Market News

BY  Frank Eleanya

The volume of peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency transactions on a weekly basis in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained stable, largely because of countries like Nigeria.

A weekly insight by Luno and Arcane Research has found that the weekly P2P volume in the region reached nearly $20 million and now accounts for 24.3 percent of all the P2P volume in crypto globally.

Read Also: Luno, Binance among 10 most downloaded crypto apps

Sub-Saharan Africa is by far the second largest region in the market, slightly behind North America which accounts for 26.6 percent of the P2P volumes in the world.

Nigeria dominates the market in Sub-Saharan Africa with a stable weekly trading volume at approximately $8 million in the last months.

“The appetite for the crypto market in Nigeria is growing despite the regulator’s position. We do expect the regulatory view to change over time as the market matures. We at Luno are always willing to engage with them to help them constantly and we are confident prohibition is a temporary setback,” Owenize Odia, Country Manager of Luno said.

Adoption of cryptocurrency in the most populated country in Africa has been on the rise despite a decision by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to prohibit regulated financial services providers from servicing businesses in the local crypto market.

The prohibition notwithstanding, operators have recorded a massive surge in peer-to-peer adoption. Paxful recently announced it now has over 6 million users with Nigeria dominating the numbers in Africa.

Meanwhile, other African nations have seen accelerated growth lately. Kenya saw a weekly P2P volume above $4 million last week. To put that into perspective, far more populated countries such as India and China also have P2P volumes at around $4 million.

Other notable forces in Africa are Ghana ($2.5 million last week) and South Africa ($1.8 million last week).