Nigeria Outpaced Most of the World in Blockchain Use

Nigeria was already in the center of blockchain attention before, during and after the crypto winter. Many experts believed that this country would be the main foothold for most blockchain companies in their goal to spread the technology all over the African continent.

It seems that the faith they had put in Nigeria was not misplaced. After years of seeing this country top the charts in Google Trends in terms of crypto-related searches, one of the largest online blockchain wallets, Blockchain.com has confirmed that Nigeria is their largest growing market in Q2 and Q3 of 2020.

Based on the announcement made by blockchain.com, Nigeria has experienced a 60% growth of wallet usage since April, making it the largest blockchain market in Africa. Also, note the fact that this is just blockchain.com speaking. There are dozens of other crypto exchanges and blockchain wallets that service the Nigerian population, meaning that the growth may be much larger than we anticipate.

Furthermore, the iconic Google Trend #1 position is still firmly within Nigeria’s hands, with South Africa slowly catching up. No matter how we look at it, Africa is most definitely shaping up to be the perfect destination for any blockchain company willing to cover as much of the world as possible.

Why such growth?

There are dozens of reasons why Nigeria became the blockchain hub it is currently, but only one of them manages to stand out from the rest. The extreme “ Investment culture” that is driving Nigeria can only be found in the most financially literate countries like the United States, United Kingdom, or Japan.

Nigeria has proven time and time again that it has the resources to teach its population the intricacies of the financial markets, making them amazing contributors to the local economy. This literacy is mostly seen in assets like forex, stocks, and now cryptocurrencies.

Thousands of young Nigerians learned way before that participating in the financial markets was a perfect alternative to a full-time job. The 2020 pandemic was a reinforcement of that belief as most people who relied on their salaries found themselves in serious economic troubles, while traders just had to liquidate their assets or simply change their investment plans to weather the storm.

The same goes for timing as well. Nigerian crypto traders were among the first responders to Bitcoin’s massive growth spike in 2017 as well as the anticipated market drop in 2018. In the majority of cases, Nigerian traders were making all the right decisions and diversifying into altcoins for further protection.

All of these measures were learned in traditional financial markets and then transferred over to cryptocurrencies. At some point, these traders made the local crypto markets pretty much identical to traditional financial markets thanks to their matching investment strategies.

Whatever may happen, Africa will most definitely continue to be the crypto destination of 2020 and 2021 unless serious regulatory changes are made elsewhere in the world. Currently, Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Ghana are the perfect blockchain investment destinations for most large firms to be their just service providers or ATMs.

Image courtesy of Bitcoin Exchange Guide