Using Crypto ≠ Adopting Bitcoin: Are Nigerians Really Adopting Bitcoin?

[Felicity_Tide]

Imo, bitcoin adoption is more related to how the people, government or even businesses sees Bitcoin, and how they choose to use it. Holding is a form of bitcoin adoption... Accepting and sending, In the form of a payment system is also another form of adoption. And mind you, whether you choose to trade for a short term or long term, you are still an adopter. Let's not forget that it has always been about a peer-2-peer electronic cash system.

So what you’re saying in other words is that, folks who decide to buy bitcoin now, wait a few days/weeks/months, for the price to go up, and when price surges, boom they sell off, that even these folks are also called investors and HODLers just because they bought bitcoin, held it for some time and sold it? Because this concept basically sounds like actual long term holders, just a difference of the time horizon.

You're actually replying to something entirely different. The discussion is about the things that brings about Bitcoin adoption. The OP argued that holding, or buying and selling is not enough, and went on to say that understanding certain things are far more reasonable points to classify adoption. And if you can take a moment to go through my own post I quoted above, I shared my own opinion on what I think adoption truly means. It has nothing to do with if someone who sells or buy is called an Investor or not.

And, I just read through what I wrote, but still couldn't figure out where I wrote what you understood. My own definition of adoption still boils down to usage, and Bitcoin usage differs for everyone. Holding is a form of adoption like I already pointed out, same thing for those who buy and sell, or those who trade. It has nothing to do with who's an Investor or not.

The fact that two concepts looks, feels or sounds alike doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the same thing mate, and drawing a distinct line between two familiar but different concepts makes you logical. Anyone can argue that short term traders are actually investors or HODLers, just as anyone can argue that Bitcoin users are same with Bitcoin adopters, but only critical thinkers would be able to look beyond the similarities and realize there’s actually a difference between the both concepts.

Like I said, the discussion is about bitcoin adoption. Be it an hodler or an Investor, or a trader_{(I'm still yet to figure out what you're trying to point out)}, it doesn't really matter because they all use Bitcoin in different ways, which makes them all adopters of Bitcoin. The key word here is 'usage'.

[Tungbulu]

You're actually replying to something entirely different. The discussion is about the things that brings about Bitcoin adoption. The OP argued that holding, or buying and selling is not enough, and went on to say that understanding certain things are far more reasonable points to classify adoption. And if you can take a moment to go through my own post I quoted above, I shared my own opinion on what I think adoption truly means. It has nothing to do with if someone who sells or buy is called an Investor or not.

And, I just read through what I wrote, but still couldn't figure out where I wrote what you understood. My own definition of adoption still boils down to usage, and Bitcoin usage differs for everyone. Holding is a form of adoption like I already pointed out, same thing for those who buy and sell, or those who trade. It has nothing to do with who's an Investor or not.

Maybe if you calm down to read through my comment to understand and not just to argue, you’ll get to really understand what I’m trying to say, because I think you’re making the term usage so broad to the point that it’s almost losing the distinction that the OP is trying to make here. If the fact that simply owning, buying, selling and/or trading Bitcoin automatically makes one or qualifies as adoption, that means we can also agree that every other form of exposure to Bitcoin automatically becomes adoption too, including a person who only bought Bitcoin purely as a speculative asset, without any intentions of ever using Bitcoin, ain’t that right?

If you’re reasonable enough, then you’ll know that there’s quite a difference between simply participating in the Bitcoin market and adopting Bitcoin as something that you actually have use for or something you’ve basically integrated into your overall financial life. Indeed, holding Bitcoin is technically a form of adoption, but that in my opinion isn’t necessarily evidence of meaningful adoption by itself. A person can just decide to buy and hold Bitcoin with expectations of the price rising, without any actual interest in its monetary properties, censorship resistance, self custody, or actual utility, does it still mean they’ve adopted Bitcoin?

What I said earlier were mostly instances to help draw a distinct line between speculation from adoption. Buying and selling Bitcoin may be part of adoption but that doesn’t mean it should be automatically be treated as proof of adoption. Except you want to tell me that anyone who has ever bought Bitcoin has actually adopted Bitcoin, without even considering how and why they decided to interact with it, but if you also say Yes to that, then it’ll only prove just how shallow your understanding is about what Bitcoin adoption is really about.

