Market News

By Kingsley Jeremiah and Joke Falaju, Abuja

• Experts Caution Nigerians On Trade

Despite economic losses from cryptocurrency trade and caution by financial experts, global trade in the Bitcoin industry has hit $3 trillion.

Coming at a time that Nigeria has been ranked as the leading country in Bitcoin adoption in Africa followed by Togo, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Kenya and South Africa, the Convener of Bitcoin Africa conference, Farida Nabourema, said in the past five years, the industry has been the fastest on the planet and has surpassed card transactions.

She mentioned that the African continent has the fastest adoption rates in the world and at this rate, the continent may surpass America, Europe, or even Asia.

She noted that the maiden African Bitcoin conference scheduled to hold in Accra, Ghana between December 3 to 5, would attract about 800 people across the globe to speak about new innovations in the sector.

Speaking on Bitcoin investment, she urged Nigerians to be careful saying one cannot recoup investment in crypto currency immediately. “In five to 10 years from now, Bitcoin is not going to be worth what it’s worth today, it is going to be worth close to a million dollars for one Bitcoin.

Nabourema said:  “When people say can I invest in Bitcoin? I just tell them, can you invest in naira? Can you invest in dollars? The whole idea of making money out of Bitcoin is buying it and holding it.”

She noted that several applications and services tare are being built on the Bitcoin protocol, including hospitality management and healthcare transportation, adding that donor organisations are also moving to the blockchain to administer their grants because it is more transparent and reduces the number of frauds and middlemen in the Blockchain.

The Convener of the conference pointed out that a lot of scamming are happening in the cash industries and governments don’t talk about it because most of the time, they are accomplices to those illicit money trading and capital flight.