Bitcoin Forum

For such a long time the Nigerian government had been on the fence about bitcoin, they urged users not to use it but there was no legal standings or definition for its usage. Despite the government's warnings of the risks around it, Nigerians still traded heavily in Bitcoin over the years.
Some months ago, the government finally declared Bitcoin and other digital assets to be legal, although regulations were put in place to qualify them as securities based on certain criteria - https://lightblocksnews.com/crypotocurrencies-now-legal-in-nigeria-after-sec-landmark-ruling/
This move could have been motivated by the massive usage of the asset by Nigerians as reflected in the fact that the country is the 2nd largest Bitcoin market in the world on Paxful;

The pandemic situation which created global uncertainty regarding currency exchange and economic policies also lead to growth in trades involving Bitcoin in Nigeria, with a spike of about 30%;

Nigerians are also using Bitcoin the right way, through decentralized and peer-to-peer platforms:
Source (https://qz.com/africa/1947769/nigeria-is-the-second-largest-bitcoin-market-after-the-us/amp/?__twitter_impression=true)

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Top ten countries:
https://i.imgur.com/16sBMvw.png

Interesting numbers. I didn't follow the trends/numbers, hence I am surprised. I was expecting China and Russia, maybe Australia too higher ranked than Nigeria.
Also interesting to see that Germany and Russia aren't even in top10.

Hats of for the Nigerians! They seem to know what they're doing.

 If truly the stats are legit , it means the really makes use of bitcoin withe extreme purpose and the government really back them up by legalizing it .
Thumps up Nigeria. Thumps up

It can be true if you say about P2P marketplaces but can be inaccurate if you are saying about bitcoin market (not restrict to P2P marketplaces).

The screenshot is from the article and figures are for last 5 days volume.

There are stats for monthly volume (from a third party provider so the accuracy is unknown). Lots of things change in the last 5 days but the statistics for October (USD equivalent) shows same ranks for top 3 nations: USA, Nigeria, and China with volume in October are $81.13 million, $16.61 million and $14.45 million of dollar, respectively.

You can check it out there: usefultulips.org (https://www.usefultulips.org/Paxful_World_Page.html). My given charts are in monthy. The default window is weekly so you have to customize it. You can get stats for combined volume from Paxful and LocalBicoins or each of these.

Kinda skeptical on the numbers posted in here. There are tons of other countries and markets wherein volume is insanely high given the affinity of the population to invest on these new assets. While I believe Nigeria is leading Africa’s charge on cryptocurrency revolution, We’re still far from seeing them actually outrank SoKor, China, and other EU countries. Good start nonetheless, though.

It would be good to compare those data with those from centralized exchanges: that would give a clearer picture about this whole situation.
Anyway, not so long before some wealthy nigerian bitcoiner will ask to buy the whole country if bitcoin keeps pushing the throttle.  ;D

I didn't know that there's a lot of people who uses bitcoin on exchange comes from Nigeria I really though it would be something like China I didn't even know that they were on the list as well as the Vietnam and the Philippines. I was wondering what will be the result if they include the decentralized exchanges?

Nigerian has a lot of crypto investors they support not only Bitcoin but they also invest in different altcoin. I noticed it in early 2017 there are many Nigerian actively participating in social media just because they want to invest in crypto currency .

What do you mean by they include decentralized exchange In tracking? It's hard to track it using decentralized exchange .

This is true as a citizen of this countries you can see within a street notify you to trade bitcoin, I was even surprised when some of the people we called Paga here are into Bitcoin even on WhatsApp status friends creating awareness Many people are really aware about bitcoin and cryptocurrency as a whole

This is really good thing coming from especially Nigeria. I didn't expect to be numbered at 2. I expected Germany or Russia to be there in the list but they are out of sight.

its good that their government isn't banning btc. Brainboss must have contributed a lot in the market.

this is P2P and not entirely on the volume of trading on cex. its very surprising that china is only in the 3rd place because to me these are the kind of people who will risk not eating for a week just so they have get more money the next day. Korean market is even massive.

I'm quite surprised to be sincere. I knew that Nigerians are very fond of cryptocurrencies but I didn't know their purchasing power is so big. Anybody knows if the same statistic is present on localbitcoins or other p2p platforms?

