Between 2015 and 2020, Nigeria has traded over 60,000 bitcoins, valued at $566 million, making the country the second biggest market for the currency.
Face2Face Africa reports the volume of bitcoin trade in Nigeria has increased by 19 percent since 2017 and only trails the United States on Paxful, a system that controls 52 percent of the market worldwide.
“They mostly use the platform for peer-to-peer and arbitrage trading,” says Nena Nwachukwu, Paxful Nigeria regional manager.
The West African nation saw an increase this year in cryptocurrency trading during the pandemic lockdown. In addition, the growing number of trades can be attributed to money transfer challenges across borders.
“Africa’s largest economy has problems and restrictions in sending and receiving money from inside and outside its borders,” said Paxful chief executive officer and co-founder Ray Yussef.
Still, the U.S. tops the cryptocurrency market — even though the country recorded a decline in trading this year — with China, Canada, and the U.K. rounding out the top five bitcoin markets.