[Cryptomultiplier]

So what category does the majority of the Nigerian crypto community/users really fall under?? Adopters or users??

The two can be interlocked as one, but what I see about this instance is that Nigeria will continue to lead in crypto adoption even in years to come. The use of cryptocurrency has solved a very big problem for Nigerians during cross border payment. It makes everything very easy, accessible and transparent unlike the Western Union and others being used them to receive money from outside the country. Even the charges will make you discourage and want to start using crypto more for cross border payment. Not so many Nigerians are holders of bitcoin, so many of them are after using it for conversion between currencies and payment methods.

One thing I know about Nigerians is that we know how to survive and turn a bad situation into a good one for our practical benefits and that's how we became one of the best crypto friendly countries in Africa even according to world crypto currency rankings.

We obviously fall into the users category with government giving license to some businesses to operate with crypto currencies and even allowing us pay our taxes and make remitance with it.
Even though our government hasn't openly made crypto currency a legal tender, we know there's a thin line between being called users and adopters, because you simply can't use what you don't believe will work frequently, just for convenience sake.

[Makus]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think using Bitcoin to invest and also transact is also a form of adoption and since a lot of Nigerians mostly invest in it that's an adoption, there's a large number of people that buy Bitcoin and hodl I'm Nigeria do technically we could say that Nigerians are adopting Bitcoin just like I said.

Due to the uncertainty a lot of Nigerians have About Bitcoin and the fear of it being a scam Bitcoin hasn't been fully adopted yet but the solution to this is just proper enlightenment, a lot of people still value stable coin more than Bitcoin but they forget that they are going to lose their value or depreciate as time goes on.

[Perfectbaby]

When you talks about adoption then it is assumed that our country are now using bitcoin as a strategic reserve funds but yet government hasn’t done that or even taken that bold steps. However, I can only say that the moves are only for its users. There are people who are buying and holding bitcoin for themselves, while there are people who are using it for their daily expenses such as using it for payments purposes. They may have bitcoin on their custody but when they wanna spend they automatically convert to fiat but yet their reserve remains in bitcoin.

[IceLincoln]

So what category does the majority of the Nigerian crypto community/users really fall under?? Adopters or users??

I’ll answer by saying that we’re adopters because we are users. We can’t deal one without the other. Nigerians have adopted cryptocurrency and Bitcoin despite that there’s not much wide scope of the adoption. Just basically traders and holders are the ones pushing this phase and it’s made up of the younger generation.
There are still small scale adoption in that business in some part of the country accepts payment by crypto or bitcoin and some individuals who also accept it as a form of payment for services rendered.

So long as you’re making use of something in whatever form you’ve adopted it, you can’t use what you haven’t adopted. What’s holding a widespread adoption is just the clarity on the regulations stand of the government and other big Institutions accepting it.

[Obim34]

So what category does the majority of the Nigerian crypto community/users really fall under?? Adopters or users??

How many times do we frequent stores that accept Bitcoin as payment, or purchase goods or pay for services with Bitcoin? As a Nigerian, I can tell you for a fact, that we are more exposed to Bitcoin, simply because it is a good investment option. In Nigeria, the majority of enthusiasts are Investors or traders, or those who freelance and get paid in cryptocurrencies.

The government is also not putting hard regulation on the use of crypto, this is part of the reason for massive adoption. We are both adopters and users, you can see crazy buy orders when doing P2P, It tells a lot about how Nigerians are taking Bitcoin seriously.

[Pablo-wood]

Nigerians are mere users of bitcoin, this is so because of our fiat depreciation and the need to have an investment where the government won't monitor or have control over. We can't say we adopted Bitcoin because there is no legal document or law backing that claims and besides we don't have much business accepting it as payment option. On a long run it is even risky to be identified as a Bitcoin investor because of the high level of insecurity and insurgency.

We are only privileged to use it to its extreme in this part of the world because the government didn't put strict regulation or ban on its usage. It is like an asset kept at the risk of its owner here in Nigeria.

