Bitcoin Forum

It is no secret that India is currently leading P2P among emerging markets or countries traded bitcoin in a restricted environment. Countries as India, Ghana, the Philippines, Argentina, Mexico and Egypt are all relying majorly on peer-to-peer, my thought therefore is that with the ban from open dealings and transactions from bitcoin in Nigerian banks , Nigeria may overtake the India record of leading the P2P emerging market in a year or two.

One reason to point to this is the Nigerian crypto population which showed in Nigeria position as number two in bitcoin market.

I do not know much about the volumes of p2p in India, Ghana, the Philippines, Argentina, Mexico and Egypt; but NIGERIA holds the biggest blockchain market in Africa; be it p2p or trades; or itself bitcoin and crypto currency adoption. And it is sad the government has refused to embrace bitcoin; because if they did; it could make Nigeria the blockchain hub for Africa; the ban meanwhile will increase the p2p market trading volume definitely.

Because the Central Bank of Nigeria has banned banks from transacting or dealing with crypto exchanges, it leads them to go P2P. It’s still a good thing for the Nigerian community because P2P is still in play and they were not yet banned from doing that. They are not giving up in making a living with crypto. The Central Bank of Nigeria has failed in their attempt to dump Bitcoin because of their dumb move, and now it got even higher.

Taking into account that India has almost seven times the population of Nigeria, this is quite extreme.

But, could the ban make people use P2P at least 7 times more in Nigeria than in India? If that is the case, it may overtake it. Not impossible, >200 million Nigerians is nothing to despise.

Yeah, but I read that they are paying up to 50% premium over the current price!?

Is it true? Is it because of the Nigerian Central Bank ban on crypto trading, or is there something else?

They don't need to pay 50% premium if they are going P2P. And if indeed the price is at a premium in Nigeria because of the ban, for sure there will still be bitcoin enthusiast who are willing to buy. Just like any commodities in our history, people are going to buy when they know they can still make a lot of profits, Gold, Oil and other precious metals are just example.

As far as overtaking India, it's possible, as bitcoin is really growing not just in Nigeria but in the rest of the world, specially third world countries.

It might happen but for a while should we stop thinking about the competition ? Focus more on the whole economic system ? If Nigeria takes over the p2p transactions as compared to India it's amazing for us ! For each and everyone of us. This would not only mean that the Bitcoins is getting adopted more and more but at the same time it's working best in the restricted environment. The government might try and control but the people have a way to get over that also. I do believe that India would soon be able to bend the governmental restrictions ( I hope they do) since the people are not fighting for Bitcoins, for their rights , the Nigerian banks are following suit from India, trying to restrict people from using Cryptos but at the same time I kind of sell my btc here to people and 80% of them are from Nigeria !
For Nigeria it's essential that people try and tackle the governmental restrictions in their own way but it's not a competition!! It's the whole ecosystem that we are talking about.

You're right, maybe the only way for Nigeria right now is by p2p. although still it indicates a Bitcoin transaction. whereas we all know that regulation in Nigeria is very unfortunate. must receive quite heavy sanctions, if the government detects an exchange. so as much as possible Nigeria should be able to learn what India is currently doing to overcome obstacles in Bitcoin transactions.

Yeah and we Asians are real p2p even, using wechat or Whatsapp or Yahoo. Total trust reliant, not even doing all on localbitcoins. Now it's a message on whatsapp. Confirm the rates and handshake.

All these bans the govts should realize are just going to push people downwards to underground markets.

You make a reasonable point and I also believe the Nigerian peer to peer market will dethrone India record since Nigerian was among the top countries which is involved in cryptocurrency activities last year before the Central Bank ban financial and bank institution from dealing with crypto exchange but the last time I check most people in Nigeria seem to have already loose hope so it will take some time before the Nigerian will dethrone India record cause almost 50% of crypto activities done by the Nigerian are through p2p right from the get-go while remaining 50% only trust centralized exchange.

Or perhaps it's just that Indian trading volumes are simply obscured by the fact that a lot of them occur off platform?

Due to the shenanigans of the RBI, people are forced away from trading p2p into OTC or completely anonymous markets.

Nigeria is a growing market for sure, but nowhere to the extent of the Indian economy both in population and in the fervour that they have demonstrated for the crypto markets. It's super important to remember that recorded volume =/= actual volume.