Maybe people in more developed like to deal with registered businesses when purchasing assets.

If they can reach #2 without the government's support can you imagine how much help they will be giving it to them. By way of law and through attracting foreign investments which will help them exponentially just by showing that the government is supporting a certain industry it simply boost everyone's confidence about using it more and more since they know that it is legal and they have the assurance that noting will happen to their assets.

How legit is this site that place Nigeria as the second cryptocurrency friendly country in terms of volume, I believe there are so many inaccurate statistics calculation to put other big crypto plays at the bottom of the ranking chart.

Any ways it a good news to see third world countries picking interest in latest development as regards fin tech.

A few things to note:
**  2nd largest ON Paxful. NOT overall
** " using Bitcoin the right way, through decentralized and peer-to-peer platforms" - that's the thing about a decentralized, permissionless currency, there is no "right way" or wrong way.  Anyone can use it however they wish.  I do agree that for many things peer-to-peer is desirable, but "right vs wrong"?  I don't think so.

Everything else considered, ANY use is good news and the more people using it the better, but the headline is a bit misleading.

Point noted, I was confused for a few minutes.

Country like Nigeria, Somalia where deflation is at the top, the banknotes has zero value (even a white piece of paper has more value than the banknotes) - they need a currency system that can not be manipulated by any government. In fact, we really need to think about how this fiat system is so funny and start moving to crypto as early as we can. At least have some holding in crypto and crypto means bitcoin here of course.

It's bit shocking as well as surprising to see Nigeria being second on the list. Nigerians have always shown interest into Bitcoin and had been participating in all the Bitcoin related events. I have few Nigerian friends who don't miss any chance on spreading words about Bitcoin by sharing awareness. Moreover, this is a good tight slap on face of people who view entire Nigerians with a doubt for wrong doing of few.

This news has elated me and wish more success to the developing nation.

Nigeria is actually 2nd placing in terms of volume for Bitcoin markets but that's based on P2P trades. Nigeria has always been up in the list next to US in terms of trading volume for P2P trades for years now thanks to marketplaces such as Localbitcoins, Paxful and others. Binance boosted those numbers with the integration of NGN fiat base services including deposits and withdrawals, NGN trading pairs along with other incentives. This move alone was welcome by a lot of Nigerian traders. 

If you read the full write up you'll see I indicated that this numbers were gotten on Paxful.

As you said, it's a decentralized, peer to peer network, and was designed to remove the need to trust a third party, considering these should it be used though a centralized platform which requires trust and actually takes away the quality of it being permissionless, as well as your pseudo anonymity?
Rightly, Bitcoin can be anything to everyone, but the more people choose to use it through government regulated exchanges the more we give them the power to regulate and control it.

You may need to do more research about African nations. Nigeria and Somalia cannot be put in the same sentence. Nigeria is one of the largest developing nations in the world and currently the largest economy in Africa (both Nigeria and South Africa have been interchanging the top spot for many years). With an annual GDP of about $450 billion in 2019, Nigeria's GDP was higher than all except 11 European nations.
About the currency, the Naira certainly doesn't have zero value and with recent policies being suggested by the CBN, it would become less influenced by external factors, reducing the spread between the bank exchange rate and that of the black market.

Apology, I did not have this data in mind about Nigeria and South Africa. I meant African countries like Somalia where literally the note means nothing (just to remind you that my knowledge are limited again).

However, isn't Bitcoin is something that is useful for any country specially countries where government are corrupted, never think for the citizens but their own.

I agree with you here. A corrupt government would have a system which is designed to favour the elites (making up less than 2% of the population) while the masses are alienated from the wealth of the nation, the citizens are therefore forced to use an alternative and decentralized system, like Bitcoin.

One example of this utility was experienced during the recent protests in Nigeria; The government attempted to block the fundings for protests by freezing accounts linked to them. In response, the individuals switched to Bitcoin addresses to accept donations as the corrupt government has no regulatory power over it.

Nigeria and South Africa these two countries have some good potential for bitcoin as these are really populated and better countries in this all area but sadly in last few decades bad governance is hitting badly to them specially in Nigeria they have some good number of problems which are growing badly day by day if they bring some better system and give rights to low level peoples then surely they can handle things much better then right now and they can go much ahead in this technology as they already rich in natural resource's but sadly corrupt politicians and poor system all eating not giving to middle class or low class as they can also contribute in this all.