[L E G E N D A R Y]

I’ll answer by saying that we’re adopters because we are users. We can’t deal one without the other. Nigerians have adopted cryptocurrency and Bitcoin despite that there’s not much wide scope of the adoption. Just basically traders and holders are the ones pushing this phase and it’s made up of the younger generation.
There are still small scale adoption in that business in some part of the country accepts payment by crypto or bitcoin and some individuals who also accept it as a form of payment for services rendered.

So long as you’re making use of something in whatever form you’ve adopted it, you can’t use what you haven’t adopted. What’s holding a widespread adoption is just the clarity on the regulations stand of the government and other big Institutions accepting it.

While it’s true that true adoption comes through using Bitcoin or crypto, but we really need to draw a distinct line between the two, I mean usage and adoption. Simply holding or trading Bitcoin does show that one is a user, but you need to understand that that doesn’t necessarily demonstrate a broad adoption. When we talk about true adoption, what we mean is that Bitcoin has suddenly become integrated into the user’s economic activities, such as business transactions, remittances, savings and/or every other everyday business activities.

So Nigerians who trade, buy, sell, hold bitcoin are literally users/adopters but at an individual level. But when you say Nigeria (as a country) has adopted Bitcoin, then this suggests a much broader level of level of economic activity than what we are seeing currently. So Nigeria does have individuals who have Bitcoin users and some real world service adoptions, but that is not enough to conclude that Nigeria has adopted Bitcoin because the scale of those use cases are still relatively limited, I don’t know if you understand what I’m trying to say though.

[Chibit01]

When you talks about adoption then it is assumed that our country are now using bitcoin as a strategic reserve funds but yet government hasn’t done that or even taken that bold steps. However, I can only say that the moves are only for its users. There are people who are buying and holding bitcoin for themselves, while there are people who are using it for their daily expenses such as using it for payments purposes. They may have bitcoin on their custody but when they wanna spend they automatically convert to fiat but yet their reserve remains in bitcoin.

Adoption doesn't really need to be linked to federal or state reserves as you want to describe it or view it. A country where its citizens know the value of something, they buy and hold it for different purpose that's already a clear sign that they value the asset and that's exactly adoption process from my own point of view, it don't have to deal with store owner keeping bitcoin as reserve they should just recognize its value, the government just needs to set a friendly policy that allows it to survive in the country they don't even need to add it to reserve especially in a country like Nigeria.

[IceLincoln]

I’ll answer by saying that we’re adopters because we are users. We can’t deal one without the other. Nigerians have adopted cryptocurrency and Bitcoin despite that there’s not much wide scope of the adoption. Just basically traders and holders are the ones pushing this phase and it’s made up of the younger generation.
There are still small scale adoption in that business in some part of the country accepts payment by crypto or bitcoin and some individuals who also accept it as a form of payment for services rendered.

So long as you’re making use of something in whatever form you’ve adopted it, you can’t use what you haven’t adopted. What’s holding a widespread adoption is just the clarity on the regulations stand of the government and other big Institutions accepting it.

While it’s true that true adoption comes through using Bitcoin or crypto, but we really need to draw a distinct line between the two, I mean usage and adoption. Simply holding or trading Bitcoin does show that one is a user, but you need to understand that that doesn’t necessarily demonstrate a broad adoption. When we talk about true adoption, what we mean is that Bitcoin has suddenly become integrated into the user’s economic activities, such as business transactions, remittances, savings and/or every other everyday business activities.

So Nigerians who trade, buy, sell, hold bitcoin are literally users/adopters but at an individual level. But when you say Nigeria (as a country) has adopted Bitcoin, then this suggests a much broader level of level of economic activity than what we are seeing currently. So Nigeria does have individuals who have Bitcoin users and some real world service adoptions, but that is not enough to conclude that Nigeria has adopted Bitcoin because the scale of those use cases are still relatively limited, I don’t know if you understand what I’m trying to say though.

From these your replies now, I understand the angle you’re driving at, a broader perspective of adoption depends on how the government responds to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Like I said before using is adopting, the Nigerian government have not adopted bitcoin yet so they’re not using it and a larger population of Nigerians doesn’t. While  the statistics shows that Nigeria is one of the top crypto adopters in Africa is because there’s a good growing population of users who have adopted crypto and to hold bitcoin for a long term.