I am glad that Nigeria is leaning on the P2P trading bitcoin market. Because it is a solution when you live in a country with economic problems and that the rulers do not provide support to the community without a bank. That is why bitcoin is widely accepted and a solution for many, especially young people who want to secure their future.
The statistics indicate this and the response of Nigerians to the most recent ban to bitcoin by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
One possible solution that Nigerians found is not to use centralized exchanges.

https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-cant-be-stopped-nigerians-look-to-p2p-exchanges-after-crypto-ban (https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-cant-be-stopped-nigerians-look-to-p2p-exchanges-after-crypto-ban)

I also see the list of top countries issued by Binance and I’m shock that Nigeria was on the top list and happy as well that my own country was on the top list. India is a great country and many crypto enthusiast are from there but this market is growing, and some are adopting massively. Now that Nigeria was on the list, I do hope that many will start to adopt bitcoin, P2P are the easiest way to have bitcoin and thanks for Binance to make it possible.

Having a population of 1.4 billion is of no use, if it is not tech savyy. According to the mainstream exchanges in India (such as ZebPay and WazirX), the total number of active users currently stand at 7 million. But as far as I know, the majority of the users don't trust these exchanges, because they have to undergo KYC. They mostly use P2P platforms or global exchanges where it is not mandatory to go through KYC. So the actual number of users in India may be at least 14 million. I really doubt whether there are that many users in Nigeria. But from what I have heard, the growth in users is very impressive there.

India has a huge population far much more than Nigeria but I get your optimism as the operative word is "May". As a Nigerian, I will love for that to happen. At least, it will put my country out there on the global space as a case study of why countries shouldn't ban Bitcoin in comparative analysis of before and after the ban by the CBN.

Yes, this is the expectation and I have noticed it to as many PSP channels have swelled up with new members. Some of them have wondered why they even traded crypto directly with their banks in the first place because P2P is as effective as it can get.

Compare it to 1.38B population of India vs 206M in Nigeria, I guess, it is hard to overtake the p2p market in india. However, if we will consider the percent p2p population adoption, maybe. But still early to assume that. If Nigeria will be more open arms in crypto projects as compared to India, this will give Nigeria the advantage in terms of percent adoption. I think, the declaration of top companies like Tesla and PayPal to join the crypto race, is giving good impulse to these communities.

I really do not know the actual volumes of p2p trading in these countries. However, with the recent ban on cryptocurrency by Nigerian Central Bank, p2p trading was destined to increase. The same will happen for every country where cryptos will be legally banned. The beautiful part is that, you don't really need any website for such p2p trading. A telegram group, or a discord channel or even a small whatsapp group will suffice. I am sure India will see a similar practice when cryptocurrencies will be legally banned in India.
 These countries are considered as 3rd world for genuine reasons!

The point isn't just about the population alone. Quite alright India has an advantage of population over Nigeria but what we are looking at is the adventurous nature of Nigerians. What number of Indians would want to take business risks like Nigerians do? That's what I am looking at. Indians are a conservative set of people who may be skeptical trying new stuff and tech unlike Nigerians who are always out to try new stuff. The Indian population is over a billion people but how many of them are tech inquisitive? That's the basic question.

The bulk of Nigerians that had built a business around the cryptocurrency framework and had a good amount of crypto in their wallets before the were hit with the sudden sanctions and bans, will not easily just let it go. Especially when most see it as a move to hold them down in poverty.

With Nigeria having a hood statistics already in the btc market, overtaking India in P2P, a move to keep their businesses and investment going, is very possible within a short time frame.

India has over 7m crypto population. It is much higher than Nigeria. Bitcoin ban in India will only going to increase p2p trading. Only difference will be now it will take place in some other ways.
People will stop using popular exchanges but trading will continue.

The theory of Nigeria overtaking India as the leading P2P market stays true if the number of new users does not change in the next couple of years and you need to take into account the billion population India have and you cannot determine how many new investors will be investing in the market in the next two years  ;).

If there is any restrictions from the government people will find a way to trade as there is no other market that could give the same profit.

I won't be much surprised if countries such as Nigeria overtake India. We have a lot of skilled and talented people here in India, but all their skills are of no use when we are being governed by an authoritarian regime which is under the control of criminals and illiterate mafia dons. The government did the same mistake in the 1990s, during the time of dot com boom. If not for their mistake, India would have been one of the top technology hubs in the world. But the regime want people not to use modern innovation and remain in poverty for their entire lives. It helps them to stay in power by giving out handouts.

The good thing with Nigeria is that they didn't banned Bitcoin as such. They only banned the banking connection. P2P sites are free to operate in that country. That is not the case in India, as there is a blanket ban. According to one of the provisions, anyone holding cryptocurrency in their wallets can be sent to 10 years in jail (which is higher than the punishment for murder attempt or rape).

Hmm, definitely not. Nigerian population is too less as compared to Indian. Though not all of the Indians know about bitcoin or use it actually then also that P2P number gonna be huge.

