Bitcoin plunge fails to dampen Nigerian cryptocurrency craze

LAGOS: While bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have suffered precipitous falls in recent weeks, the units remain popular in Nigeria where they make it easier to do business.

On the surface, digital coins may not seem like a good idea in a country where corruption is rampant and stacks of hard cash are often smuggled overseas.

Yet West Africa’s biggest economy has the world’s third-largest bitcoin holdings as a percentage of gross domestic (GDP), behind Russia and New Zealand, according to Citigroup.

That may be because blockchain technology – public, online ledgers that underpin cryptocurrencies – is liberating Nigerians sidelined by the global financial system as it dramatically improves the ease of doing business.

Olaoluwa Samuel-Biyi, a slight 27-year-old entrepreneur, looks the part of an aspiring corporate disrupter, dressed in skinny jeans with dishevelled hair.

He first considered using cryptocurrency when credit card firms and other established payment providers refused to partner with his global remittance company, deeming the venture too risky.

“They said the markets were too high risk and that people could finance terrorism,” he told AFP, laughing. “It’s ridiculous.”

He realised that the only way he could solve the problem was to use cryptocurrency.

“It’s so hard to send money from Nigeria to Zimbabwe, or from the United States to Sudan,” he explained. Banks were “very tedious” and payment companies “generally exploitative”, he said.

“There’s heavy discrimination, definitely. We have to go all around them to succeed.”