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Binance, the globe’s largest digital asset platform, has ranked Nigeria as the world’s leader in cryptocurrency adoption ahead of Vietnam, Philippines, Turkey and Peru in a new report forecasting the future of digital currency and why 2021 has been significantly impactful to the crypto industry.
The ranking is based on a survey by Statista in 2020 of cryptocurrencies usage in some selected countries.
At 32%, Nigeria has the highest adoption rate globally despite the ban by the government that forbids using cryptocurrency for transactions and prohibiting banks or any other financial institutions from cryptocurrency transactions.
“When the history books get written in the next several years, there’s a good chance that most of them will identify the year 2021 as the inflection point towards the global adoption of cryptocurrencies. As of this year, around 300 million people worldwide have owned or used crypto at some point in their lives, according to a recent estimate from blockchain technology company TripleA,” notes Binance in the report titled: The World Goes Crypto: Top 5 Countries Adopting Crypto and How BUSD Helps. Binance isthe world’s largest cryptocurrency platform by trading volume.
Nigeria’s crypto uptake on a wild rise
The ban by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) appears to have had little effect as virtually all Nigerian exchanges are now offshore and run their Nigerian operations outside of the sphere of Nigeria’s financial regulators significantly accounting for why Nigeria’s cryptocurrency uptake is on a wild rise.
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With more than 200 million people, and a demography of mainly young people with a “more tech-savvy side,” the report seems to suggest that crypto currency uptake in Nigeria is driven largely by Nigeria’s huge yputh population with considerable knowledge of technology far ahead of the country’s leaders or top decision makers.
“With most Nigerians adept at sending money and paying through their phones, almost a third of Nigerians surveyed by Statista have used or owned crypto at some point,” says the Binance Blog.
“The future of money will be defined by African markets, where cryptocurrency awareness and usage surged dramatically over the past year,” writes Leigh Cuen in a 2020 Op.Ed, remarking: “Nigerian bitcoin market activity is nearly 10 times Ghana’s. Ahlborg’s metrics showed roughly $63.9 million worth of Nigerian bitcoin trades during the lockdown. With some 60% of Africa’s 1.25 billion people under the age of 25, local traders, as well as crypto behemoths, are placing their bets on future growth.”
TOP 5 COUNTIRES
1. Nigeria – 32%
Topping the list is the African nation of almost 200 million people, mainly on the younger, more tech-savvy side. With most Nigerians adept at sending money and paying through their phones, almost a third of Nigerians surveyed by Statista have used or owned crypto at some point.
2. Vietnam – 21%
This economically fast-rising Southeast Asian nation of nearly 100 million has also seen huge demand in crypto, with activities varying from trading and P2P to payments and other utilities. According to Chainalysis, crypto traders raked in $400 million in crypto earnings in 2020.
3. Philippines – 20%
Another Southeast Asian country with an economic and demographic situation similar to Vietnam’s, the island-nation has shown that it is adept at adopting crypto. The country’s central bank has provided licenses to crypto companies, while its government is distributing bonds through a blockchain app. On the grassroots level, the nation is becoming a hotspot for blockchain-based play-to-earn games.
4. Turkey – 16%
At the crossroads of Europe and Asia, in this country, crypto companies have become so big that they sponsor national football teams, while football clubs also offer blockchain-based fan tokens. Some Turkish people have gone on the record to say Bitcoin is their primary alternative for investment, which is unsurprising given that the nation recorded $300 million in Bitcoin gains last year.
5. Peru – 16%
Latin America has been a hotbed for crypto adoption, with countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela seeing major activity on the crypto front in response to their respective economic situations. While at least six Latin American countries saw crypto adoption reach percentages in the double digits, Peru is the most advanced of these nations.