Moreover, there is still option for Indian to trade the normal way. RBI has just given draft notice that they will ban the crypto operations completely but please note that there is still no firm decision and it’s been month since the Budget is our.

The day they will ban it completely India will triplet the current p2p rate and still be leading country to use such platform of transaction.

Central bank restrictions on crypto has been lifted by their court order in India so the exchanges started to resume their work in 2020 itself even Binance bought one of their local exchange called Wazirx and addred many trading pairs with lot of contests and the one of the early exchange called Zebpay also working so crypto people moved to trading on exchanges that is why the volume is low on p2p.

By the way, crypto currencies have no borders! :D

I think underground Nigeria should have passed India in peer2peer exchange of Bitcoin, many Nigerians are also almost in every countries and many of them into, crypto-currency do peer2peer, I think peer2peer has not been a dead skeleton brought up by, the ban placed on Nigerian Central Bank, peer2peer has been used, especially for Nigerian than don't want formalities of exchanges.

The Nigerian government have banned the usage of cryptocurrencies, and the only good thing for the crypto community in Nigeria is that they have to fall back to P2p, and thus they do not have to submit KYC details to exchanges, and they'd also not leave their funds on exchange wallets, which is 'sinful' to do.

Having said that, the number of crypto users in both Nigeria and India is growing at a pretty fast rate, and imo, it matter less which is leading in P2p usage, as long as, the demand for Bitcoin appreciates in the two countries, adding to adoption; what's most important is that the newcomers who'll have to buy Btc via P2p understand the risks inherent in it, as well as learn what the security protocols are, cause P2p is somewhat risky for newbies.

P2P is dangerous for people who don't understand it and don't want to learn it.  For me, p2p is no different from going through an exchanger.  Even with p2p we can control our own money without having to fear unilateral blocking.  I don't think Nigeria will surpass India considering the vast number of occupations but it doesn't really matter what matters is that crypto is accepted by everyone.

I don't know the number of India that fell victim of scammers in the name of p2p transactions immediately the news if crypto ban hits on them, so many cases happened which resulted them to be vigilant in the best p2p transaction and also to undergo F2F for local region. This same case might happen to Nigerians because so many newbies might fail to understand what escrow is all about, I'm sure they might have had complaints on some number of scammers that had duped them one way or the other in the name of p2p. It'd would better if a video or a short brief lecture be taking on how to perform peer to peer transaction through a a trusted middle man called escrow. Such thing might help them a lot in this.

Guys, FYI both these governments never banned bitcoins and crypto currencies until now. Central ban restriction doesn't mean they can't use or hold bitcoins in their country. You are not supposed to use your bank account to buy or sell cryptos and that is the actual result of this ban but most of you guys misinformed about this which created FUD in the community.

I disagree op. The primary reason why I feel that India will continue to stay in top in the P2P rankings is due to their population count. There is a huge difference between the population sizes of India and Nigeria.

Pointless bills regarding cryptocurrency bans will keep coming and disappearing, but new and old crypto investors will continue investing primarily due to the rising prices of popular cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH etc.

I disagree. I use my bank account to buy and sell cryptocurrencies on a regular basis though I do utilise several security measures while executing these transactions online.

If it was possible for them -the Central Bank- to ban personal owning of Bitcoin or Bitcoin wallet then the government would have done so, now placing an ban on using bank account to run crypto-currency, is almost a way of showing their distastefully nature for Bitcoin, it's not a FUD in my country even with the ban Bitcoiners are holding and some using peer2peer.

This is the thing, they believe that if they do not allow people to make transactions with their bank accounts somehow this is going to stop them, but no, what this has done is simply move the market to P2P which is in fact the correct way to use bitcoin, so not only they are losing clients they are not getting any profits from those trades at all, to me this is great news, but I can assure you that once the realize their mistake they will either try to ban cryptocurrencies or they will push the government to allow them to get those clients back since they do not want to lose on any of that money they are making.

I haven't focused one news about Nigeria this much since we have countries like India and Russia heading the headlines but I never thought that Nigeria is also in the same if not far more worse situation than India. If you think that P2P trading will bloom in this situation I don't think it will since the regulation ordered by the central bank of Nigeria covers all kinds of crypto related transactions may it be from a crypto exchange or just depositing/withdrawing money for a crypto related trade. The news is clear on this that banks are ordered to investigate the inflows and outflows of cash from their clients. With people who can't use their money inside the banks or used it as a way for receiving money I don't think P2P trading is something that will grow substantially without their Citizens having another mode of alternative in their transactions.

