Bitcoin sells for $85k in Nigeria as premium shoots up

The cryptocurrency market has been moving at a great pace while many countries are trying to either catch up or curtail the use of Bitcoin. The Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN] was among the latter, who tried to ban the use of digital assets within the country.

On 22 February when the value of Bitcoin dipped briefly to $55k in the spot market, Nigeria was seeing a premium of 49% on BTC. This high premium resulted in the value of Bitcoin reaching close to $85k in the Nigerian market. Meanwhile, other countries such as South Africa and Malaysia were seeing a premium of just 4% and 4.01%, at the time of writing.

Interestingly, data suggests that Nigeria has been one of the best-performing countries in terms of crypto activity in 2020. The Bitcoin trading volume in Africa has been among the fastest-growing volumes in the world, with Nigeria leading the race. As per a report published by Blockchain.com, the country witnessed a 60% increase in usage of its wallet service since April 2020.

Meanwhile, the Google Trends data also suggested that Nigeria was leading in terms of Bitcoin interest over the past 90 days.

Whereas other regions like Austria, Switzerland, and Slovenia were not far behind.

Despite the ongoing feud regarding the Bitcoin ban, crypto operations in the country have been impacted. Reports suggested that the deposit on the Naijacrypto exchange dropped by 80% on the day the announcement of the ban was made. The ban has resulted in many banks discouraging crypto transactions and this has to led deposits taking a hit.

However, this ban is still under review, and users in the country will be looking forward to and hoping for the ban to be lifted, given the popularity of cryptocurrencies in the country.