Naira devaluation raises more interest in Cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria today

By: Damian Okonkwo

The prolonged fall of the Nigerian Naira against the US dollar in the past two weeks has to a large extent boosted interest in Cryptocurrency trading among Nigerian citizens in the last quarter of 2022.

Watching the Naira lose value daily has pushed the citizens to seek alternative businesses to enable them to make profits in dollar and exchange them at the current high naira to the dollar exchange rate.

A more supporting data to this view is the Bitget crypto exchange report which surveyed the growth rate for cryptocurrency trading in Africa in the first half of 2022. According to the research which was carried out by this popular cryptocurrency exchange operating in the country, in conjunction with the American management consulting firm known as Boston Consulting Group (BCG) - Nigeria was discovered to be the second largest market for cryptocurrencies in Africa during the first half of 2022.

The details of this report have been provided in the presentation titled “What Does the Future Hold for Crypto Exchanges,”. Here it was revealed that Nigeria has the second largest market for cryptocurrency traders in Africa today after South Africa which ranks the number one largest market for crypto traders. The report further revealed that Africans use crypto trading as an alternative investment, while Nigerians largely use it for their savings and hedging against the falling Naira value against the US dollar. Hence, many Nigerians who had their savings in USDT were quick to sell their stablecoins holdings last week at the Peer-to-Peer platforms when the naira exchange rate against the US dollar rose to N750 at the platform. The few who failed to sell within this period have equally lost the opportunity to benefit from the high inflation rate after the exchange rate at the platform fell to N650 last week.

More data obtained from the survey has shown that the number of cryptocurrency traders in Nigeria has increased significantly during the first half of 2022 with the largest population coming from the youths.

List of Ten most traded Cryptocurrencies in Nigeria today.

The following rank amongst the ten most traded cryptocurrencies in Nigeria today

· Bitcoin

· Ethereum

· Binance Coin

· Cardano

· Shiba Inu

· Ethereum Classic

· Dogecoin

· Litecoin

· Uniswap

· Polkadot