This is a very critical issue that should not be decided with just mere count. We need fact and figure to be able to dec- ide this. I will like to take two countries for case study here , India and Nigeria. These two countries are so far apart from each other and also on different continents. India in Asia and Nigeria in Africa. Let's get to the main point here. The current population of India is over 1 billion now and Nigeria on the other hand still have a population less than 250 million maximum. That's almost times four of Nigeria population, that will be a ratio of 4:1. So if we are to look very carefully, there is no way Nigeria is going to overtake India in p2p. I think they will always take the lead.

I thought bitcoin was illegal in Nigeria? And India doesn't have s firm stand on crypto...they are  quite the pair

I mean if indian government really seriously banning crypto and the enforcement is not some fear mongering then I guess it's obvious what's the outcome, however, I hope that these countries that lead in P2P could somehow innovate to perfect the curent P2P considering they are the one who uses that method a lot, maybe to somehow avoid the govt ridiculous human right breaking law.

Using your bank account to trade in Bitcoin is now illegal in Nigeria. On the other hand, ownership of Bitcoin is going to be a criminal offense in India. There is a huge difference between these two. Nigerian users may need to shift from fiat currency to stablecoins if the government is serious about the banking ban. Indian users on the other hand, are caught between a rock and a hard place and the only options are to migrate to some other country or risk going to the jail. 

No need to question, the Nigerian Government has failed the people and there is no job for the masses Hence the masses resulted to what can get then to having a proper life for themself. Crypto adoption in Nigeria wouldn't have been this high if most of the youths where fully employed so it is because of the high unemployment that actually fulled the demand for crypto trading in the country and for now, people can still trade only that the Banks are the ones that have been restricted from facilitating crypto transactions.

I mean sure it is really not a small difference between India and Nigeria when it comes to population but Nigeria is not a nation of 10 million people, it is a nation of 200+ million people, so they do have a lot of people. Also this is not about being more in numbers, it is about being more in amounts. So let's say UK bans bitcoin trading and exchanges one day, they have less than 70 million people and they could still do 10x more than Nigeria and India combined, why? Because they are fairly rich.

Not saying that Nigeria is richer than India because that is easily disputable, however it is clear that Nigeria relies on Bitcoin a lot more, India has been in the online work force industry for decades now and they are awesome at it, whereas Nigeria is great in bitcoin but not so much in other payment options, hence I think India can always go back to paypal when Nigeria will keep focusing on bitcoin.

If you are a Nigerian Citizen then you are not supposed to use your ban account for dealing with cryptos because we are talking about the central bank of Nigeria ban on cryptos and nothing else. I do use my bank accounts for crypto purchase just because in my country there is no such restrictions on place at the moment. ::)

The Indian government is composed of some illiterate idiots who were elected to power just because they enjoy widespread support in the slum areas. A lot of illiterates in India support them, because of the freebie culture. And now coming to usage of PayPal in India, the government made it almost impossible for PayPal to operate and therefore they closed down the operations inside India.

https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/paypal-to-shut-domestic-payments-business-in-india/story/430349.html

No doubt that it will overtake India because there are far more crypto users in Nigeria than in India right now. It could change but we all know that Nigeria is a forefront in the African continent when it comes to cryptocurrency and this ban from central banks will only stoke the flames that will cause the people to go for cryptocurrency more than the central banks.

Google says Nigeria is in the second place in terms of number of crypto users but its actually impossible to fin the number of crypto users and their origin because everything is decentralized, and the metric used to calculate are only from the people who use centralized services like exchanges. Ofcourse ban announced by Nigeria central bank is going to boost up the p2p and its time to make revenue by LBC and similar platforms.

That is simply not true. According to conservative estimates, India is having 5 million to 10 million users of the cryptocurrency. The real numbers are difficulty to come by, because most of the users depend on the P2P platforms due to governmental harassment. I really doubt whether the number of users in Nigeria is this high. Also, a large part of P2P trade in India is conducted using physical cash and gift cards. This makes it difficult to calculate the volumes as well.

I don't think that will happen because India has so much population and the news and information about crypto and Bitcoin is really growing viral and more people are getting into it ;D but at the same time, the ban on exchanges are lifted by the Supreme Court so there are official exchanges which might reduce the P2P transaction if India goes more into pro-crypto. Let's see, what the future holds for countries and their P2P and crypto population :D

The government has come up with a bill to ban the ownership and trade of cryptocurrency. Most of the exchanges in India are on the verge of closing down and some of them have moved their operations overseas. And the users have gone in the stealth mode, using apps such as Telegram to communicate among themselves and depending on the P2P platforms to purchase or sell cryptocurrency.

