Nigeria has reportedly overtaken Kenya to reclaim the first position as the leading country with high crypto adoption rate.
The latest ranking sees Nigeria in 11th position in the world, with an adoption score of 0.521. Occupying second place is Morocco, which ranks 14th, with an index score of 0.507.
While last year’s crypto leader in Africa Kenya, occupied the 3rd position, with an adoption score of 0.397, while ranking 19 globally.
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Both Kenya and Nigeria are reported to have improved significantly in their adoption score, with Nigeria gaining 100.39%, from a 0.26 index score in 2021, while Kenya gained 41.79%, from an index score of 0.28 in 2021.
This new report, ranked countries by focusing on five major indexes which includes; On-chain cryptocurrency value received at centralized exchanges, weighted by purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita, On-chain retail value received at centralized exchanges, weighted by PPP per capita, Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange trade volume, weighted by PPP per capita and number of internet users, On-chain cryptocurrency value received from DeFi protocols, weighted by PPP per capita, and On-chain retail value received from DeFi protocols, weighted by PPP per capita.
Despite the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ban on crypto transactions in 2021, about 33.4 million Nigerians still trade or own crypto assets.
In 2021, according to Google trends, Nigeria was reported as the country with the highest number of bitcoin searches globally, which revealed the widespread adoption of cryptocurrency in the country.
The increase in the number of crypto traders in the country has been majorly attributed to the constant devaluation of the naira, which has depreciated by more than 209 percent in the past six years. The citizens of the West African country see these digital assets as a way to hedge against the plunging naira.
Meanwhile, as the naira continues to lose value, coupled with the rising inflation and high unemployment rate, the challenging economic climate in the country has continued to make cryptocurrencies an attractive alternative source of income.
The typical Nigerian has become interested in trading crypto because of its possibility of offering financial freedom. In 2020, the number of jobs in the crypto industry multiplied by more than twice the previous number.
Nigerians have leveraged the numerous job opportunities in the crypto industry, such as cryptocurrency writing, Crypto trading, game development, NFT marketing, etc.
According to data by Merchant Machine, if the crypto use rate in the country continues this way, the entire population of the African country will be using digital assets by 2030.