Another proof that the government can't stop people from using bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and later on the government will follow the people and legalize bitcoin.

I believe not only Nigeria but also other countries will follow their footstep.

Still, I am happy that Philippines had been part of it in the list. Though that only few marketcap was only listed in the Philippines in which I do believe that it could do more good in the future as time pass by. There could only be few hindrance that prevent the Philippines to grow and possibly because of so many scam networking running and introduce wherein mostly are just for scamming. So sad but this is true in Philippines where many people invest in scam networking ponzi scheme.

The economy situation in nigeria is very very poor, crypto is the best thing to turn things around and many young people in this country are fully into crypto trading, this have change the life of many nigerians, the government don't have a solution to the economy problem and youths have been advised to look into digital currency.

And this is why Bitcoin has grown massively among Nigerians. Bitcoin is the perfect fit for a government where only a few are favorite by the system while the majority fight for the scraps that are left. It seems to me that the Nigerian government did not really have a choice in the matter, and in fact, it started legalizing it in order for them to get more money by way of tax.

That's probably the stimulus money that the nigerians frauded. :o

Saw this article pump up on my timeline few days ago after the CEO of twitter retweet the tweet indicating this recent developments. At first it was something worth celebrating but after reading the article and found out the numbers were just for paxful I lost interest on posting it on the forum. Although every milestone is worth celebrating but we're bigger than this as a country as we're doing big numbers on other platforms.

We need to start toping the charts globally and not just on less important exchange that don't have much volumes, already we're among the top traded fiat on binance almost daily via their 24hours trade volumes. Billion of Naira which is equivalent to millions of dollars are been traded daily just on binance. Nigeria as a country is facing difficult times in regards to the growth of their economy so it's understandable why the citizens are turning to other alternative which bitcoin is the best option due to the simplicity of the industry. Nevertheless congratulations to all the bitcoiners from Nigerian for this achievement.

For Africa, it is often pointed out that it is a continent that will explode in economic terms when the level of democracy rises to a higher level, and when bribes/corruption are significantly reduced. The problem is that most of the Western world, which considers itself civilized, actually wants Africa to stay behind as long as possible so that they can use its resources cheaply, and I mean not only cheap raw materials, but also the export of hazardous waste that rich countries do not want.

However, what people in Africa lack the most is education and access to technology, but this is slowly changing, and we see in the example of Nigeria that people understand very well what Bitcoin is and what its benefits are. I believe that many will live better and make their dreams come true with the help of Bitcoin.

An interesting decision of The Nigerian Security and Exchange Commission.

Are Nigerians using so much crypto because they don't trust the Nigerian naira or is there another fundamental reason behind this?

why can you say not surprised that nigeria is the second crypto rank, what underlies you are not surprised !! I am actually surprised because Nigeria can get into second place because geographically and their knowledge is still far from being possible, such as India which is more technologically advanced.

is there any underlying you do not see this a surprise !!
Moreover, we know that even though the country is rich from its oil products, many of its citizens are still poor. It must be remembered that Nigeria is not the richest country in Africa, Nigeria is only ranked third behind South Africa and Egypt.

I am very happy to know that Nigeria is the second largest Bitcoin market, this shows that the enthusiasm of the Nigerian population towards
Bitcoin is quite high. Moreover, Nigeria comes from the African continent which is indeed underestimated, perhaps because most countries
in Africa are indeed poor. But that does not prevent the Nigerian population from owning Bitcoin, even Kenya and South Africa are among
the African countries that are in the top 10 largest Bitcoin market. Although I am not a citizen from African continent, but I am very happy
with the achievements that have been achieved by the Nigerian country, by being the second largest Bitcoin market country.

iirc Nigeria also has some crypto infrastructure for citizens like atms etc which is sweet.

Incredible stats! Who would think a third world country would be leading in bitcoin market... Incredible

I know I've seen enthusiastic Nigerians around this space but, I'm quite amazed at that stats. I'm hoping that other African countries follow the footprints of Nigeria.

