Trevor Kimani and other cryptocurrency industry figures spoke at a Bitcoin conference in Nairobi to argue for closer collaboration with government agencies. Kenya is building its first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets, and industry leaders want input before rules crystallize.
The push reflects a familiar tension: regulators often draft rules in isolation, then industry groups scramble to poke holes. Kimani's angle is different. He's arguing that early cooperation could produce rules that actually work rather than rules that strangle the sector or create loopholes.
Kenya has no formal digital-asset regime yet. The Central Bank and the capital markets regulator have issued guidance on crypto's risks, but there is no licensing scheme, no custody standard, and no clear tax treatment. A 2025 framework would be the first attempt to bind those pieces together.
What Kimani and his peers are asking for is a voice in that process. They want regulators to understand how crypto actually moves money in Kenya—whether through peer-to-peer transfer, merchant adoption, or cross-border remittance—before drafting rules that assume a different use case. They also want clarity on which regulator owns which piece: is the Central Bank the lead, or are there multiple agencies with overlapping jurisdiction?
No timeline or draft text has been made public yet. The newsroom has not seen a comment period announcement or a regulatory roadmap. Industry participation depends on whether the government opens that door, and when.
Kenya's crypto market is real but not massive. Bitcoin trades around $61,614 globally. But remittance corridors and peer-to-peer adoption in East Africa matter to a lot of people who have no bank account. That's why regulators elsewhere—from El Salvador to Nigeria—have struggled to find a middle path between restriction and blessing. Kenya's effort to write rules before the market gets larger suggests the country wants to avoid that bind.