Africa : the continent where Bitcoin is already winning

By: Bharggavi Ssayee

Africa : the continent where Bitcoin is already winning

September 3, 2021 4:47 AM

This is the incredible news of this end of summer: Africa has just overtaken North America in terms of the volume of bitcoin (BTC) trading. But how far will the African continent go?

 

A volume of bitcoin trading that has exploded

First of all, it is important to clarify that this is the largest volume of peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin trading. This clarification is necessary because the peer-to-peer defines a peer-to-peer network model, which distributes and receives data (in our case, BTC), without the need to resort to a central authority.

 

To summarize, Africa is the number 1 continent to use bitcoin for its initial function of transferring value, without going through a centralized exchange. Thus, according to data from the UsefulTulips analysis platform, over the past seven days, $ 18 million has been traded on the LocalBitcoins and Paxful P2P platforms.


P2P bitcoin exchange volume around the world - Source: Usefultulips

 

While the majority of investors continue to favor developed countries for investing and often reject the use of bitcoin as a currency or view it only as a store of value, this data confirms how much bitcoin adoption is increasing in countries. Emerging Markets.

 

Indeed, the less privileged regions are generally confronted with a strong deterioration of their currencies: like Turkey which saw its Turkish lira fall against the dollar and a bitcoin temporarily reach 100,000 dollars (at local exchange rates, necessarily exaggerated) . This shows how much bitcoin can be really useful, in degraded situations.


BTC trade volume on continents per 7 day period - Souces: Bitcoinmagazine and Usefultulips

 

Looking at the figures in more detail, we see that there are 3 African countries in the Top 10: Kenya, Nigeria and Togo. Africans use bitcoin for many uses, including storing and exchanging value on a daily basis.

 

As more and more people realize the scarcity, decentralization, non-discrimination and censorship resistance of Bitcoin, it can be predicted that the king of cryptos will be used even more across the world. , and no longer just as a tool for speculation. Today, for example, PayPal wants to democratize BTC and has landed in the UK.