The Chief Executive Officer of cryptocurrency firm NoOnes, Ray Youssef, has said that peer-to-peer popularly known as P2P is probably worth $500bn business in Nigeria alone.
This was revealed by Youssef in an interview with Techpoint Africa amid an imminent ban on cryptocurrency in the country, according to The Punch.
Youssef said “Peer-to-peer is probably like a half a trillion dollar business inside Nigeria alone. That’s the truth. Officially, cryptocurrency volume in Nigeria is at $59 billion a year, and that’s just all the official volume of everything that is happening on centralised exchanges that can be tracked on the blockchain. Yeah, let’s say $59bn to $60bn.
“That’s a joke; the real volume is ten times more than that. That’s peer-to-peer, and that’s not just volume that has happened.”
In addition, He underlined that the majority of P2P transactions don’t take place through Binance or another platform, but via WhatsApp, Telegram, and cafes all over town.
He explained “Most peer-to-peer doesn’t happen on Binance P2P or NoOnes or any of these other platforms. They happen on WhatsApp, Telegram, in coffee shops, and everywhere on the streets. That’s where most peer-to-peer is happening. And I would even say $60 billion going through the centralised exchanges. I think most of that is actually peer-to-peer volume they are kinda covering up too because Nigerians are very crafty and have ways to use things for things they weren’t necessarily meant to be used for.”
Recall that the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a circular in February 2021, to deposit money banks (DMBs), non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs), and OFIs to close accounts of persons or entities involved in cryptocurrency transactions within their systems.
However, the administration of President Bola Tinubu lifted the ban on all banks and OFIs being allowed to provide cryptocurrencies with the provisions of the guidelines regulating the activities of virtual asset service providers.
Following the ban, CBN discovered that crypto traders were using peer-to-peer trading as part of a strategy for manipulating naira through pumps and dump strategies.
The governor of the Central Bank, Olayemi Cardoso, claimed that Binance processed USD 26 billion worth of untraceable transactions during February 2024.
This has resulted in a ban and the freezing of more than 1,000 bank accounts associated with peer-to-peer transactions on Binance.