I am from South Africa and to me that data looks wrong. I am sure there is more money than that invested in bitcoin here. I am shocked about Nigeria. Maybe because there so many scammers there they love bitcoin as their "payment method" xP

I am surprised and proud that South Africa is embracing bitcoin. Let me show you something shocking....

https://i.postimg.cc/kDM7HDQ3/Screenshot-6.png (https://postimg.cc/kDM7HDQ3)

As you can see it just goes down....

10% each year to be exact plus inflation. Making my local currency lose 15% of its value each year. In fact, putting my local currency into USD in 2010 would mean I would have 2x the amount, which actually just means the buying power remains the same since 2x more then now is about how much more things cost anyway. So simply by keeping USD you only lose 5% from inflation.

However, if you look at bitcoin the chart just goes up, and even when it went down it was ok and was profitable for some. So most of my funds are actually in crypto and I only use my local currency for small amounts ( a few 100 $$) I convert into local currency every now and again. Yes the government here is corrupt and pathetic but the laws are very good. I know that makes no sense but somehow it is what it is.
Many people turn to crypto. The thing is for me, why should I pay tax when the government just pissed the money away? Some people here can't even afford food. I would much rather give my money to them.
It feels like it's just encouraging them by paying tax. They even tried to setup and tax every freeway here. Guess what happened? 99% of people don't pay it and refuse to pay it. If they did that with bitcoin the people would do the same.

Like by law you are supposed to pay these "tollgate tolls" but I don't know a single person who does and I certainly don't and I look down on those who do. Another thing is speeding fines and minor driving offenses, they love those. Easy tax money. I see speed camera as a bitcoin miner for the government that mines speed. xD That is all it is, just a money machine. It has nothing to do with anyone's safety. But they will tell you that it does.

Congratulations to Nigeria.
According to this article in Decrypt one of the powerful reasons why Nigerians are buying bitcoin is because they need to get out of the devaluation and recession that their local currency the Naira has had.
The growing volume of cryptocurrency traders in that country is notorious. According to the statistics shown. I very much wish that Nigeria can get out of the sad situation that devaluation brings to a nation.

https://decrypt.co/49487/nigeria-is-emerging-as-a-true-bitcoin-nation?amp=1
 (https://decrypt.co/49487/nigeria-is-emerging-as-a-true-bitcoin-nation?amp=1)

A lot can be learned from the Hong Kong experience too, as this is precisely how Bitcoin helped the citizens avoid the extreme surveillance from their oppresive governments. They opened up all kinds of p2p channels for BTC payments. I read about how groups would help buy train tickets for a lot of people, accepting BTC as payments and then distribute the tickets electronically (police tracked people from ticket vending machines and could see who attended rallies, for example).

Other groups did the same to buy supplies and food to feed the protestors while they camped, knowing their bank accounts, mobile apps, etc were all completely tracked.

^ I didn't expect Nigeria to have such a huge enthusiasm for Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a savior for those who live in areas with low per capita income. It is possible that in the future, Nigeria will become a country that is very fast in fully adopting cryptocurrencies.

The Nigerian government is very smart.  Such actions will make Nigeria the richest country in Africa.  Bitcoin is the perfect reserve currency.  Those countries that create bitcoin reserves in the 21st century will receive a powerful impetus in their development.  

Between 2010 and 2019, bitcoin holders were miners and retail investors.  

Institutional investors will become bitcoin holders in 2020-2029.  Now we see the beginning of this process.

In 2029-2039 countries will be the main holders of bitcoins.  Bitcoin will be the main part of their gold and foreign exchange reserves.

It makes sense to start accumulating bitcoins now.

I notice that also, upon checking on Crypto related social media accounts, there were lots of Nigerians engaging in the comment section. Looks like they really see the potential for Bitcoin. If the data is really true, I can say that there will be more influential people coming from Nigeria in the near future. Btw, Im surprised that phillipines belongs to top 10, there were still few people who know about crypto in my country. If more people will be aware and more knowledgeable about crypto Philippines might get a higher position.

What's smart about this? Are you from Nigeria or you are just guessing? Ive lived in nigeria for many years and I know what's going on in that country, the government have no other way to solve people's problem, the country is in a very big debt and the only option left is for everyone to fight for themselves, it's a corrupted country, the youth of the countries have to find means of staying alive and living well, the adoption of crypto in Nigeria isn't advice by their government, it's the youths themselves that find ways and introduce others to crypto