Nigeria’s digital economy is on the rise. With increased poverty level, more youths and adults are making an entrance into the global digital economy by providing digital services as freelancers. Consequently, Nigerians have trouble receiving payments from their foreign clients. They are not allowed to use even the most famous American-based Paypal; and other options like Money Gram and TransferWise are not only expensive and slow but also have an inflexible verification system.

Bitcoin however, offers them a flexible, almost instant, and cheaper means of receiving cross border payments, like e-commerce platforms, after rendering their services to clients and companies.

The many economic problems in Nigeria, including inflation and devaluation of the naira, have made the country’s fiat currency a poor store of value; pushing some to store their value in a deflationary currency like Bitcoin, which can protect its owners from excess money printing from central authorities and other uncertainties.

With COVID-19 pandemic still raging on and upsetting markets, Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have outperformed the Nigerian stock market and even most global equities; only performing worse than gold. Investors attribute Bitcoin’s performance to bets/bids made to hedge against inflation.

Between April and June 2020, Bitcoin has posted a gain of about 45% compared to Nigeria’s stock market that gained less than 20%. Also, it should be noted that Bitcoin has a market capitalization of over $178.34 billion as of June 08, 2020. It is much bigger and more liquid than the Nigerian stock market (market cap less than $33.5b dollars —N13.704 trillion est. June 08, 2020).

Like stocks and other riskier assets, Bitcoin climbed in the wake of massive stimulus packages launched by fiscal authorities and central banks around the world to ease the economic damage caused by the COVID-19 outbreak.

SOURCE: https://nairametrics.com/2020/06/10/bitcoin-nigerias-new-goldmine/