Data from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reveals that Africa accounts for only 2 to 3 percent of global greenhouse gases (GHGs). However, this number is poised to soar quickly with the increasing level of interest on the continent (and particularly in Nigeria) in the decentralized digital currency, Bitcoin.
According to data from CoinDance, an online platform providing Bitcoin statistics, Nigeria traded a total of 60,215 Bitcoins (worth more than $566 million) between 2015 – 2020 on Paxful a leading peer-to-peer Bitcoin platform, making Nigeria the largest trader worldwide on the platform, only after the US. Analytics firm, Usefultulips revealed that Nigeria recorded as much as $25.8 million in monthly Bitcoin peer to peer volumes in 2020, the highest in Africa.
The love for Bitcoin in the country is influenced by various factors peculiar to emerging economies. For Nigeria in particular, the factors are the high unemployment rate and large youth population, the incessant currency devaluation, poor monetary policies, difficulty of cross-border transfer of funds, unbridled inflation, unstable exchange rate, various bans and restrictions on traditional trading platforms and the failure of democracy- a case in point is how the government shut down various traditional financing platforms during the #EndSARS protests in October last year, leading to Bitcoin consisting at least 40 percent of the protest funds.
