In 2019 Google Trends, Lagos, Nigeria was the number one city based on online search volumes for Bitcoin worldwide. While recently, in May 2020, Arcade Research ranked Nigeria fifth globally with its 11% of connected Nigerians owning or using cryptocurrencies.
In addition, data obtained from Coinmarketcap recently revealed the largest cryptocurrency users around the world, with Nigeria surging by 46% among its youth users. As a country, it gains stood Nigeria Up 211%.
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These trends have shown that Nigerians do have a high passion for digital currencies and are among the greatest users of cryptocurrencies in the world. This is based on a major fact that Nigerians are using cryptos to avoid expensive and heavily bureaucratic money transfer systems currently available. Many Nigerians rely on remittances for their daily activities and any way of making the process effective cheaper would be of great benefit to them, this is where Bitcoin comes in
What you need to know: Cryptocurrency is basically, a digital currency based on an innovative technology called the blockchain. Its users range from small businesses to process payments, financial tech-based startups, and retail consumers that use it to send money across the border and as an investment asset.
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Consequently, Asia’s arguably most popular cryptocurrency exchange listed Nigeria’s Naira to be first African currency supported on its Binance P2P platform, The Binance CEO said:
“We no longer need to bank the unbanked. We can empower them with cryptocurrency financial services directly. Nigeria is a vibrant innovation hub with a great passion for cryptocurrencies. We strive to provide the easiest cryptocurrency access and best trading service for the African community, and P2P trading is a more flexible approach, giving users the freedom to choose their payment methods and counterparty in a trade.”
However Nigeria’s central bank issued a statement about three years ago banning the use of bitcoin for transaction purposes, this statement was sent to all banks in Nigeria warning them against facilitating the trading of cryptocurrencies but that seems not to pause Nigerians growing love for cryptocurrencies.
