A report by Paxful a cryptocurrency trading platform showed that the volume of money sent by Nigerians via it's network doubled from October 2021 to May 2022. While global deposit volume increased five times since the platform launched its integration on the Lightning Network in September 2021. The firm stated that Nigerians traded at least N77.75bn ($185m) worth of Bitcoin in the first three months of this year, which is a 5.71 per cent increase from the N73.54bn worth of Bitcoin that was traded in the corresponding period of 2021. Last year a report by Chainalysis disclosed that nation is the sixth leading nation in the world in terms of crypto adoption. While recently KuCoin, a crypto exchange reported that about 33.4 million Nigerians traded or owned crypto assets.
Nigerian Bitcoiners achieved these entire feats despite the bearish mode of Bitcoin and Central Bank of Nigeria restrictions. In February of 2021, the CBN asked banks in the nation to stop transacting in and with entities dealing in crypto assets. In fact doing that attracts a hug fine that would definitely affect that bank’s operations.
Recently a Nigerian Bitcoin trading Linus Williams Ifejika, aka Blord floored the Nigerian government anti-corruption agency called the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in court. He was arrested on August 31, 2020 an accused of internet fraud and his properties were seized. After a twenty four months running battle with the anti-graft agency, the bitcoin trader won his case in court and all his belongings were released. This entails that even the Nigerian court indirectly recognizes Bitcoin as a legal currency.
A country that is ravaged by inflation, unemployment and high cost of financial transactions and Bitcoin directly or indirectly assists most young Nigerians to minimize the impact of these challenges (this was before the drop in price of Bitcoin). The government should have known by now that Bitcoin has come to stay in Nigerian and they don’t need a soothsayer to inform them that it is time to give up and change their stance.
Nigerian Bitcoiners achieved these entire feats despite the bearish mode of Bitcoin and Central Bank of Nigeria restrictions. In February of 2021, the CBN asked banks in the nation to stop transacting in and with entities dealing in crypto assets. In fact doing that attracts a hug fine that would definitely affect that bank’s operations.
Recently a Nigerian Bitcoin trading Linus Williams Ifejika, aka Blord floored the Nigerian government anti-corruption agency called the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in court. He was arrested on August 31, 2020 an accused of internet fraud and his properties were seized. After a twenty four months running battle with the anti-graft agency, the bitcoin trader won his case in court and all his belongings were released. This entails that even the Nigerian court indirectly recognizes Bitcoin as a legal currency.
A country that is ravaged by inflation, unemployment and high cost of financial transactions and Bitcoin directly or indirectly assists most young Nigerians to minimize the impact of these challenges (this was before the drop in price of Bitcoin). The government should have known by now that Bitcoin has come to stay in Nigerian and they don’t need a soothsayer to inform them that it is time to give up and change their stance.
When a the government in power can not meet up to the expectations of her citizens, the citizens resolves to an alternative means of survival. This is the case of Nigerians I guess. Bracing bitcoin was a good move by Nigerians and it is paying or rewarding them. Currently now the world is going through economic crisis and it is a hard time in most countries. However, this has made many to opt for crypto as alternative means of survival.No matter the move of any government, they can not stop the bitcoin movement. As the identity of the founder of bitcoin is unknown, it would be very difficult for any government to fight bitcoin to extinct.
