Nigeria’s increased use of  Bitcoin has become the norm in the crypto-verse, taking into account that in the past 8 months, it leads the whole of Africa combined, in the transactional value of P2P payments.

Still, what seems astonishing to many crypto experts is the amount Nigerians transact with Bitcoins  P2P monthly, amid the prevailing recession biting hard on Africa’s biggest economy when compared to other African countries.

Data retrieved from Usefultulips, a BTC analytic data provider, reveals a significant amount of Nigerians use Bitcoin for peer to peer lending for their payments.

READ: Top 5 peer-to-peer exchanges to buy Bitcoin

Recent statistics show Nigeria leads Africa peer to peer lending in 2020, posting monthly P2P volumes of between $25.8 million, followed by South Africa and Kenya respectively posting about $8.2 million and $7.7 million monthly.

What you must know: Bitcoin, peer to peer is the exchange of Bitcoin between parties (such as individuals) without the involvement of a central authority. This means that peer to peer use of Bitcoin takes a decentralized approach in the exchange of Bitcoins between individuals and groups.

READ: Crypto robber sends out over $5 million worth of stolen Bitcoins

A spokesperson for Binance in Africa, Damilola Odufuwa in an exclusive interview with Nairametrics gave key insights on the role the world’s biggest crypto exchange, Binance is having on Africa, particularly, the Nigerian economy;

“Over the past year, over 40,000 Africans have received free crypto education via Binance education programs/events. Our last virtual masterclass had over 5000 attendees and thousands more watching on YouTube. A huge population of the attendees is definitely Nigerians who are looking to acquire skills they can use to make some extra money while underemployed at their “9-5” and also for the many who didn’t receive a salary from their employers or lost jobs over the year,” Odufuwa said.

READ: Nigeria leads Africa combined in Q2 2020 on BTC P2P

Odufuwa also spoke on the need for more Nigerians to acquire skills around the crypto value chain, taking into consideration that it is now the modern lifeline of finance and business operations globally.

“The crypto industry is still a growing industry, so educating oneself about crypto and applying the skills you already have to jobs in the crypto industry could help some of the unemployed,” she added.

Bottom line: A significant amount of young Nigerians are acquiring skills on Crypto to sustain and drive their income and livelihood, as it offers the safest, cheapest processes of moving capital in relation to other traditional means of payments.

A leading Japanese investment giant, SBI Holdings, and Crypto startup, FXcoin Ltd, have begun testing the use of Ripple’s crypto XRP in settling credits and corporate debts.

The crypto start-up is leading the experiment, which involves Japanese investment and trading giant, Sumitomo Corporation, in settling credits and debts to other Sumitomo Group companies with XRP.

READ: Crypto robber sends out over $5 million worth of stolen Bitcoins

Sumitomo Corporation will also “make a future transaction with [FXcoin] to hedge the price movement of XRP and sell XRP to [FXcoin] on a specific date,” according to the press release from the crypto start-up, FXcoin.

“This is expected to lead to the expansion of XRP-denominated transactions in the future, in the activities of globally expanding operating companies.”

The press release also gave more details into operational structure and strategy.

READ: Nigerian Railway Corporation announces revenue of N1.4 billion in 2020

• We are confident that the demonstration experiment conducted this time will not only show the usefulness and potential of future transactions using cryptocurrency assets for the first time in Japan, but will also lead to the establishment of the Swap market for cryptocurrency assets listed by the Company.
• By expanding this Swap market, we will contribute to the expansion of transactions with crypto assets as quoted prices.
• In addition to Sumitomo Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation Global Metals Co. Ltd. and the SBI Group also participated in this demonstration experiment.
• XRP is a native crypto asset of the international payment ecosystem.

READ: Ripple gains over 171% last month

What you should know

• RippleNet is a network of institutional payment-providers that include banks and payment providers that use solutions developed by Ripple to provide a seamless experience in sending money worldwide.
• RippleNet uses a leverage of cutting-edge blockchain technology in streamlining payments services that help in reducing costs.
• It should also be added that On-Demand Liquidity (ODL), Ripple’s XRP-powered cross-border payments product, is available in the US, Mexico, Europe, the Philippines, and Australia.
• RippleNet service offerings are available in 95 currency pairs, according to the fintech’s redesigned website.

The law of gravity seems to have taken its toll on Ripple, the third most valuable crypto by market value.

At the time of writing this report, Ripple traded at $0.60289 as seen by Nairametrics on Wednesday, down 10.11% on the day. This is the largest one-day percentage loss since Nov 26.

READ: World’s biggest crypto exchange says Bitcoin will replace gold

Such a plunge dropped XRP’s market capitalization to $27.8 billion, or 4.96% of the total crypto market capitalization. At its highest, Ripple’s market capitalization stood at $31.6 billion

Ripple has been trading around $0.60289 to $0.61137 in the past 24 hours.

READ: Bitcoin will gain 25x and become an inflation hedge

Over the past week, crypto sellers have pushed XRP prices lower by 11.54%. The volume of Ripple traded in the 24 hours to time of writing was about $17 billion or 7.27% of the total volume of the entire crypto market.

What you should know: XRP was designed by Ripple mainly to perform speedy, less costly, and more scalable alternative transactions for both crypto assets and existing monetary payment platforms like SWIFT.

READ: Cryptos: Nigerian financial experts talk risks associated with trading digital assets

• Ripple owns more than half of the total supply of XRP. In late 2017, the company vowed not to sell all of its tokens (XRP) at once, keeping up to 55 billion XRP in protected escrow accounts.
• Ripple (XRP) plays a dual role as a payment platform and a currency. The platform is an open-source platform that is created to allow quick and cheap transactions.