You can't disregard the fact that Nigeria is also the second biggest community of crypto users in the world and they have around 20-30 percent of their population using cryptocurrency. If that were India's number then I would gladly say that this topic is nonsense because there are more people in India but the statistics shows that Nigeria is higher than India. I admit that there is an advantage in the population but there isn't enough people that will introduce a lot of people to cryptocurrency, like in my country, there are a lot of people but there isn't enough of a community to introduce and the cryptocurrency is widely stigmatized as a medium for scams.

The government has tried many times to ban it but couldn't really do much, specially when Supreme Court lifted all restrictions, the government could do nothing and I believe that it won't be able to do any damage to crypto, because regulators know, people would get into crypto even if it's banned because of anonymous character and decentralization feature. I don't think they will really pass the bill as well but let's see what the future holds, the suspense is nice ;)

I don't know but I think there more Indians using crypto than Nigerians it just so happen that there are some issues regarding crypto in India correct me if I'm wrong, I have a lot of friend from India and if you will notice some of them in bounties are indians so if Nigeria overtake the p2p of India I think it can affect somehow to the economy of India. When the issue gets cooler and if government no longer prohibits its people to use crypto I think it would be great to have their own p2p.

Population doesn't really matter in cryptocurrency adoption on a country. You may have too high population but the majority of the population don't adopt the idea of cryptocurrency. In Nigeria as of now, many youth take care of themselves and they find a means of survival which one of it is cryptocurrency because the government don't provide jobs. The youth keep introducing their friends and that is already showing in the record as Nigeria being the largest bitcoin user in Africa and second in the world.

Whether it is India in the second position or Nigeria in the second position doesn't gonna make any changes in the market. Right now both the countries that are into discussion are highly corrupt and the Governments were against the usage of cryptocurrency. Maybe when the government comes in support of cryptocurrency usage we can expect the volume to peak high and might overcome the leading countries at present.

Here is the latest news from India:

https://wap.business-standard.com/article-amp/economy-policy/cryptocurrency-bill-may-not-be-tabled-in-the-current-parliament-session-121022600068_1.html

Media is claiming that the proposed bill may not be tabled during this budget session. It may be postponed to the Monsoon session (August-September 2021). This news is like a slight relief for the Indian Bitcoiners. They were facing a lot of difficulty, due to certain draconian clauses in this bill. Hopefully when the monsoon session starts, the bill will once again get delayed.

The Bitcoiners here in India were very vocal about their opposition to the bill, which probably forced the government to postpone implementing it.

Yes you’re right about that, because Nigeria has the biggest market in Africa, and from what I have read it is the number two in the world in trading cryptocurrencies. Although for now it might slow since most of them might only know how to use centralized exchanges, but as time goes on and when they all understand how P2P works and how they can be safe while making use of P2P platforms, they will all definitely jump on it and that will cause a spike in the trading.

The reason I said most of them will be making use of centralized exchanges back then is because I think the calculations that were made was with centralized exchanges and has nothing to do with DEXes.

I can resonate with your sentiment as the BJP government are willing to fool the poor and the way they are killing the democracy is by purchasing the power in many states. They either sent investigating teams to frighten the opposition and give them the option to shift to their party or else face imprisonment. Unless these idiots are removed from power we cannot foresee a promising future.

I don't have much hope. The opposition parties are a hopeless bunch, and rather than taking on the government they are busy with infighting. On the other hand, the ruling party now enjoys 40%-50% support, thanks to their freebie distribution. In India a lot of people live in poverty, and for them freebies worth $10 or $20 per month matters a lot.

Their strategy is very simple. They will increase taxes on the 3% salaried class, and from that tax money they will provide freebies to the remaining 97%. This method has been a phenomenal success so far. And this is one of the reasons why they want to confiscate wealth from the cryptocurrency users. There are only around 15 million cryptocurrency users in India (1% of the population). So they can be ignored.

As for Nigeria overtaking India in the crypto space, that is very possible. I think the ban on Bitcoin by the Nigerian government only helped push more Nigerians into asking questions about crypto currency. The people are already of resentful of the government and don't trust them. Hence the refusal of Nigerians to quit using crypto. The only challenge right now is some of the exchanges that have users money locked in. I read the ban has been lifted but apps like luno still withhold withdrawal options.

I doubt they would. Being the 2nd most populated country in the world means many people there are holding crypto as of now specially that India's government withdraw the restrictions of holding cryptocurrency in their country and that was in 2020. More and more will probably be seeing now the future of cryptocurrency due to the effects of pandemic.

Even when the government was threatening to jail anyone who are holding Bitcoin in India, the local cryptocurrency exchanges were witnessing millions newly registering to their platforms. Now the government seems to have toned down their stance. But overall, their hostility just ended up in making Bitcoin more popular among the Indians (and probably some of the government members took notice of that). Actually government is not the problem. The main issue lies with the bureaucrats, who have been pushing for these anti-Bitcoin measures.

