👨🏿‍🚀TechCabal Daily – Andela gets Woven

Quidax, a Nigerian crypto startup, has discontinued its peer-to-peer (P2P) trading feature, barely five months after introducing it. The exchange, which operates under the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) provisional licencing framework, informed customers via email that P2P trading will be shut down. Other services are unaffected.

Why P2P was on the chopping block in the first place: P2P trades are harder to monitor, easier to move off-platform, and difficult to track pricing and abuse. Even with verified merchants and in-app controls, regulators still see P2P as a leak in an already fragile system. Nigeria’s SEC now treats digital assets as securities, bringing crypto exchanges firmly into the capital markets. Until there’s a dedicated P2P framework, it remains a regulatory risk.

Who still offers P2P, and for how long? Other crypto platforms like Binance and Bybit still run active P2P marketplaces, but they do so outside Nigeria’s direct supervisory reach. For locally supervised exchanges, the room to operate P2P might be shrinking fast, which would make a broader retreat unsurprising.

Why regulation is tightening now: The government wants visibility and control in a market that grew informally for years. The goal isn’t to kill crypto, but to close regulatory gaps before they turn into structural risks that the system can’t handle

South Africa is getting serious about digital identity. In January 2025, the Department of Home Affairs announced plans to roll out a national digital identity system before year-end, which could finally let government departments talk to one another properly and save citizens from repeatedly proving who they are.

How will it work? This plan is built on the MyMzansi portal, a prototype one-stop shop for public services, launched in 2025. The idea is that one digital identity can be used across all state departments for registrations and applications. Transport, education, and other government departments would be able to plug into a shared system.

Why this matters: Right now, identity data in South Africa lives in silos. If the digital ID works as planned, it could cut costs and reduce friction in application processes from driver’s licenses to visa processing. The big hurdle to this plan is access. Over 30% of South Africans live in rural areas; if the Department of Home Affairs wants to include all South Africans, measures to close that gap must be in place. The department plans to use mobile offices for this, but execution will matter. Mobile offices only work if they are reliable and properly staffed. Otherwise, rural communities risk being the last to benefit from a system designed to include everyone.

Andela, the global talent marketplace with Nigerian roots, has acquired Woven, a technical assessment platform that uses real-world simulations to vet engineers. While the price tag remains undisclosed, the goal is clear: Andela wants to be the primary source of “AI-native” engineers.

Woven’s technology, which simulates actual engineering work rather than just testing syntax, will be integrated with Qualified (another Andela acquisition). This combined engine will help Andela vet its over 150,000 professionals for specialised roles involving Large Language Models (LLMs) and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems.

Why it matters: As companies move from AI hype to actual deployment, the bottleneck is no longer the models, but the engineers who can build autonomous workflows and manage AI risk. For the African tech ecosystem, this acquisition signals a shift in what “global readiness” looks like. It’s no longer enough to be a standard full-stack dev, and Andela is betting that the next decade belongs to engineers who are fluent in AI-assisted development.

The big picture: Founded in Lagos in 2014, Andela has evolved from a training boot camp into a global unicorn. By bringing Woven’s CEO, Wes Winham, into the fold to lead AI assessment development, Andela is effectively “leapfrogging” traditional vetting methods. This move sharpens the company’s competitive edge against platforms like Toptal and Hired in the fight for the world’s most sophisticated technical talent.

Chinese automotive giant Chery is officially moving from “importer” to “manufacturer” in South Africa. In a massive industry shift, Chery SA has reached an agreement to acquire Nissan’s manufacturing facilities in Rosslyn, Pretoria. The deal, expected to close in mid-2026, includes the assembly plant and stamping facility, ending nearly 60 years of Nissan production at the site.

The human cost: The most critical part of this deal is the safety net for the workforce. Chery has committed to offering employment to the majority of Nissan’s current staff on similar terms, preventing thousands of layoffs that were feared due to Nissan’s underutilisation of the plant. While Nissan is stopping local production to focus on sales and distribution, it plans a 2026 product offensive with new models like the Tekton and Patrol.

Why it matters: Chery has been one of the fastest-growing brands in South Africa and the continent, with its Tiggo range dominating sales charts in Nigeria and Kenya. By manufacturing locally, Chery can bypass heavy import duties and lower costs, making its value-packed cars even harder for traditional brands to beat. For the South African tech and industrial ecosystem, it secures the country’s position as a manufacturing hub.