Derrick Ochago
I take stablecoin and AI products to market across emerging markets, where trust, regulation, and local context decide who wins.
The work sits at the go-to-market layer: the bridge between a product that works and a market that actually uses it.
Most recently led expansion for Base, Coinbase's Layer 2, across 30+ markets. A decade building the same layer for Binance, Bybit, Bitget, and Bolt. Africa is my deepest operating ground.
Thesis
Stablecoins don't become payment rails because the cryptography works. AI doesn't become infrastructure because the model is good. They become infrastructure when markets trust them, partners distribute them, regulators can understand them, and users fit them into real workflows.
I build the operating layer between product and adoption.
- →Market intelligence that turns local complexity into strategy.
- →Partner networks that create trust, liquidity, usage, and distribution.
- →Stakeholder engagement across regulators, institutions, operators, and local teams.
- →GTM systems for products that need more than performance marketing.
- →Adoption programs that turn demos into usage, and usage into infrastructure.
Where I Work Best
Payment networks, stablecoins, wallets, exchanges. I take them from working product to used market: regulatory sequencing, settlement rails, partner distribution.
AI products die between the demo and production. I build the adoption systems that get them inside real enterprise processes.
Prediction markets, live commerce, tokenized assets. These are trust categories before product categories. I build legitimacy before scale.
Activity is not adoption. I build the partner networks and onboarding systems that turn platforms into infrastructure.
Operating Proof
Coinbase / Base. Led market expansion across a 30+ market regional mandate. Built the institutional BD pipeline, local stablecoin integrations, and an AI-native BD stack that cut lead-to-meeting time by 60%.
Binance. Built early regulated fiat-to-crypto payment rails across African markets, connecting local banks and mobile money to global settlement. Ran AML/KYC, partner onboarding, and launch execution across multiple jurisdictions.
Bitget. Built the partner, payment, and liquidity infrastructure behind market entry across five jurisdictions. Negotiated banking, OTC, and mobile money corridors. $40M+ in cumulative transaction volume.
Bolt. First local hire in Kampala. Launched Bolt Boda, the company's first motorbike service globally. Scaled 0 to 100K+ monthly trips in six months.
CoinList, Safe, Deel. Ran institutional token distribution, regulated international payments, and multi-sig treasury operations across jurisdictions.
The pattern: products become infrastructure when someone builds the trust layer around them.
Beliefs
Distribution is infrastructure.
In hard markets, distribution is closer to infrastructure than promotion.
Trust is built before scale.
No product scales if users, partners, and institutions don't trust the people behind it.
Geography is proof, not destiny.
Africa is my deepest operating ground. The skill is entering markets where the standard playbook fails.
Builds
Systems, agents, and workflows I've built and run in production. This is how I pressure-test what actually changes when AI becomes operational.
- →Radar Hub. Live market-intelligence system tracking AI, fintech, crypto, and policy signals across enterprise sectors. radar.hub
- →Base BD Stack. Internal AI-native business-development engine. Research subroutines, lead-scoring agents, personalized outreach. Cut lead-to-meeting time by 60%.
- →AI Podcast Co-Host. Real-time multi-participant voice agent. Sub-second round-trip latency. github.com/deriqsocial/ai-podcast-agent
Writing
I write about what it takes to make technical products work in the real world.
Dispatch log
4 filed- 0042026.07NairobiLatest, filed
Kenya copied MiCA's homework. Then it made the fees Kenyan.
“Europe wrote the stablecoin rules. The Bahamas lent a few paragraphs. Kenya added KSh150 million at the door.…”
- 0032026.07Rails
Open USD got its weighbridge. Visa owns it.
“The machine that makes stablecoin yield legal now exists, inside the consortium's biggest member, and the public still can't read the scale.…”
- 0022026.07Lagos
Is Flutterwave the "POLYGAMIST" of stablecoins?
“The stablecoin war in Africa is not about who has the biggest dollar. It is about who controls the rail.…”
- 0012026.07Open USD
Open USD needs a weighbridge, not fewer partners
“Samsung's denial was a symptom: nothing measures what a member is, and the fix is the machine that pays them.…”
Locked
Most people stop scrolling. You didn't.
That instinct, chasing the thread to the end, is the same one I use to enter hard markets. If you're building something technical in a market that doesn't trust new things yet, let's talk.