No wonder for one more reason, India has not banned the crypto in full fledged or at least they have not published such bill in the budget. They reconsidered the 2021 bill last month too and crypto will be worked out in legal way, thats what statement was.

This led to the operating exchangers in right direction and thus big players like WazirX, ZebPay are still operating in legal ways within India. This directly affects the P2P market and people don't risk their money over p2p transactions.

In Nigeria the reverse is true. The ban led people to use more P2P.

You don't think it will happen and it already happening my friend. You are comparing population of India to that of Nigeria but we are talking about people that are using and embracing the technology of bitcoin. Nigeria is one of the top countries that are into bitcoin and crypto trading and now that funding of wallet through normal exchange with financial institutions, the next available option is p2p which has increased by 15% since the action of central bank months ago.
Nigeria youths love opportunities and freedom, this is why they love bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

Nigerian population is around 200 million, which makes it one of the most populous countries in the world. And at the same time, the cryptocurrency penetration rate is much higher than the case with India. In India, the users are mostly confined to a handful of metro cities and a few tier-2/tier-3 cities in South India. But from what I have heard, in Nigeria the coverage is much more uniform with large number of users even in smaller cities and towns. 

Well, it just might be to early to tell, lets, see how the next few years goes

This should be self-explanatory.
According to worldometer (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/)

India's current population - 1,390,834,742
Nigeria's current population - 210,323,275

Even if the rate of crypto adoption was quite high in Nigeria, I don't think they can beat India's numbers in the near future. Population numbers play a much bigger role.

If nigeria over take india then it won'r be a shocking news because India recently got bitcoin using right in their country where Nigeria already a country where bitcoin was legal before India. Well Nigeria now doing p2p transaction more because of their government recent step which was ban from bank transaction. Where India was doing p2p transaction when India was an irregulated country about bitcoin. And now Nigeria got the same mark. They got banned from bank transaction. Thats is why they are using p2p transaction. And thats why i think its a normal matter.

Yes, maybe in terms of population India should be very superior when compared to Nigeria, but several other determining factors such as government regulations are very important. I see that India still has a few difficulties in implementing good crypto regulations, whereas Nigeria has found it easier. From the perspective of technology itself India should also be superior seeing the number of "big tech" that is there, it's just that the rather complicated regulations make Nigeria currently superior in their adoption

Very true OP, the Nigerian p2p market volume is seriously skyrocketing and is believed to be fueled by the recent restriction by the central bank. With the rate at which the penetration of bitcoin awareness is deepening in Nigeria, i would totally agree that in no time, the country will surpass India in p2p trading volume.

Nigeria Central bank governor is a confused he ban open bitcoin market and decided to incentivize direct remittance through cash, this is to attract more FX into the dubious fx market in Nigeria, but guess what? people still choose to settle remittance via P2p, people now understand that the government is enemy of the people when it comes to financial freedom.

Don't go by the numbers. Less than 5% of Indian population have ever heard about cryptocurrency and those living in the smaller cities and rural areas are completely unaware of it. There are less than 10 million users in local cryptocurrency exchanges. If you add the P2P users as well, then the figure may come to 20-25 million. But still there is a good chance that there are more users in Nigeria (at least in terms of number of active users).

Well, I guess it was wrong of me to assume that bigger the population, higher will be the number of users, because even if China has largest population, they aren't top at everything, like YouTube or even crypto. You are right, the youth of Nigeria is heavily getting into crypto, I would be worried about them because the government I heard there is very anti-crypto. I think India will not be very behind either, as most students here take engineering as a career option and government is introducing blockchain as a course slowly, I think the youth of here will engage in crypto as well in high numbers :)

I think the data varies from one p2p platform to another, but if we’re going to base this on a particular, let’s say Paxful which became the largest p2p platform in the world, then Nigeria is already the number two largest p2p bitcoin market in the world, while the US stays as the number one.

So India is not the second largest market, and moreover I don’t think I have heard about India being the second largest, I have always thought another country was the second largest market there is.But we can’t be hundred percent certain about these stats until we have gotten stats from lots of p2p exchanges and then combine the results to verify it.

Nigeria has a very high volume of individuals trading bitcoin and the population keeps growing, the central bank of Nigeria made a very wrong decision banning crypto transactions via bank accounts, but so bad for them thier plan failed because they couldn't even stop the Nigerian citizens from making transactions, instead it turned out to be more Nigerians coming into crypto and using the p2p system, if all Nigerian who hodl or trade bitcoin uses the p2p system surely there will over take India, but the main thing here is not all of them knows about p2p system, I got to find out that the ones who knows about the p2p system are now using it a as a business to buy and sell to their fellow citizens who doesn't know about the p2p system.

