Nigeria is experiencing a boom of remittances in bitcoin.
Many developing countries are receiving remittances from their emigrant citizens who send part of their earnings back home.
These remittances are usually sent by outdated means, which are not only slow but also expensive.
A cross-border transaction in bitcoin, on the other hand, can be quicker and much cheaper, whether it takes place on the on-chain or via the Lightning Network, bitcoin’s second layer, which makes such transactions almost immediate and extremely cheap.
For example, El Salvador’s decision to make bitcoin legal tender in the country is partly due to the growing use of BTC by Salvadorans to send remittances from abroad.
Something similar is also happening in Nigeria, where remittances received in traditional currency plummeted from $2.5 billion to $55 million last year.
In other words, they fell by 98% in 2020 because people started preferring to use BTC for this purpose.
Remittances to Nigeria dropped 98% in 2020 because people used #Bitcoin to send money instead.
It’s probably nothing… 🤔
Watch: at 1min 8 secs
— Bitcoin Archive (@BTC_Archive) June 13, 2021
Nigeria leads the “Bitcoin revolution”
According to Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, there is a possibility that Nigeria will lead a sort of “revolution” concerning bitcoin adoption in Africa.
The people of Nigeria will lead #bitcoin 🇳🇬 https://t.co/A8Ev3tMkJS
— jack (@jack) June 13, 2021
In fact, American football star Russell Okung, of Nigerian origin and a well-known supporter of Bitcoin, has sent an open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari in which he explicitly suggests following El Salvador’s example.
It is well known that many Nigerians have a sincere interest in cryptocurrencies, and given the growing use of bitcoin in the country, in particular for receiving remittances from abroad, it is to be expected that at the very least, the population would agree to the adoption of BTC as the national currency alongside the Nigerian Naira (NGN) which has lost 50% of its value against the US dollar over the last 5 years, 8% of which in the last month alone.
In other words, the conditions in Nigeria seem to be effectively and objectively present for the country to decide to follow El Salvador’s lead.
