Nigeria’s weakening Naira currency, as well as the shortage of U.S. dollars, are forcing businesses to switch to bitcoin as the means of settling payments for international transactions.
Tomiwa Lasebikan, co-founder and head of Products at Buycoins is attributing growth in the use of bitcoin “to the Naira depreciation which has seen more people willing to hold and trade in bitcoin.”
Cryptocurrencies have gained prominence in Nigeria given their use as a medium for settling cross border payments and for remittances. The global pandemic and the associated restrictions on movement appear to have spurred on a new wave of demand for bitcoin. More Nigerians are exploring cryptocurrencies as shown by the number cryptocurrency wallets downloaded.
Data from Local.Bitcoin.com shows that Nigeria overtook the United States as the country with the most downloads of the Bitcoin.com Wallet in the past week. Out of the 18,613 wallets downloaded between 16 and 10 August, 3,473 were from Nigeria which shows the country is well ahead of the 2,802 from the United States. India is a distant third with a total of 1,420 downloads during the same period.
Data from Usefultulips also shows that Nigeria is one of the countries with high peer to peer bitcoin traded volumes in the world.The publication also highlights the report by Blockchain.com which shows the country leading the African continent in terms of peer-to-peer traded bitcoin volumes. According to this report, Nigeria recorded trades valued at $34.4 million in the second quarter of 2020.
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