The OKX Situation Impact on Nigerian Users : What's the way forward?

[logfiles]

I doubt that the main exchanges like Binance, Bitget, Bybit, etc,  will follow suit because they have a business to run and the Nigerian community is part of their fee-paying customers.

Maybe they are just panicking because of the irrational decisions being made by the Government over there. If those exchanges only cared about running business while ignoring regulations that "wouldn't hurt" them since they don't have any physical headquarters in Nigeria, then I don't think some of them would have even bothered delisting the NGN from their platforms.

What is weird is that I would expect p2p volumes from  Nigeria to go up on a decentralized exchange like Bisq that could be somehow immune to such threats but to my surprise, there is not even a single buy or sell offer over there and yet several months back before the ban, I would see a couple of offers from Nigerian traders.

[nelson4lov]

I doubt that the main exchanges like Binance, Bitget, Bybit, etc,  will follow suit because they have a business to run and the Nigerian community is part of their fee-paying customers.

Maybe they are just panicking because of the irrational decisions being made by the Government over there. If those exchanges only cared about running business while ignoring regulations that "wouldn't hurt" them since they don't have any physical headquarters in Nigeria, then I don't think some of them would have even bothered delisting the NGN from their platforms.

What is weird is that I would expect p2p volumes from  Nigeria to go up on a decentralized exchange like Bisq that could be somehow immune to such threats but to my surprise, there is not even a single buy or sell offer over there and yet several months back before the ban, I would see a couple of offers from Nigerian traders.

When other exchanges bowed out of the NGN/USD markets, Bybit and Bitget offered the same market with Bybit becoming the biggest market for P2P trades on that pair. I think that's why most traders just sticked to available CEX options. But if push comes to shove — that is all CEX officially delist NGN/USD pair on their p2p markets then Bisq will start getting some attention and volume. Prior to exchanges offering p2p markets, everyone used to trade on WhatsApp and tg groups. Personally, I haven't used Bisq simply because the CEX alternative is seamless enough for me.

If the desirable is no longer available, the available, aka Bisq will be desired. For anyone panicking, if it was easy to stop crypto, US would've stopped it instead of allowing Bitcoin to even get close to an ETF. Crypto is here to stay.

[GreatArkansas]

Our country (Philippines) can relate here, but seems Nigeria is much worse.
Because SEC Philippines, announced that they would be banning Binance in the Philippines, but Binance doesn't acknowledge it, a lot of my countrymen including still can use Binance, even in their P2P market.
Binance is more popular than Binance, so if there are other no reason of banning OKX, for sure there will be next exchange will be ban also to Nigeria.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

We all know OKX is a good and reliable CEX for trading, but now it seems to have put Nigerians in a position of needing to choose another exchange.

OKX announced that they will stop supporting P2P for Nigerian currency, and now they've announced they will stop supporting Nigerian users by the end of the month. This has become a significant problem for its Nigerian users.

People would like to switch to an exchanges like OKX or to a better exchange that supports P2P, have a User Protection Fund, good partnerships, proof of reserves, and are also secure.

I'd love to see some recommendations here and why the exchange is being recommended. Also, does this mean that there are more exchanges that are going to stop supporting Nigeria?

One thing I believe that is very certain is that, crypto can never be stopped in Nigeria, whether the Nigerian government like it or not, there will always alternatives for us as Nigerians.
The exit of OKX exchange from the Nigerian crypto market is indeed disappointing and disgraceful for us as Nigerians, but then, there are still other reliable alternatives around to choose from,  when it comes to exchanges with p2p trading that allows the exchange of crypto to the Nigerian naira and vice versa, we still have bybit, which also is a very big and well trusted exchange, and we still have some other smaller exchanges as well that are not well known that much.

But then, when it comes to exchanges for trading that still allow Nigerians, there are alot of alternatives around like Binance, bybit, kucoin(though they charge Nigerians extra for vat) gate.io plus a host of others, and if Para adventure all of this exchanges stop working in Nigeria, then we will shift to using decentralized exchanges.
One thing certain is that, crypto can't be stopped in Nigeria.

[BlackBoss_]

Our country (Philippines) can relate here, but seems Nigeria is much worse.
Because SEC Philippines, announced that they would be banning Binance in the Philippines, but Binance doesn't acknowledge it, a lot of my countrymen including still can use Binance, even in their P2P market.
Binance is more popular than Binance, so if there are other no reason of banning OKX, for sure there will be next exchange will be ban also to Nigeria.

Does your government block access to Binance exchange website?

If they have yet blocked access to the Binance website, they are not doing any strict regulation or first strong barrier to prevent citizens to access Binance. They even don't need to use VPN to access Binance but as I know, Binance is against VPN usage.

How do government work with banks in your country to filter bank transfers related to Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and Binance?

