Russia-Ukraine conflict humbles Nigerian crypto investors on market volatility

AS Russia’s attacks on Ukraine intensifies, digital currency investors in Nigeria and across the globe have been humbled by sharp swings in prices of leading crypto currencies.

Nigeria, with one of the largest communities of crypto, is also at the receiving end as the Thursday losses hit many young Nigerians trading in the market.

Crypto currencies rose on Friday following a steep sell-off a day earlier that saw around $150 billion wiped off the market after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Bitcoin last rose 1.6 per cent to $39,065.00 according to Coin Metrics. Earlier in the day, the crypto currency had jumped as much as 11 per cent within 24 hours, after falling as low as $34,338.57 on Thursday. Ether rose 2.1 per cent to $2,709.22.

CoinDCX Research Team said that after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Thursday, risky assets from equities to cryptos tumbled.

Following the biggest single-day fall in months, the majority of assets have since bounced back strongly.

The global crypto currency market cap on Friday stood at $1.81 trillion, a rise of three per cent within 24 hours. Total crypto currency trading volume on the last day was at $155 billion. Popular trends of the industry right now are Defi and Play to Earn, according to dealers, who also confirmed that the freefall in the crypto currency market halted on Friday as top crypto tokens showed strength amid low-level buying.

Considering the other macroeconomic risk factors, including skyrocketing inflation and looming quantitative tightening, heightened volatility has been and will likely continue to be the ‘new normal’ for the remainder of 2022, the team added.

Ukraine, which has been one of the few countries embracing virtual currencies at the government level, recently legalised crypto currencies. Ukraine is already in the top five countries on crypto currency usage.

“Today we made one more step forward: Parliament adopted the law on virtual assets. This will legalise crypto exchangers and crypto currencies, and Ukrainians could protect their assets from possible abuse or fraud,” Ukraine Vice Prime Minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said on Twitter recently.

Despite the unfavourable disposition of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) towards digital currencies and the ban on its transactions across banking platforms in the country, many Nigerians have continued to invest in the various currencies.

As of October last year, a report had established that Nigeria had the highest number of people owning and trading digital currencies globally.

According to a report by Finder, a global independent comparison and information service platform, Nigeria has the highest rate of crypto adoption in the world at 24.2 per cent.

Nigeria was followed by Malaysia and Australia, which have 18.0 per cent and 17.7 per cent ownership of crypto currencies, respectively.

The Finder Crypto currency Adoption Index surveyed over 41,000 individuals in 22 countries. The results show that investors from the top three countries are putting their money into bitcoin, Ethereum, and Cardano.

There were initial speculations that the value of the crypto currency market fell by $250 billion in a few hours after Russian forces launched an attack on Ukraine early Thursday morning.

In a televised speech, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” designed to achieve the “demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine.”

Ether, the coin linked to the Ethereum blockchain and the second-largest crypto currency in terms of market capitalisation, also fell about 11.9 per cent to $2,368.98.

“Many crypto investors have been humbled by the last crash. They are hesitant to increase holdings given the tremendous uncertainty for risky assets,” Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.

Moya predicted that bitcoin would likely continue to experience decent resistance from the $40,000 level as geopolitical tensions would prevent risky assets from mustering up much of a rally.

The hardest hit by the Russia-Ukraine conflict and tensions are the major cryptos such as Bitcoin and Etherum, where Nigerians have billions in investment.

The price of bitcoin, which is the world’s most valuable crypto currency, fell below $35,000 early Thursday after Russian President, Vladimir Putin, announced a military operation in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

According to CoinMarketCap, the digital currency recorded a decline of more than eight per cent compared to a day earlier.

The currency has lost almost half its value since its November 2021 high of $68,990 due to geopolitical tensions, the prospect of interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and curbs by some major economies on digital assets. Other cryptocurrencies also dropped hard early Thursday.

Ethereum tumbled by more than 12 per cent, according to CoinMarketCap, while dogecoin was down more than 14 per cent.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume, recently restricted 281 Nigerian personal accounts to ensure the platform’s security and prevent fraud, its founder andrecent, said.

Binance, which started operations in Africa in 2018, is one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchange platforms and P2P marketplaces in Nigeria and in the continent at large.

In a statement, Changpeng Zhao said that about 38 per cent of the accounts were restricted at the request of international law enforcement.

“User security remains our top priority,” he said. “We love and are devoted to our Nigerian community, but we must ensure that our users are safe.”

Zhao’s statement comes after complaints by Nigerian users who say they have lost access to their accounts and funds without a valid reason. Using the hashtags such as #BinanceStopScamming, #BinanceStealingCrypto, they called for a boycott of the exchange, with many expressing frustration for allegedly failing to get customer care support from Binance.

In his statement, Zhao said Binance has resolved 79 cases connected to account restrictions and would work towards speedy resolution of such cases.

Peer-to-peer crypto exchanges are driving growth. Crypto currency adoption is increasing fast in Africa, fueled by the growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) crypto currency exchanges.

The continent tops the world in this type of trading, in which users trade directly with each other, using it to protect remittances and cross-border businesses from costly transfer fees and hedge against currency devaluation.