Nigerian traders lament losses as Bitcoin drops 52% value

Many Nigerian Bitcoin traders are lamenting their losses because of the continued drop in the market value of Bitcoin.

Since the turn of the year, BTC has lost 52.84 per cent of its market value, wiping off $473.34bn in market capitalisation in the process, and leading to numerous liquidations.

At the start of 2022, BTC was $47,686.81 with a market cap of $902.10bn according to CoinMarketCap. On Tuesday, June 14 BTC was $22,487.39 with a market cap of $428.76bn around 5 pm Nigerian time. This drop follows Monday’s drop where BTC fell below $25k.

The crypto economy has also fallen from highs of about $2tn to $938.41bn.

Despite a Central Bank of Nigeria restriction on cryptocurrencies, a 2021 report by Chainalysis said the nation was the sixth leading nation in the world in terms of crypto adoption.

According to Paxful, one of the major peer-to-peer cryptocurrency platforms in the world, Nigerians were its biggest traders of BTC in 2021, trading about N300.48bn in BTC volume in the year.

This downturn in the global price of BTC is affecting local traders as they count their losses in millions. Many WhatsApp and Telegram BTC groups are agog with news of loss and liquidation.

One trader disclosed to our correspondent that he had lost about N4m directly. On a group chat seen by our correspondent, many traders were lamenting and blaming BTC’s crash on the dollar, the war in Ukraine, and many other things.

Some suggested that the price might spiral to the $10k benchmark. One trader, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said, “I have been in crypto for a while. In the past few weeks, let’s say about eight weeks if anyone tells you they’ve not lost money they are lying.

“Loses is part of this. On a personal level, and with my firm, we’ve lost about N40m, this is to be conservative. We are big traders. I won’t call it a loss though, because as long as you are still in the market, you will still get your money back. But on a temporary level, if we close our position now, we would be forfeiting nothing less than that amount.

“And this loss is across the board. I can’t share some of these personal losses with you but in a group that I belong to, everyone asides from developers, have lost a lot of money since the turn of the year. A lot of people have lost money.

“Crypto coins by nature are volatile, and we are currently in a bear market. But as we know this doesn’t last for long and there will be a bull market very soon. We don’t know when.”

 According to the trader, prices are falling because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. He added that the Russian-Ukraine war was also taking its toll on the market.

He stated, “There is also the issue between Russia and Ukraine which brought a lot of instability to the market. People got scared and started selling and the more people sell, the more the downtrend in the market becomes.

“Recently, residents of the US also had to pay their taxes, and whenever this happens, residents start selling to raise payments. About three or four weeks before the deadline, people start selling, which affects the market since these are heavy investors and their sales affect the market.”

He further suggested that the price falls could also be a result of institutional manipulation since most of the big guys are heavy investors.

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