I wonder will SEC Phillipines and government there sue Binance and bargain for big money (as fine fee) from Binance?
Then Binance will register their office there, and they will operate legally in your country.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Our country (Philippines) can relate here, but seems Nigeria is much worse.
Because SEC Philippines, announced that they would be banning Binance in the Philippines, but Binance doesn't acknowledge it, a lot of my countrymen including still can use Binance, even in their P2P market.
Binance is more popular than Binance, so if there are other no reason of banning OKX, for sure there will be next exchange will be ban also to Nigeria.

Does your government block access to Binance exchange website?

If they have yet blocked access to the Binance website, they are not doing any strict regulation or first strong barrier to prevent citizens to access Binance. They even don't need to use VPN to access Binance but as I know, Binance is against VPN usage.

How do government work with banks in your country to filter bank transfers related to Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and Binance?

I wonder will SEC Phillipines and government there sue Binance and bargain for big money (as fine fee) from Binance?
Then Binance will register their office there, and they will operate legally in your country.

Well, he clearly said it that the Nigerian situation as it regards to the government fight against crypto; is much worst than it is in Philippine, and I believe this is very much understand based on his explaination of the current situation of thing in their country.

What I am suspecting is that, their government over there have not really risen up to place some strict rules/laws against crypto, they simply said it was banned but are yet to make any move to stop citizens access to crypto services.
It's exactly like it was with the previous Nigerian government where they declared crypto banned, but we as Nigerians still went ahead doing crypto without any restrictions aside from the fact that we can't buy or sell crypto openly or directly with the bank, probably, this is the same situation that the Philippine people are in right now, which is still very good for them if I should say how I feel about that, it's much better than it currently is in Nigeria.

[laubeaud]

Ouch, that was sad. Dropping the support for P2P is sad as well but can be considered, since they can still use the exchange and do other activities but now they can't do that anymore. I only know a couple of good alternatives to OKX. They can be Binance, Kucoin and Houbi, though I think Huobi is also OKX? As I heard one of the top exchange got rebranded.

If you ask if more exchanges are going to follow, to be honest we don't know this because we can't read someone else mind but we can only hope for the better of the future of Nigerians and the crypto. There are still plenty of exchanges out there and there will always be new ones that will come out, in case many will end up on the same situation.

It's sad that OKX left Nigeria though, but I think they can look out for alternatives. Those cex you mentioned don't support naira p2p though but Bitget does.
https://i.ibb.co/4PpY6bb/20240716-151959.jpg

You are right. Instead of complaining, we should look for another alternative. I have exited other exchanges and have been using Bitget for a long time. They even gave me rewards for depositing crypto through my credit card

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

It's exactly like it was with the previous Nigerian government where they declared crypto banned, but we as Nigerians still went ahead doing crypto without any restrictions aside from the fact that we can't buy or sell crypto openly or directly with the bank, probably, this is the same situation that the Philippine people are in right now, which is still very good for them if I should say how I feel about that, it's much better than it currently is in Nigeria.

If Nigerians can do cryptocurrency exchanges, not publicly, but can doable with bank transfers, will government notice it through bank transfer history and do your government, tax agency pay attention on it and take action with personal income tax with people who have high value flow of bank transfer history?

Is tax something strictly managed by government in Nigeria?

They can not know that your bank transfers are for cryptocurrency exchanges with your trade partners but if the flow of money in and out your account is big, they will notice it and put you into list of possible taxed person.

[el kaka22]

While I do agree that it is important to remember how some companies will keep on doing their best, some of them will not be the same and will bow to government requests or pressure.

I think for each nation ,it's important to keep at least one p2p website, active, and trusted. That way, even if exchanges get a trouble one day, we are going to end up with something that will take a while. I believe that things will not be too simple ,and we could just focus on what to do when things go south. I know that it is not going to be like just "oh it is not an issue", of course it is always a problem but at least that way you will have an alternative to the issue, and the solution will be there.

If you have absolutely no solution then you are going to be unhappy about it. That is why you need to make sure that you are not dealing with anything that will take a long time, it is not going to benefit you to just follow and complain about the trouble, you will not gain anything about it at all. I personally try my best, and in my nation we have a p2p setup, it may not be great and not many use it, but it's there and it's trusted and if anything happens to an exchange, we have a solution about it.

[Odusko]

Okx is not among the most popular cryptocurrency excahges in Nigeria Their popularity start fading out the moment their hault the operation on the p2p service and only a few Nigerians were still on that excahge just trading coins that are listed on okx and when the want to take profits from their gains on those coins trading, the have them converted to either bitcoin or any other crypto stable coins like USDT before trading it on the p2p, I think if exchanges like bybit should stop they cryptocurrency service to Nigeria it will be more felt compared to okx since bybit still offer their Nigeria clients p2p service.
Cryptocurrency excahges are like every other businesses that need the revenue of the users to keep operating so I think that okx exit from the Nigeria cryptocurrency market will definitely affects them on the long run, more than it will affects the Nigerians traders on the exchange who are actively trading various cryptocurrencies on that platforms, I will not see much negative impact on the Nigerians traders most especially long term holders who's interest is on a single coin e.g bitcoin, so there is many phases to the whole exchange, Nigeria crisis.