The cryptocurrency market has been growing rapidly around the world. One of the regions around the world where cryptocurrency trading is growing very fast is Africa. Numerous countries in the region have shown a huge interest in the cryptocurrency market.
Although the local regulations are far from being supportive of cryptocurrency transactions, locals in many countries of the region have found a way to be actively engaged in the crypto trading market.
It was reported recently that two countries being leaders of peer-to-peer crypto trading and transactions are Tanzania and Kenya. The report indicates that residents of these African nations are taking advantage of P2P trading.
Cryptocurrencies offer these nations the opportunity to avoid paying huge transaction fees that they would have to pay for fiat currency payments. According to Quartz Africa, Kenyans, especially the younger generation of the country, are leading the world when it comes to digital trading platforms and individual trade amongst other traders.
The data about P2P trading was issued by Chainalysis, which is a leading crypto research company. The report, called Global Crypto adoption Index 2021 ranked Kenya as the top country in the world for P2P transactions. The report puts Kenya above 154 countries around the world.
Many other countries of the region, including Togo, Tanzania, and Ghana are leading in the list as well. This shows exactly how much the industry is increasing in the region.
Crypto Trading Popularity in Kenya
There are several reasons why cryptocurrencies are so popular in this African nation. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that Kenyans have experienced the worst of the fiat currencies.
The high inflation rates have affected the local population a lot over the years. For this purpose, many Kenyans started to look for other ways to preserve their wealth. This is exactly what cryptocurrencies have to offer.
Not only are cryptos a great option for preserving wealth for people, but they also offer the opportunity to grow the money that Kenyans have. Many people in the country are using P2P crypto transactions because it costs a lot less for them to send money using cryptocurrencies rather than using fiat currencies.
As a result, the demand for cryptocurrencies and trading services is increasing very fast in the country, as well as the whole region.
Many of the emerging markets in the region have faced significant currency devaluation and the issues it can bring. P2P platforms offer Kenyans the opportunity to easily and cheaply make international transactions back to their homes.
While the company research firm behind the report did not share the actual absolute trading volumes per country, it said that it based the listing based on the data that was supplied by the two largest and most popular P2P crypto platforms, Paxful and LocalBitcoins.
Another reason why cryptocurrencies and crypto trading is so popular in Africa is that the market has become very easy to access for traders around the world.
The number of crypto exchanges around the world is increasing very fast. These crypto exchanges offer traders in the region, as well as other parts of the world, to easily receive, sell, hold, and send their cryptocurrencies to others.
But, this is not all. The majority of the modern crypto exchanges offer crypto traders the opportunity to use crypto trading robots. This way, traders do not have to spend hours analyzing the market.
Rather, they can easily find the best bitcoin trading bot, connect it to their exchange, and let it analyze the market. In addition, these trading robots are also able to trade cryptocurrencies for traders as well.
Giving Locals More Opportunities
Cryptocurrencies are giving local traders in Africa a lot of opportunities. As we have already mentioned, it gives Africans the opportunity to take care of their funds in a more efficient and fast manner.
The trend seems to be very similar throughout the whole region. It is not only Kenya that saw a huge increase in crypto P2P transactions.
The above-mentioned report indicates that cryptocurrency P2P transactions have become very popular in many other countries, including Togo, Tanzania, and Ghana, all of which made it into the top 10 countries in terms of P2P crypto transactions.
However, while the market has become very popular in the region, the local regulations are not perfectly suitable for the further development of the crypto trading market in the region.
As the demand continues to grow, the jurisdictions in the region will have to find ways to regulate the market to make it safer, but not take away all the reasons why people like to use crypto P2P transactions.
As for the overall crypto adoption, Kenya ranked at the first position in Africa, and 5th around the world. The recent data published by Chainalysis show that crypto usage has increased a lot around the world in 2020, by 880 percent to be exact. The data was largely driven by P2P transactions.