Nigeria is undoubtedly the largest African cryptocurrency market, millions of young citizens of the country are trying to face their financial difficulties with cryptocurrency.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (BCN) makes that a bit more difficult. They have banned other banks from providing services to cryptocurrency companies. The expectation was that the crypto market would collapse as a result, but nothing could be further from the truth. Portugal Cryptocurrency is popular.
What happened?
To be clear: The Central Bank does not ban cryptocurrency, nor are citizens immediately discouraged from trading. The ban only applies to banks and financial institutions. In other words, crypto exchanges and related companies that previously allowed users to deposit or withdraw their money directly from their bank accounts can no longer do this.
The ban is a major setback as bank transfers through exchanges made it easier for many Nigerians to access crypto services without getting ripped off. Still, this doesn’t stop Nigerians from trading heavily in cryptocurrency. According to a recent article, Nigeria is the largest peer-to-peer market for Paxful.
It is not a deterrent
When the ban took effect, cryptocurrency traders in Nigeria had to figure out a way to trade without the intervention of banks through crypto exchanges. Paxful is a global peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading platform and by far the largest in Africa.
According to the article, Nigerians have reached a trade volume of $ 1.5 billion with more than 1.5 million users. At least on Paxful.
And according to data from UsefulTulips, Nigerians using Paxful traded more than $ 6.3 million in the past 7 days and more than $ 77.4 million in the past 90 days. Germany Crypto is popular.
Traditional financial system is no longer sufficient
Paxful also reports impressive trade volumes from countries such as China, the United States, India and Kenya. Globally, the peer-to-peer platform has more than six million users and more than $ 5 billion in transactions have been executed.
According to CEO Ray Youssef, the traditional financial system can no longer meet the needs of a large portion of the world’s population. He says the financial systems that currently exist are fostering many financial inequalities, adding that cryptocurrencies have the power to change the system.
He says:
“With cryptocurrencies, we see an alternative, a way to let the financial system rest on the basis of equality. Our mission at Paxful is to give everyone equal access to finance no matter who they are or where they are, so they can manage their own money and build the future they want with financial freedom. ”
Now the question: Can Africa and other parts of the world set up a good banking system faster? Or is it easier for citizens to simply switch to Bitcoin?
