Despite the Nigerian government crackdown on crypto, Nigerians continue to embrace the industry, with P2P trade volume for BTC reaching its second strongest week on record in July.
Nigeria continues to take the top spot by search interest for the keyword “Bitcoin.” P2P Bitcoin trading denominated in the Nigerian naira has also grown this year. Only the US registers a higher number of P2P BTC trading.
As a result, the Sub-Saharan Africa region recorded $18.8 million in weekly volume, surpassing North America’s $18 million for the previous week.
Nigeria is experiencing turbulent times as a result of increased inflation, social issues such as police brutality and corruption, and currency controls.
Adewunmi Emoruwa, the founder of a public policy organization, called Gatefield, declared:
“I think that [the protest against police brutality] is like the key catalyst for some of these decisions the government is making. It caused fear. They saw, for example, that people could decide to bypass government structures and institutions to mobilize.”
As a result, in February, the country made it illegal for licensed banks to process crypto transactions.
The Africa general manager of crypto trading platform Luno, Marius Reitz, believes that this only made crypto trading harder to monitor:
“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.”
On the other hand, the central bank of Nigeria will start in CBDC trial in October 2021.