While Nigeria and Kenya are leading the adoption of cryptocurrency in Africa, Ghana might just be the next country on the continent to watch in the space.
According to a report released by on-chain analytics firm Chainalysis, Ghana is expected to see the same sort of adoption levels that Nigeria and Kenya have seen over the last few years. According to data conducted by Chainalysis and commentary by Ray Youssef, the CEO of Paxful, Ghana’s adoption has increased by almost 400% in the last 24 months. As per Youssef:
“Lots of Nigerians consider Ghana their summer home and spend lots of time there, and they’re educating the locals on Bitcoin.”
According to Paxful’s trade volume in Ghana, there has been an increase by almost 100% over the past year, which indicates that the Sub-Saharan region has seen substantial cryptocurrency growth in the past few years. Currently, Kenya and Nigeria are ranked 11th and 19th respectively according to Chainalysis’ Global Crypto Adoption Index. The platform, with Paxful’s insights, show that the direction of Ghana’s increasing trade volume could lead the country to become the leader in crypto adoption in Africa.
Source: Chainalysis
Peer-to-peer crypto trading in Africa
According to Youssef, the Sub-Saharan Africa region has been seeing massive cryptocurrency adoption with remittance users taking advantage of Bitcoin’s cross-border transactions. Nigeria has seen 55% year-on-year increase in remittance user volumes, and Kenya has seen a massive 140% increase at a yearly basis. Paxful, as a peer-to-peer platform, offers users a way to send payments to one another across countries without the need for banking delays or transfer fees.
Currently, Nigerian regulation has limited how users can use Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. The country’s national bank banned the use of the Naira to buy cryptocurrency in 2021 as a result of concerns related to scams and tax evasion. Because of these restrictions, users have been looking to peer-to-peer trading to conduct Bitcoin transactions.