Nigeria cryptocurrency adoption continue to grow despite central bank of Nigeria directives alienating banks and other financial institutions from engaging in cryptocurrency transactions. The end of July report from statista showed that P2P trade volume for Bitcoin posted another increase.
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Data from Google trends shows that Nigeria maintains it’s rank as number 1 by search interest for keywords “Bitcoin”. Naira P2P transactions also increased in 2021, with Nigeria ranking second behind USA as second largest market for peer to peer BTC trading according to statista reports.
The African sub Sahara region leads in regional survey of P2P Bitcoin volume with Nigeria’s volume. Sub Sahara African region posted weekly $18.8 million to North America’s $18 million.
Recall that in February the central bank of Nigeria banned licensed banks from processing cryptocurrency transactions in a drive to crackdown cryptocurrency adoption. Since the crackdown, the volume of trade has increased showing that Nigeria cryptocurrency market is driven mainly underground away from the scrutiny of government. General manager of Cryptocurrency trading platform in Nigeria Luno, noted that,
“A lot of trading activity has now been pushed underground, which means many Nigerians are now depending on less secure, less transparent over-the-counter channels, as well as Telegram and WhatsApp groups, where people trade directly with each other.”
Despite the challenges, adoption continue to rise, it is no magic that the central bank of Nigeria set out plan to launch the pilot of eNaira in October. Industry players sees this as leeway to lifting the ban placed on financial institutions on crypto transactions.
