Amid Fall of Naira, Nigerians Resort to Cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin Trading Surge
- Nigerians are turning to cryptocurrencies for rescue as the naira witnessed the biggest fall in its history
- According to reports, crypto trading, especially bitcoin has surged above 200 per cent in the last seven days
- Crypto platforms have reported that Nigerians are the biggest traders of bitcoin and other cryptos in the world, amassing over $700 million in volume
Following the fall of the naira to N710 per dollar on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, Nigerians have resorted to crypto trading to ease the effect of the deterioration of the naira.
Many Nigerians are hedging against the collapse of the naira, hoarding digital currencies which are mostly denominated in dollars.
Source: Getty Images
This has caused the local currency to fall in parallel markets.
A jump in crypto trading in the last week
Nairametrics quoted recent data as saying that Nigerians traded over $5 million worth of Bitcoin on the P2P trading website, Paxful and LocalBitcoin which saw a 258 per cent jump in the last seven days.
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A lot of Nigerians exchange cryptos in the P2P markets where transactions are done in dollars, despite the restrictions by the Central Bank of Nigeria imposed on banks against trading in crypto.
Nigerians biggest traders of crypto in the world
According to Paxful, it recorded a global trade of almost $3 billion in 2021 whilie Nigerian trade alone contributed about N$760 million, saying that crypto users in Nigeria jumped over the two million mark.
The Punch quoted a statement by Paxful as saying that in the seven years of its operations, Paxful has recorded over 10 million users on its platform
In the first half of 2022, the volume of trade in Nigeria reached about $400 million which shows that emerging markets like Nigeria are still gearing up for wide crypto adoption, especially Bitcoin.
Bitcoin investors lose over N20.14 trillion in 24hrs as price fall below $40 for the first time since March
In a previous report by Legit.ng, Bitcoin investors lost over N20 trillion in one day as prices fell below $40k for the first time since March 16th, leading to nearly 150,000 traders being cleared of their positions.
The fall in bitcoin price comes as investors weigh the risks of rising interest rates, soaring inflation and dislocation of global commerce as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Bitcoin opened trading on Monday, March 11 with a market capitalisation of $803 billion before closing the day $754.5 billion as $48.4 billion was wiped out in hours.
Source: Legit.ng