At least the Nigerian authorities realized that banning the ownership of cryptocurrency is not possible. Here (in India) some of the bureaucrats wanted to send cryptocurrency users to jail, for up to 10 years. Their proposal caused a lot of confusion here in India and pulled the cryptocurrency sector here backward by at least a decade. Fortunately, saner voices seems to be prevailing now. The finance ministry has so far refused to implement this lunatic proposal.

I don't know the statement is true or not. But it is not surprising to me. Because, Cryptocurrency is also banned in Bangladesh and here, in Bangladesh, we are also transferring our funds through using Crypto. Nowadays, the network fees are getting high so people are mostly using P2P method to transfer their funds. I am also using it. Any country can cross another country in terms of volume.

The daily trading volume of wazirx alone is $229 million and there are other exchanges and i not sure about the P2P volume but i think it is the over all volume and i wont be surprised if the daily volume crosses a billion dollar in the near future combined.

I seriously do not care if Nigeria over takes India or any other country for that matter and i do not see it as a competition, people tend to use P2P if they think that they cannot trust the government and we know the situation in India is not that promising as we hear different stories every day on what the regulation would be.

Alot of Nigerian do look for a simple and easy way to trade bitcoin especially those that are new to the business. Regardless of any available p2p. The decision by the CBN has already scare people away and that has been considerably low interest in joining or buying crypto by the people. Especially when you know the consequences will be closing of your bank account without your permission since the CBN has granted banks the permission to do so in case there is a traceable evidence that you are dealing with crypto

Yes, there's no reason for competition here. It is better if more countries will be more open-minded when it comes to crypto. Also, the population in India is like about 7 times of Nigeria. So if you will account the trading volume, I believe, India will be so much ahead of Nigeria. But in any case, we are all wishing that crypto regulations in each country should be fair with crypto users. We would like to hear more countries to be more crypto friendly and that will aid in more adoption.

The governments of both these countries have frequent tension with cryptocurrencies. That drives P2P transactions in these countries soaring. India has a large population and larger economic size so it will not be inferior to Nigeria in P2P transactions.
The adoption of cryptocurrencies in Nigeria is greater than in India, but it is unlikely that P2P transactions in this country could be larger.

true what you say...
of the total population, Nigeria is far behind India, and there are more highly educated people in India than Nigeria then it is very unlikely that Nigeria will outperform P2P in India.

It can be, because India has lot of local exchanges where most people trading so the activities on p2p platforms might get reduced but in Nigeria the condition is exact opposite. AFAIK, central bank ban is still in the place so there is no way other than p2p platforms to buy and sell bitcoins and other cryptos for Nigerian citizens.

Let's not forget that Nigeria banks, CBN , banned financial institutions from helping in crypto transaction and it's not a huge surprise to me because in Nigeria 70%of the population get their daily bread from crypto and they have to adopt the p2p method

The argument is quite feasible. Indeed, no matter how you restrict someone, if he wants it he will do his best to find a way to get his way. And this is exactly the case for Nigerian people who are in love with bitcoins or altcoins. We can only expect the numbers to go up more and more without the country benefiting because of these P2P transactions. And all these waste in effort and opportunity for economical growth is because of the Nigerian banks and government themselves. Because of being selfish, the country will be the one to suffer. Shame on these people.

Yeah the real loser here must be the government. They ban cryptos which simply lead people into P2P trading which means government cannot benefit anything from such transactions in terms of taxation. It means people are able to enjoy crypto space even after government restrictions but government is losing their tax part. Hence, there will be no wonder some governments will be learning lessons out of these. I guess Nigeria government and Nigerian people are providing a real time case study for both government and people to face similar situations.

Where are you getting your numbers from?
Less than 5%? You make it look like India is a real shithole where people are so ignorant about tech leaps and cryptocurrencies unlike Nigeria but you will be shocked.

Last time I heard there were bans in India too. If I am not mistaken the bans were first heard of in India, so I wouldn't be surprised that we have so many of our brother and sisters from India using p2p too in a bid to bypass the bans.

I am from India and therefore I have a fair idea about the situation here. There is a lot of hype among the youth regarding cryptocurrency in the urban areas, but those in their 50s and 60s still regard Bitcoin as some sort of a Ponzi. And the knowledge about cryptocurrency in most of the rural areas (perhaps with the exception of South India) is very low. But the real issue is with the government approach to Bitcoin. Some of the bureaucrats and government officials still would like to treat cryptocurrency users on par with criminals. They can't digest the fact that cryptocurrency can give financial freedom to ordinary people. That will reduce their power.

