Interest in cryptocurrency and its adoption are gaining traction and growing steadily in Africa. Some economists now believe we’re going to see the disruptive innovation to blossom in the continent.
According to a report by Blockchaincenter, Bitcoin (BTC) is the most searched crypto asset in the continent. BTC accounts for at least 90% of the search volume, according to Google Trends. Kenya is Africa’s most bitcoin maximalist country, with 94.7% dominance. Other African countries in the top 10 list include Nigeria at the 5th spot and South Africa at the 6th spot.
Remitters Buy and Send Them to Families in Africa
According to Google Trends, South America remains to be the most “bitcoin Maximalist” continent. However, Bitcoin adoption in Africa has seen a significant surge for some time now and setting new highs every week. As per statistics shared by Kevin Rooke on Twitter, the P2P volume has been up 125% in Nigeria, 199% in Kenya, 194% in South Africa, and 257% in Ghana.
Comparatively, Nigerians took the lion’s share of Bitcoin transactions in Q2 2020. According to Usefultulips, Nigerians transacted $34.4 million worth of Bitcoin, South Africa t $15.2 million. Kenya followed with 7.8 million, $640k for Ghana, and Tanzania at $600k. The creator the crypto data providing site Matt Ahlborg said that remitters buy BTC in the USA and then send them to families in Africa where they can sell BTC for a 5-10% premium. He tweeted:
“Africa sees another weekly record on P2P markets. 4th week in a row […] Bitcoin premiums remain high in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and others.”
Bitcoin Leads the Park
The reason cryptocurrencies are experience growth in Africa maybe because no country in the continent is regulating cryptos. Cryptocurrencies are based on the internet and are not bound by geographical boundaries. The transactions are stored in the blockchain, which is a group of connected computers that record transactions in a ledger in real-time.
Bitcoin could become more popular than MasterCard, Visa or PayPal is that any government does not regulate them. Since there are no middlemen, and you only need the internet to execute a transaction, they can happen anywhere in the world. Of all the cryptocurrency brands, bitcoin leads the park in Africa.
Easier To Transact Bitcoin
Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey recently said, “Africa will define the future (especially the Bitcoin one!).”According to Disrupt Africa, a Nigerian Startup BuyCoins, recently opened shop made it easier for anyone to transact bitcoin using its product called SendCash.
The platform enables users to receive money into their bank accounts from any country abroad using Bitcoin. BuyCoins Product Manager Teju Adeyinka said SendCash was processing around $300,000 from about 400 users. He added:
“Basically, we map a bank account to a Bitcoin wallet address, and when anyone sends Bitcoin to that address from anywhere in the world, we convert it to Naira and credit the bank account within a few minutes.”
