Nigerian Crypto Trading Not Hampered By Government Crackdown, Increases it Further.

Nigerian government cryptocurrency crackdown was unable to hamper the rise of the cryptocurrency’s adoption. As a result, Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer trading (P2) trade volume reported its second strongest week in June.

Google Trends data shows that the keyword “Bitcoin” ranks number one in the search interest in Nigeria. The Nigerian Naira’s P2P Bitcoin trading has steadily grown in 2021. The United States dominates the peer-to-peer BTC trading, which is followed by Nigeria ranking second.

Sub-Saharan Africa beat other regions in P2P volume, primarily because of Nigeria’s escalating Bitcoin adoption. The region posted $18.8 million in weekly volume compared to North America’s $18 million last week. You can learn more about check Bitcoin System.

The current political and economic crises have influenced local crypto adoption. These problems include rampant inflation, currency controls, and social repression.

Nigeria has been under political instability with massive public protests fighting police brutality since October.

A major political issue involves the “Sars” police who attacked EndSars protestors with water cannons and tear gas. More than 50 civilians were killed in the act, including 12 individuals shot dead by armed police on October 20.

Economic repression resulted from the government crackdown. Social organizations that provided food and medical assistance to protestors found their bank accounts frozen. This government financial decision coerced protestors to turn to cryptocurrency to protect their finances from the tentacles of the government.

Nigerian Government Reacts

Adewunmi Emoruwa, the founder of Gatefield, said that seeing young people who criticize government officials navigating around cutbacks stunned the people. Gatefield is a public policy organization that offers grants to journalists who cover the protests regarding Nigeria’s recent turmoil.

He remarked that EndSars served as the driving force for some government decisions that were made. Governments feared that citizens could go past governmental institutions. This has made ripples in the field.

Gatefield’s bank accounts were suspended during the protests. The court found this movie to be unmerited and ordered that it be reopened earlier this year.

The unwanted event forced Nigerians to insure themselves against abrupt moves by government authorities. As a result, most organizations have cryptocurrencies as part of their assets.

In addition, another civil society organization leader who requested to speak anonymously and had their accounts briefly suspended reiterated that digital currencies act as a primary backup against unmerited government decisions.

There were those who took the safe route and they kept just enough securities in crypto in case there were problems in the financial market. These people were able to continue paying salaries when the ban was implemented.

The Central Bank of Nigeria made a hostile intervention in February by ordering banks to close clients who use cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, financial institutions will face sanctions if they fail to identify individuals and/or institutions who make crypto transactions.

Cryptocurrency brokers find the mandate a disturbing blow to the emerging market as they depend on commercial banks to facilitate seller and buyer transactions. However, many clients could find workarounds, stated Marius Reitz, Africa general manager at Luno, a cryptocurrency trading platform.

With these workarounds, government authorities find the situation out of control, and fear strikes them as they are not used to being in the position.

With the ban implemented, crypto trading still continued underground. This implied that Nigerians have to engage with less secure channels where they can engage in trading.

There is no more difficulty monitoring cryptocurrency trading, and it has become less safe because of the ban. This means that regulators have less control of the market. Thus, this increases the risk of consumers being scammed.

Trading platforms have realigned themselves and continue facilitating transactions as long as the asset is not declared a cryptocurrency.

Nigerians traded 50% more than in the same time last year, according to LocalBitcoins, a platform based in Helsinki.

This article serves as a guide and not as financial advice. Due diligence must be done by would-be investors for crypto trading.