[Qhunman]

From these your replies now, I understand the angle you’re driving at, a broader perspective of adoption depends on how the government responds to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Like I said before using is adopting, the Nigerian government have not adopted bitcoin yet so they’re not using it and a larger population of Nigerians doesn’t. While  the statistics shows that Nigeria is one of the top crypto adopters in Africa is because there’s a good growing population of users who have adopted crypto and to hold bitcoin for a long term.

In my opinion I think a lot of Nigerians are adopting bitcoin because most of our youths and some few elderly people are into bitcoin investment or using it to trade. However,there have been no accurate statistics about the numbers of bitcoin holders but the rates at which bitcoin is being discussed in the internet and in the streets shows that it is widely used by alot of Nigerians.
The government has tried to intimade people from using bitcoin using various means but it still didn't work because Nigerian has seen the potentials and the benefits of investing and using bitcoin for their large transactions.

[JoyceBTC]

Due to the uncertainty a lot of Nigerians have About Bitcoin and the fear of it being a scam Bitcoin hasn't been fully adopted yet but the solution to this is just proper enlightenment, a lot of people still value stable coin more than Bitcoin but they forget that they are going to lose their value or depreciate as time goes on.

With time bitcoin won’t be something to preach to some people about again because they’ve known the importance and significance of adopting bitcoin and even up until now a lot of people who don’t use bitcoin, still know about it but still don’t want to accept it as a valuable asset. I’m sure it is this way because it might have been presented to them with a wrong narrative and we all know how most Nigerians avoid anything that has to do with investing money to gain quick profit. So many gullible people are looking for such opportunities for quick profits while some people run away from things like that, since they believe it’s not legit and bitcoin must have been presented like that to them. Some are just scared of its volatile nature, while some that are likely wanting to invest in bitcoin don’t want to because they lack the consistency to do so.

[Egii Nna]

Whether Nigerians are Adopter or just Users of bitcoin totally depends on the context and how you use the words, because Bitcoin adoption does not mean only loving the decentralization, owning or investing in bitcoin. Bitcoin is a Currency, so far somebody accepts that and uses bitcoin for transactional purposes or other things, then they have literally adopt it.

But to answer your question in the OP, I think majority of Nigerians will fall under the Users category in the context of this post because many Nigerians that are currently using bitcoin are not actually investing, they are just using it for transactional purposes.

[Richbased]

So what category does the majority of the Nigerian crypto community/users really fall under?? Adopters or users??

The reason why I like Nigerians is that they are one of the countries that are updated to current trends, they are very eager to know about tjr latest investment and all that which is why we normally use this familiar words "naija no dey carry.ladt". Somebody who is using bitcoin has adopted it.

Adopting Bitcoin do not necessarily mean that you must hold for a long time before it can be called adoption. Whether you use bitcoin to make payments or you choose to just keep it in your wallet, it's all adoption.

[Iamgoat]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think using Bitcoin to invest and also transact is also a form of adoption and since a lot of Nigerians mostly invest in it that's an adoption, there's a large number of people that buy Bitcoin and hodl I'm Nigeria do technically we could say that Nigerians are adopting Bitcoin just like I said.

Due to the uncertainty a lot of Nigerians have About Bitcoin and the fear of it being a scam Bitcoin hasn't been fully adopted yet but the solution to this is just proper enlightenment, a lot of people still value stable coin more than Bitcoin but they forget that they are going to lose their value or depreciate as time goes on.

Both using and transaction are all users of Bitcoin, in as much as you have one thing or the other you are doing with Bitcoin and you have used it before to either collect money, sending money or even storing it is all form of adopting Bitcoin. All of these put together Nigerian has been ranked sometimes as the second globally for grassroots adoption of cryptocurrency according to a Chainalysis survey in 2024 which tells us the scale at which Nigerians are using digital assets for transactions and other international trades and I think we are currently ranking around 6th position this year with bitcoin being the highest crypto being used by this population. So with this, we don’t have to start answering with yes or no to the question which was asked.