new ecosystem is the launch of Prediction Markets, integrated directly into the Coinbase app through a strategic partnership with Kalshi. As the only CFTC-regulated event contract exchange in the U.S., Kalshi provides the necessary legal rails for Coinbase users to trade on the outcomes of everything from Federal Reserve interest rate decisions to the Oscars and major sporting events.

Brian Armstrong argues that the value of these markets extends beyond mere speculation; they serve as a high-fidelity sentiment gauge. While a small fraction of users trade these as an asset class, Armstrong posits that the vast majority use them as a “truth engine” to understand collective expectations on global events—positioning prediction markets as a direct competitor to traditional news media.

“If you look at things like economic indicators … or elections, people are using prediction markets to try to figure out what is going to happen next month,” Armstrong told CNBC. “Maybe1% of people use it as an asset class to trade, and 99% of people are using it as a way to figure out what’s going to happen — almost like a competitor to traditional media or maybe even entertainment.”

By incorporating these into the “Everything Exchange,” Coinbase is betting that “always-on engagement” will keep users within the app even when crypto markets are stagnant.

Tokenization and the ‘Agentic’ Economy

Coinbase is not just expanding its retail offerings; it is fundamentally rebuilding the underlying infrastructure for institutional finance through Coinbase Tokenize. This institutional-grade stack is designed to bring Real-World Assets (RWAs), such as private credit, treasuries, and eventually real estate, onto the Base blockchain. The long-term goal is to transition the current T+2 settlement system (where it takes two days for a stock trade to clear) to a T+0, near-instant settlement model that operates 24/7 globally.

Simultaneously, the company is laying the groundwork for the future of automated commerce with the x402 protocol. This new open internet standard allows for stablecoin payments to be attached directly to HTTP web requests.

This is a critical development for the burgeoning AI agent economy, enabling autonomous software programs to pay for API access, content, or services without human intervention. In its first 30 days of testing, the protocol has already processed an annualized volume of $200 million, indicating significant early adoption by developers.

Global Business Expansion and the Singapore Launch

To support this broader ecosystem, Coinbase Business has officially made its international debut in Singapore, in collaboration with Standard Chartered. This platform serves as a “crypto operating account” for startups and small businesses, offering instant USDC settlements, global payroll in stablecoins, and automated accounting integrations with platforms like QuickBooks and Xero. By choosing Singapore—a global hub for digital innovation—as its first international business market, Coinbase is positioning itself as the primary liquidity provider for the next generation of digitally native companies.

The throughline of all these initiatives is retention and diversification. By becoming a one-stop shop for all financial needs—from an AI-powered robo-advisor to institutional tokenization tools—Coinbase aims to decouple its revenue from the volatile “feast-or-famine” cycles of crypto trading.