 
 
In the autumn of 2008, as the global system buckled under its weight, the now-mythical Satoshi Nakamoto published a nine-page white paper proposing a system that would operate without banks, governments, or intermediaries. Bitcoin, as it was called, offered a vision for a trustless system—one where control rested in the hands of users, not institutions.
At the time, none of this would have made its way into the lives of two nine-year-old boys growing up in a neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria. Tobi Asu-Johnson and Moore Dagogo-Hart were busy being kids—playing football, making music, and getting into the sort of mischief that foreshadowed entrepreneurial energy.
Tobi, raised by entrepreneurial parents, once ran a side hustle renting out PSP consoles to his classmates during school breaks. Moore, a quiet thinker raised by his mum, spent his free time tinkering with the family computer and experimenting with music software while others were still figuring out Microsoft Word. They didn’t know it yet, but those small experiments in creativity and enterprise were laying the groundwork for something much bigger. Years later, they’d come together as a classic duo—Tobi driven by vision and people, Moore by logic and structure.
By the early 2020s, the crypto conversation had gone mainstream. Everyone was either trading, tweeting, or losing sleep over it. Tobi was introduced to peer-to-peer trading through a roommate in university who dealt in gift cards, and within months, he’d become the go-to guy on campus for fast and reliable crypto deals. He believed in it from the jump. For him, this was the future of money, and he wanted in early.
Naturally, as Tobi got deeper into crypto, he pulled his best friend in. Moore had been around systems longer than most; a forex trader in university and intern at Goldman Sachs, he’d seen how institutions operated. Moore recalls that he was cautious, but not closed off. The first book he read was The Book Of Satoshi by Phil Champagne, a turning point that shifted his perspective entirely: “That was when I stopped seeing crypto as a get-rich-quick scheme and recognised its use cases. That changed everything.”
 
They started discussing it more seriously, shifting the focus from trading to building. Crypto, they realised, wasn’t just a different way to make money. It was a chance to build a better system altogether—one where you didn’t need a bank to complete transactions across borders.
But then came 2022—a year that shook the very foundations of the crypto ecosystem.
The market unravelled dramatically, set off by a cascade of collapses, excessive risk-taking, and systemic vulnerabilities that became increasingly difficult to ignore. The implosion of the Terra stablecoin and its sister token, Luna, alone erased an estimated half a trillion dollars from the crypto market. Not long after, FTX—once considered one of the world’s most trusted crypto exchanges—crumbled under the weight of revelations about gross mismanagement and the mishandling of customer funds.
In Nigeria, Patricia, one of the country’s most prominent crypto exchanges, suffered a catastrophic cyberattack that led to the loss of hundreds of millions. Withdrawals were abruptly frozen, triggering widespread panic. For many young Nigerians who had entrusted these platforms with their savings, incomes, and futures, the consequences were devastating. Disillusioned and betrayed, many turned their backs on the ecosystem altogether, unsure if trust could ever be rebuilt.
While most people blamed crypto for their losses, Tobi and Moore saw a different culprit: centralisation. Though they weren’t personally affected, they knew people who were—friends, classmates, everyday users who had trusted platforms with their hard-earned money. To them, the issue wasn’t the technology; it was the structure. Users had unknowingly handed over control of their assets to custodians that were never designed to truly protect them.
So they reframed the problem entirely. What if users didn’t need to place blind trust in a platform to begin with? What if the system were designed to give users complete control—no middlemen, no gatekeepers, no custody?
That was the beginning of Zap Africa.
From day one, they knew it would be a non-custodial platform—the first of its kind in Nigeria. That meant no pooled wallets, no deposits, and no “we’ll hold this for you.” Users would hold their own keys, and Zap would provide the rails to help them move, swap, and spend their assets quickly and securely.
It wasn’t a glamorous path, but the clarity of purpose kept them going. The vision demanded patience and discipline. Thankfully, years of working together had taught them how to split their roles based on strengths. “We called it divide and conquer,” Tobi says. Tobi took the lead on partnerships, people, and brand while Moore focused on product architecture and engineering. “He’s a people person. I’m the systems person,” Moore says. “That’s why we work well. We let each other lead where we’re strong.”
Zap officially launched in 2023, following several months of development, and introduced its flagship product, Zap Exchange, into a market that wasn’t exactly welcoming. Nigeria’s Central Bank had already instructed institutions to halt crypto transactions. But Zap’s model didn’t rely on those rails, because it didn’t hold user funds; it had room to move. Still, they knew that surviving wasn’t enough—they needed to earn trust, one user at a time.
Their approach was focused on building what people need. Every complaint, every user feedback loop became part of the roadmap. Features weren’t rolled out for hype; they were built in direct response to user needs. Our users are co-architects. They ask, suggest, complain, and we listen,” Tobi says.
By 2024, Zap had welcomed over 20,000 users and was processing millions of dollars in transaction volume. Engagement was strong, retention was high, and users consistently returned to the platform because it delivered on its promise. The challenge, however, was that the brand hadn’t evolved at the same pace.
While the product itself was scaling quickly, the visual identity remained stuck in its earliest iteration, a relic of the MVP phase that no longer reflected the clarity, confidence, or sophistication the product now embodied. “As we grew, we realised our visual identity didn’t match the energy or precision of the product we were building,” Moore recalls.
In response, the team began working quietly on a rebrand. The first glimpse of this new direction emerged in March 2025 with the beta launch of Zap Wallet, which introduced a cleaner interface, faster logins, the ability to save wallet addresses, and a design language that finally reflected the sharpness and intent behind the product itself.
Just as the startup was gearing up to unveil its sleek new identity, Paystack—one of Nigeria’s most prominent fintech companies—introduced a new product bearing the same name. The overlap sparked a trademark dispute and raised valid concerns about user confusion and the dilution of Zap Africa’s brand. The timing, admittedly, was less than ideal. And while the founders acknowledge that the situation may have complicated public perception, they remain firm in their conviction that it did not derail their momentum. “It was part of our roadmap,” Tobi explains. “We moved because we were ready to evolve, not because of any external pressure.”
That evolution is no longer just an idea—it’s live. Today, Zap serves over 50,000 users, a clear signal that its user-first model is resonating where others have stumbled. The new Zap offers a faster, smarter, and more streamlined experience, paired with a refreshed visual identity that mirrors the team’s spirit and ambition. Every touchpoint has been refined to reflect their core promise: speed, security, and, above all, user control. “When you open the app now,” Moore says, “it should feel like entering a control room. Your money, your rules, zero noise.”
That vision has always been at the core of Zap’s mission—a system without custodians, and a crypto experience stripped of friction. Not trust earned through promises, but trust embedded in the architecture. “We want to be remembered as the guys who created systems and built the layer of the future for Africans,” Tobi adds.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/zap-africa-the-startup-rebuilding-trust-in-african-crypto/