The news about bitcoin is already old but in Nigeria it is the talk of the day. With the country being regarded as the giant of Africa in both population and economy, it has the potential to lead the African continent to bitcoin mass adoption.
NIGERIA ECONOMICAL PROBLEM Regardless of been Africa's biggest economy it has become very hard for most Nigerians to financial thrive because of multiple economic and social challenges notably the fluctuation of the exchange rate. As at the year 2020, Nigerian Naira was 361 to $1 and as today its equivalent to $1 is ₦700+. With this fluctuations people (mostly Youths) starts tending to bitcoin for easier transactions and to save there incomes.
WHY IS BITCOIN LOOKED AT ONLY BY THE YOUTH?Although stats have shown that over 33.4Million Nigeria use cryptocurrency (mostly bitcoin) with the age of the investors ranging between 18–60, one could see that the older generation aren't paying much attention to bitcoin. This could be as a result of fear to loosing there funds to ponzi scheme. Two of the notable Ponzi scam that discouraged Nigerians from everything online (as they call it) was the MMM (happened in 2016) and Rackstali ponzi scheme. Some Nigerian lost millions of Naira into them and since then the central bank of Nigeria has warned about this kind of schemes. Although cryptocurrency is way different from ponzi schemes the old still regard them the same. Not with standing the warning some learned Nigerians didn't held back in investing into bitcoin and since then there has been no turning back. And come 2021, bitcoin worth ₦316.9Billion was traded with an estimate of about 16,000 transactions per day.
BITCOIN BAN AND WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THEN
Although on February 7th 2021 CBN banned Nigerians from the use of bitcoin (cryptocurrency at large) which lead to some investor's account been frozen in local banks. But still Nigerians still didn't give up and some of the achievements since then are;
1. More Nigerians began to pick interest into cryptocurrency.
2. Nigeria had is first bitcoin ATM in Lagos ( although the government grabbed hold of it and yet to release it)
3. The Nigerian government have started to look into the possibility of legalising bitcoin with there recent partnership with Binance Exchange.
WHAT IS BEHIND THE INCREASE ADOPTION OF BITCOIN.1. While Nigeria economy depends on remittance and with large population not having access to Banks. Nigerians access to financial service has been limited and causing transfer of money to be costly and slow, as prompted people to look else where.
2. With the inflation happening and the constant fluctuations of exchange rates, Nigerians bitcoin as alternative solution to the storage of the fund.
3. Another reason might be since Nigeria has a relatively young population it makes adopting digital economy much easier.
BENEFITS OF BITCOIN TO NIGERIA ECONOMY ARE;–) Better banking experience; with bitcoin, money can be transferred from Nigeria to other countries easily and at low transaction fee than the regular banks.
–) Although volatile but with bitcoin future potential, it would make sense to save some of our future reserve assets in bitcoin considering the fluctuations of Naira to the exchanges
Nigerian government shouldn't see bitcoin as a thing coming to take over Naira as the legal tender but can be use together (side by side) with legal tender and Nigeria digital currency (eNaira)
REFERENCESThisdayliveBBC Africafinbold.com
This post is opened to corrections if there is a missed up of stats
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