Casa recently held Keyfest, a virtual conference where Peter McCormack of the “What Bitcoin Did” podcast presented a conversation with Obi Nwosu, the founders of U.K.-based bitcoin exchange Coinfloor, and Nick Neuman, the CEO of Casa. They talked about the future of Bitcoin, especially in the context of developing countries like Nigeria.
In terms of Bitcoin usage in underdeveloped countries, El Salvador dominated through 2021. The legal tender law and the magnitude with which things were implemented in response to it were genuinely historic, and unlike anything else that has transpired in Bitcoin’s history. There has never been a top-down guided adoption of Bitcoin like this anywhere else in the world, and regardless of the glitches along the road or any potential hazards that may still lie ahead, this is a development that will go down in history.
However, it isn’t the only case of large-scale adoption in the globe today. Another example from the opposite end of the spectrum is organic growth from the ground up rather than top-down, state-directed growth is taking place in Nigeria, West Africa.
NIGERIA’S GROWING BITCOIN ACCEPTANCE
Most people in the country, according to Nwosu during the Keyfest panel, have a negative impression of Bitcoin. In fact, many people formed a bad impression of them. Most Nigerians initially linked Bitcoin with internet Ponzi schemes like OneCoin and Bitconnect. These types of frauds and ponzi schemes are common in Nigeria, and as Bitcoin’s size and value grew, it became more common for scammers’ victims to seek Bitcoin as a payment method. According to Nwosu, there was no genuine understanding that Bitcoin was separate from and unrelated to the scams that people were falling prey to; they simply saw it as another part of them.
Following a surge of populist protests in 2020, this began to alter (though the movement behind them began in 2017). The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was a special team of police officers in Nigeria tasked with specialized enforcement and investigation to combat robbery, carjackings, kidnappings, and gun offenses. The squad, which was established in 1992, has a lengthy history of involvement in extrajudicial killings, kidnappings, extortion, and torture.
In October 2020, protests against this police unit grew in prominence, and banks in Nigeria shut down protestor aid groups’ accounts and began prohibiting them from accepting money in favor of the campaign. This prompted these organizations to turn to Bitcoin to take donations, and once the protestors received international backing as a result, the attitude toward Bitcoin in Nigeria began to alter in a good manner.
In response to this move and there was a 30 percent drop in remittances to Nigeria in the previous year. Additionally, the Nigerian Central Bank banned banks from engaging with cryptocurrency firms in early 2021. Despite this restriction, Bitcoin has continued to flourish in Nigeria.
Nigeria is demonstrating that Bitcoin can survive even in an atmosphere where governments are openly hostile to its existence especially in developing countries. People in such an environment can benefit from technologies like community banks and multisig collaborative custody, which allow them to make more optimal tradeoffs between the security and usability of their interactions with Bitcoin. Bitcoin, and the people who use it, have a bright future ahead of them in nations like Nigeria if people welcome them.