Nigeria recorded over $1.1 billion in peer-to-peer bitcoin transaction volume between January 2021 and June 2022, meaning the West African country is now the largest market for Paxful The total transaction volume for the month of June 2022 was over $1.1 billion. Kenya, which recorded over $325 million in transaction volume during the same period, is now the second largest African market for crypto exchanges and the fifth largest overall.
Financial Exclusion Drives P2P Bitcoin Volume
According to the latest data from peer-to-peer crypto exchange platform Paxful, Nigeria’s bitcoin trading volume in the first half of 2022 exceeded almost $400 million; combined with the $760 million trading volume seen in 2021, the West African country is now the world’s largest crypto exchange market.
The increase in bitcoin trading volume via Nigeria’s peer-to-peer (P2P) exchanges comes at a time when regulators are clamping down on financial institutions that violate the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) February 5, 2021 directive. The directive prohibits banks and other regulated financial institutions from facilitating transactions involving crypto entities.
Explaining the reason for the surge in P2P volume in Africa, Paxful explained to Bitcoin.com News that a general lack of access to financial services across the continent is driving people toward Bitcoin. Paxful stated.
In markets like Africa, where many people do not have bank accounts and financial institutions are not easily accessible, P2P finance offers an opportunity for financial inclusion. In Nigeria, Bitcoin adoption has exploded due to a number of factors, including 33% unemployment, a population of 38 million unbanked adults, a young and entrepreneurial community (over 75% of the population is under 35 years old), and financial instability such as naira volatility.
According to P2P exchanges, all of these factors make a “massive case” for bitcoin, a technology they said was “built for the masses.”
Volume Growth in Kenya and Ghana
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Nigeria is the world’s largest market for Paxful, but Kenya, which had P2P volumes of over $200 million in 2021 and $125 million in H1 2022, is now the second largest crypto exchange market in Africa and the fifth largest in the world, Paxful added, “We expect a 25% increase in transaction volume in Kenya in 2022.”
Commenting on the significant growth seen in Kenya and Ghana, Paxful said.
“We are seeing more African users sending money every year; Paxful’s total remittance user base (users who trade in multiple currencies) increased by nearly 140% in Kenya and over 115% in Ghana in 2021…In 2021, Ghana saw a 95% annual increase in transaction volume.”
Regarding the Central African Republic (CAR), the first African country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender, Paxful praised the move and said he hopes the country will “use bitcoin to set monetary policy to move the economy forward.” However, the crypto exchange said it had “nothing noteworthy” to share regarding CAR volumes.
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