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Valr is Africa's largest crypto exchange by volume, but the business has evolved well beyond exchange. Under founder Farzam Ehsani, Valr now provides modular on-chain financial infrastructure that banks and telcos plug into to offer their own customers crypto exposure, stablecoin savings, tokenised assets, and cross-border settlement. In a sector where reputational risk is the norm, the word that keeps coming up around Valr is "respect."
Farzam's path to building it has been circuitous. His family are Bahá'ís of Persian origin who were persecuted in Iran and settled in Nairobi in 1975. He grew up in Westlands, moved through Deloitte in San Francisco and McKinsey in Johannesburg, and joined Rand Merchant Bank during the Greek debt crisis, where he dismissed Bitcoin as a scam before falling into the rabbit hole that led him to set up the bank's blockchain unit and ultimately leave to build Valr in 2018.
In this conversation with Samora Kariuki, Farzam covers how Valr was built, why an exchange was the logical starting point, and how the business expanded into institutional infrastructure. He also reveals an unexpected source of conviction: a 1999 Bahá'í document that predicted the replacement of fragmented monetary systems by a single electronic currency, a decade before Bitcoin existed.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How Farzam's journey from Westlands to Deloitte, McKinsey, and Rand Merchant Bank led to founding Valr.
Why an exchange — a marketplace where people express divergent views by buying or selling — was the most logical starting point, and how Valr expanded from there.
How Valr's B2B2C model provides modular on-chain financial infrastructure (custody, liquidity, matching engines, risk engines) to institutions across Africa.
The concept of double-spending: the foundational problem Bitcoin solves that most crypto commentators never discuss.
Why the Bitcoin price is fundamentally a story about fiat devaluation, not market speculation.
How a 1999 Bahá'í prophecy about a universal electronic currency — written a decade before Bitcoin — underpins Farzam's worldview on where money is heading.
Why stablecoins pegged to the US dollar inherit the dollar's long-term fragility — and what the "free banking era" tells us about what comes next.
How fractional reserve banking works identically with Bitcoin, and why crypto doesn't eliminate the risk of bank runs.
Why regulatory maturity — not market size — is the key variable in Valr's expansion across Kenya, Nigeria, and beyond.
Key Quote: "I can host my files, music, and documents locally on my phone or computer, but I do not have that option for money. I have to rely on someone else's servers to show me my balance on their database."
Connect with Us:
Samora Kariuki (Host): https://www.linkedin.com/in/samorakariuki/
Farzam Ehsani (Guest): https://www.linkedin.com/in/farzam-ehsani/
Frontier Fintech: www.frontierfintech.substack.com
Useful Video on Farzam’s Thinking - https://youtu.be/5lup0b-FWBM?si=juJWtprP2iG8kfni
