With peer-to-peer bitcoin trade volumes exceeding $1.1 billion between January 2021 and June 2022, the West African country of Nigeria is now Paxful’s largest market.
The ever growing Nigerian market
The number of bitcoins being traded in Nigeria through peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges is on the rise as regulators crack down on financial institutions that violate the Central Bank of Nigeria directive February 5, 2021. Nigeria (CBN). This directive prohibits banks and other regulated financial institutions from facilitating transactions involving cryptocurrencies.
In fact, Nigeria becomes the most crypto-obsessed nation after the April crash.
However this revelation of peer-to-peer exchanges is not surprising, a few weeks ago Binance added 21 partner banks to its P2P Africa service, including 12 in Nigeria, more than 50% of the banks.
Although the Nigerian Securities Commission (SEC) has issued a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, there is still a disconnect between the two agencies as the CBN ban on banks is still ongoing.
Lack of adequate financial services favors cryptocurrency ownership in Nigeria.
In parallel, eNaira, the digital currency of the central bank of Nigeria (CBDC), will enter the second phase of its expansion with new technology to strengthen its user base, the governor of the central bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, said on Thursday during a Hackathon eNaira 2022 in Abuja. eNaira, the first CBDC in Africa, was launched in October 2021.
“eNaira is a journey, not a one-time event,” Emefiele said, adding:
“We have no choice but to live with the fact that we are now in a digital economy, in a digital space, where cash users are at risk of disappearing.”
Other emerging markets in Africa
While Nigeria is Paxful’s largest market in the world, Kenya, which saw P2P volumes of over $200 million in 2021 and over $125 million in the first half of 2022, is the second largest cryptocurrency exchange market in Africa is now the fifth market in the world. Paxful says it “expects 25% trade volume growth in Kenya for 2022.”
Kenya is also hosting between September 18 and 24, ETHSafari, to bring together a committed group of 1000 people from Africa and the world to learn the Ethereum ecosystem, the decentralized future, the use cases that are transforming Africa , to hack, discuss and celebrate. and the people taking them on the continent.
Kenya is also the country of origin of the Machankura service, an SMS service that allows you to send BTC with plain text.
Master Guantai, founder of Bitcoin Mtaani, told Cointelegraph:
“The number of mobile phones in Africa is twice the number of inhabitants”. However, the penetration of Internet-connected smartphones is still low.
Africa is actively participating in the ecosystem and innovations to improve the adoption and uses of cryptocurrencies.