I agree with you that the adoption of Cryptocurrency in Nigeria is to a very large extent greater than what is obtainable in India, but looking at the economic and population size of India, one can confidently agree that p2p trading volume in India cannot be overtaken by that of the Nigerian populace.

70%! thats quite a high number of people engaged in crypto in Nigeria (if it is true), didn't know people in Nigeria are aware of crypto this much, this is actually good to have more people aware and understand crypto and the power it gives to the masses,
i bet the government never anticipated that p2p will be a huge alternative after their irrational ban of crypto in the country, the ban create an opportunity for p2p awareness and usage.

Last year Nigeria was ranked 2nd in crypto trading market, but with the federal government policy on Crypto trading in Nigeria February this year I know is going to have a little effect on the market trade but I don't see it having an enormous effect on the ranked at all. I don't really see the point of dragging who overtakes who as long as everybody is happy with the market.

Nigeria is also one of the most populous countries in the world, with a total population of 200 million. If population was the sole basis of cryptocurrency adoption, then India and China would be having the largest number of cryptocurrency users in the world. That is not the case, as the US is dominating this sector. The unclear legal status of cryptocurrency and economic downturn may negatively impact the users in India. Once there is clarification regarding the status of cryptocurrency in India, then things will get easier for the users there.

Lets not forget that even before this whole FG and CBN fiasco on cryptocurrency trading people where already trading p2p but it is now just more official and this even shows how all the people in Government dont know nothing about crypto trading because they would have known for a fact that the policy did not change any serious thing just the way of Direct bank deposit.

Till date the only effect to that political decision is the direct bank deposit that is connected to an exchange, no other limited is felt by the Nigerian crypto community. P2P has always existed and made more popular by such. The decision was done against the #endSars conveners just to get to them. Is unfortunate that government that takes one sided decision without looking out for both advantage and disadvantage does not accommodate all opinion and that means a serious lapse in the democracy.

It seems that for countries that have not made allowances for cryptocurrency, over time it will be cornered and provide concessions, at least there is no prohibition on owning crypto for every citizen. We know that at present conditions with the development of crypto, it will have a euphoric impact on the whole society, especially for people who have a large population like Nigeria.

Nigeria do not have a small population neither. I get that India is probably either the most populated nation in the world or second, it is a head to head between them and china, however Nigeria also has 200 million people as well. That is not something small to handle and that is a big deal. I do not know the laws in both nations very well, I can't speak on what is the situation in neither but I think if Nigeria went full p2p they could overtake any nation and be at the head, as far as I know India hasn't totally banned crypto payments just yet.

This is why I do not believe that it is out of question. Think about USA banning banking for crypto? That would surpass any other nation as well, would make them super high. Long story short this is not about population but more about laws, according to laws of that nation p2p increases or decreases.

There is no ban in India but some of the banks are rejecting cryptocurrency payments, some of the exchanges were forced to change their banking accounts recently and ICICI bank recently started to reject cryptocurrency transactions and if that happens people will turn to P2P trading and India does have 1.4 billion population and billions in daily trading volume and if everyone shifts their focus on P2P trading because of the uncertainty from banks even though there are no ban right now the volume will explode.

Since government of this country don't want crypto to be traded openly and put a ban on it, the only reasonable option is to sell using p2p, that way government don't have control of what is happening and also losing out on tax from banks in this regards,
P2p is a good alternative but has it's limitations, unlike selling directly to exchange, p2p price are very different, compare to actual conversion rate.

When the ban was placed on the use of cryptocurrencies in Nigeria, it became a known fact that Peer-to-Peer transactions is going to increase significantly.  This is actually because they don't have any other means of exchanging cryptocurrencies to fiat and vice versa which leaves P2P as the only option.
Now, I don't know how large the P2P market in India is but I believed that Nigeria would have overtaken them.
I, however, learnt that the ban has been lifted. In that case, I'm not so sure that would still happen since they have several options now.

Mate it's possible for those countries you mentioned to take over the level of p2p transaction of cryptocurrency, currently I can't directly mention any country because I don't have the statistics of their transaction daily or weekly, I have noticed that Nigeria of a country really like cryptocurrency and other things involves in cryptocurrency so from the scenario transaction rate might increase for Nigeria but I can't compare to India because i don't know their statistics or measure.

You should look for more information about the country but it is true that it is very sad if that country will ban Bitcoin there. But is there clear information with all this truth? anyone can confirm or see information from the news in that country. Many countries accept virtual currency in their country and sometimes I see in the government, many are investing in Bitcoin and other coins. It becomes a real and profitable investment if patience is near you.