Nigeria may hit $52.5 million crypto market by 2028

The Nigeria cryptocurrency market may hit $52.5 billion in 2028 says the boss of the economy's capital market regulator. However, the country had witnessed negative regulatory impact on the cryptocurrency market including the court case with Binance platform and its officials.. But is this about to change?

The Capital Market regulator boss is positive 

In the annual conference of the Association of Capital Market Academics of Nigeria (ACMAN) for 2024 that was held in Abuja on Thursday, the Director General (DG) of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) posits that the economy may hit $52.5 million crypto market in 2028. He said that there is a large adoption of the digital currency market with an estimate that worth $400 million in value.

He mentioned that the crypto transactions volume in the country was $56.7 billion year-on-year from the period of July 2022 and June 2023. This represents a 9 percent growth YoY. Also, an estimate of 33.4 percent of Nigerians owned or used a form of digital coin, he said. 

Nigeria has witnessed ban of cryptocurrency 

Although the DG of the Security and Exchange Commission rates cryptocurrency high and expects the use of it more in the country, Nigeria has witnessed cryptocurrency bans in the past years. A Nigeria digital currency startup Patricia relocated its head office to Villanius, Lithuania in 2021 as a result of a ban by the country's Central Bank that forces financial institutions not to allow the use of bank accounts for crypto trading.

On March 5th this year, Reuters reported that Binance stopped the use of Naira in its platform after the country's government accused the platform of causing a high black market dollar to Naira rate. And more recently the country banned P2P trading in certain centralized exchanges like Kucoin. 

Is there hope for cryptocurrency in Nigeria?

There is no actual ban on digital currency in the country. In fact, the country has its own stable coin known as E-Naira. It seems there might be a glimpse of hope for the future. According to Emomotini Agama, the current boss of SEC, Nigerians will benefit from the use of crytos in various ways. He mentioned the use of the currency for remittances which will reduce its fee by 50 percent, as the country has the highest foreign remittance in Africa. However, he reiterated that security reasons, financial literacy, and lack of well structured regulation posed a problem of the currency in the country.