The Bitcoin Price has skyrocketed in Nigeria hitting $38,000 in the country’s local currency, the Naira. These skyrocketing prices of Bitcoin are above the global market level in between the continuous of central authorities for promoting digitalized cash.
On January 30, 2023, the price of one Bitcoin on the Nigerian Crypto Exchange NairaEX recorded 17.8 Million Nairas which is equivalent to $38,792. As a result, this current market price of Bitcoin indicates a 60% premium over the current global price of the digital coin.
In the meantime, the Central Bank of Nigeria continued to take initiative for building a cashless society. It also imposed a limit on ATM Cash withdrawals. At the beginning of January 2023, Nigerian citizens were only allowed to make maximum ATM withdrawals of 20,000 Nairas each day with a weekly limit of 100,000 Nairas.
This action of the central bank came just before new Naira banknotes came into circulation and were aimed at curbing inflation and money laundering. The Central bank of the country allowed its citizens to exchange the old and higher denomination banknotes for new currency only till January 24, 2023, which got further extended to February 10, 2023.
According to the reports of Google Trends, Bitcoin has seen a significant price rise in Nigeria making it the leading country for Bitcoin web searches. A similar event happened in February 2021 when the central bank banned regulated financial institutions from providing services to cryptocurrency exchanges which led to the Bitcoin premium hitting 36%.
Alongside this, the continuous initiatives of the county towards digitalization have been remarkable. As per the reports of Reuters, the Central Bank of Nigeria launched its domestic card scheme to compete against foreign cards such as Visa and Mastercard. Furthermore, this AfriGo card scheme is designed to allow Nigerians better access to card services.
