You are here: HomeNews2021 01 01Article 404903

Business News of Friday, 1 January 2021

Source: nairametrics.com

Nigeria's Bitcoin peer to peer trading for 2020 is $352 million

Photo: Nairametrics Photo: Nairametrics

The fact that Nigeria leads Africa in Bitcoin Peer to Peer trading no longer makes a major headline, but what seems surprising now is the amount Nigerians transacted with for the year 2020 in comparison to other African nations.

According to a recent study seen by Nairametrics, data retrieved from Usefultulips (a Bitcoin analytic data provider) revealed that the use of Bitcoin for peer to peer lending in Nigeria ended on a record high.

Nigeria led the pack with about $352 million in P2P trading, while the closest rival, Kenya, had a transactional value of just $90.5 million during the last 365 days.South Africa came in third with a transactional value of $85 million.As emerging currencies such as the Naira, and South African Rand experience a continuous decline in their value, leading crypto experts anticipate that bitcoin could once again become the alternative, as its most recent price action revealed further how global investors are rather keeping it for wealth preservation.

What they are saying

Ekene Ojieh, Head Of Public Relations, Buffalo Chase, a fast-growing crypto analytic firm, attributed the upward trend in the adoption of cryptos – most especially Bitcoin – to Nigeria’s demographic structure.

“Nigeria ranks 8th position with crypto adoption. The reasons for this fact are not far-fetched. The Nigerian youth has about 32% of the entire population of about 200 million people. It’s easy for a young country like Nigeria to adopt the use of bitcoin because a large percentage of its population falls within the age range that is tech-savvy. Although, that’s not the only reason why many Nigerian youths adopt bitcoin. Nigerian youths prefer to secure their assets in bitcoin or stablecoins because naira like every other fiat currency is susceptible to inflation.”

Quick facts

In BTC’s case, peer to peer is the exchange of BTC between parties (such as individuals) without the involvement of a central authority. This means that peer to peer use of BTC takes a decentralized approach in the exchange of Bitcoins between individuals and groups.

It shows that BTC’s long-running narrative as the “digital gold” for hedging against global economic turmoil is gaining the trust of Nigerians for payments and transfers.

Bottom line

Internet-savvy Nigerians are leveraging on Bitcoin to sustain and drive their earnings, as it offers the cheapest medium of moving capital in relation to other traditional means of payments.