Nigerians’ investment in Bitcoin grew by over five per cent in 2022 despite the cryptocurrency losing $562.93bn of its market value in the same year.
This year, 2022, has been a bad year for BTC and other cryptocurrencies, with the general market capitalisation of the crypto economy losing over $1tn in 2022, and crypto exchanges such as FTX going under.
The market cap of BTC has dropped from $875.94bn as of December 2021 to $313.01bn as of November 20, 2020.
Prices have fallen from $46,306.45 to $16,291.83 within the time under review. This has not deterred Nigerians as they upped their BTC investment by more than five per cent, according to one of the major peer-to-peer exchanges in the nation, Paxful.
When The PUNCH queried the firm as to how much BTC Nigerians had traded, it said, “Nigeria is our largest country based on trade volume.
“Trading volume in the country grew by over 5 per cent y-o-y from January through September (looking at 2022/2021 data).”
Earlier in the year, the firm had told The PUNCH that BTC trade from the nation had reached about N171.50bn ($400m) within the first six months of 2022. Also, it stated that Nigerians traded N428.75bn worth of BTC in 2021.
Speaking about the continued uptake of BTC in the nation, the founder and Chief Executive Officer, Paxful, Ray Youssef, stated, “It is purpose over price. I just returned from spending 10 days in Nigeria. I had the honour of speaking at an event hosted by the National Information Technology Development Agency to explain how Bitcoin helps empower the Nigerian youths.
Contact: [email protected]
