14 Jun 2021
Booming adoption of bitcoin in Nigeria
With consistent high P2P volumes and strong growth in registered wallets on Luno, it is clear that the Nigerian bitcoin adoption is growing.
Will El Salvador’s move into bitcoin in the last week have a snowballing effect with more countries to follow? Some are eyeballing Nigeria.On Saturday, the NFL player Russell Okung published an open letter to the Nigerian government, urging the state to adopt a Bitcoin standard.But how well positioned is Nigeria to follow El Salvador? Some data suggest that the bitcoin penetration in Nigeria is high.In December 2020, the crypto exchange Luno surpassed 2 million Nigerian users, and the growth has persisted. The exchange now has 2.6 million registered users from Nigeria.Further, the monthly peer-to-peer volume in Nigeria is consistent and high and has averaged $30.5 million a month since January 2020. As a result, Nigeria has seen the second-largest P2P volume globally in 2021, only behind the U.S.However, the Nigerian government has previously been hostile towards bitcoin, and it seems unlikely that the government will change its mind on bitcoin anytime soon.