Nigeria, the largest economy in the continent is facing a myriad of economic challenges.
Recently, it overtook India as the nation with the chunk population living in abject poverty, almost 99 million of its over 200 million people.
The following economic indicators in Nigeria buttress the point that the nation is facing a hard time economically:
*Oil price: $23 from $65 per barrel.
*Per capita income: $2,222
*GDP(Annual growth rate): 2.55%.
*Unemployment rate: 23.1%.
*Inflation rate: 12.26%.
*External debt: over $65billion.
Higher prices since the inception of the year, coupled with the effects of Covid-19 have been paving ways for greater adoption of cryptocurrencies in Nigeria. The uptrending, though started since December 2019. Only Ghana and South Africa are rivaling Nigeria when it comes to cryptocurrency affairs.
Despite the desperate and irrelevant warnings issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria against the adoption of cryptocurrency, Nigerians are not deterred from trying to learn more about cryptocurrencies, trading coins and using them in everyday life. For example, trading volumes on localbitcoins.com are picking up again, reaching over N650m(over $1.82m) a week according to Coin Dance data.
Cryptocurrencies provide an economical alternative to the fiat system, but to be a viable option a functioning trading and exchange infrastructure is needed. Luckily enough, Nigeria has a number of local platforms that offer services for buying and selling cryptocurrencies against Naira(watch out for this in my next article).
As the major cryptocurrencies well known in Nigeria are Bitcoin(BTC), Bitcoin Cash(BCH), Ether(ETH) and Litecoin(LTC); with much popularity centered on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash following it, I need to mention the giant stride being taken by "Paychant", a payment processor that offers a cryptocurrency gateway for businesses to accept digital coins through instant conversion to Nigerian Naira, helping them to play safe against crypto price volatility. The platform currently supports BTC and ETH. In few weeks back, it erected Bitcoin ATMs at strategic locations of Lagos State as pioneering state. Merchants who want to accept cryptocurrency directly can download and install the "Bitcoin Cash Register" app. The POS(point of sale) software will allow them to process BCH payments.
"With this accelerated trending in cryptocurrency adoption in Nigeria, the country can become a leading example of cryptocurrency adoption soonest than anyone can think of".
Hard time for the economy of Nigeria. In this pandemic condition economy of about all countries will be fallen down. We have to pray to our GOD for betterment of this condition.