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.
Today I lead stablecoin correspondent banking for Africa at Anchorage Digital, making it possible for African banks to settle and hold dollars on-chain through a federally chartered partner. Before that I led expansion for Base, Coinbase's Layer 2, across 30+ markets, after a decade building the same layer at Binance, Bybit, Bitget, and Bolt.
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
Anchorage Digital. Building stablecoin correspondent banking for African banks, giving regional institutions regulated dollar settlement and custody through a US federally chartered crypto bank.
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- 004LagosLatest, filed
Live commerce already runs Africa every night. Nobody owns the checkout.
“The stream is the storefront. The checkout is still somebody else's problem.”
- 003Ethereum
Ripple built the XRP Ledger for payments. Its own dollar moved to Ethereum.
“You can build the rails and still lose the traffic to the road everyone already drives on.”
- 002New York
Nathan Allman built the brokerage the rest of the world didn't have. He was 32.
“He built the brokerage the rest of the world didn't have. He was 32.”
- 001Field notes
Caught My AI Lying to Me 17 Times
“Confidence is not a signal. Verification is.”
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.