Why my trip to Nigeria convinced me that cryptos aren’t the future anymore — they’re the present.
Before reading this post, keep in mind that just as I arrived to Nigeria, the CBN issued a statement making it illegal for institutions to trade cryptos in Nigeria (that means you can’t buy cryptos with your card anymore). That only makes my experiences even more profound.
Shortly after arriving to Nigeria, I was due to meet the head of the National Electrification Program, a $500Mn facility for supporting rural electrification in Nigeria. But before I could get to my meeting my Macbook pro 16” fell and smashed.
I was shattered, nothing was working for me, I was running out of cash, my cards weren’t working because (of course) Commonwealth Bank of Australia had blocked them thinking any transaction in Nigeria is bound to be a scam. Add to that my main device was buckled before the meeting with the NEP.
I took a few deep breaths, a bit more than a few actually, politely told the custodian of the security check gates in the Airport that I was not in a position to give him any “appreciation” right now, and proceeded to board my flight.
When I arrived in Abuja I raced to the first Apple Store I could find. It wasn’t hard, there’s a place called Emab Plaza that has about 30 Apple Stores there. What’s hard is figuring out which one is legit. Anyway, I guess I would just have to try my luck. I walked into one of them and met a guy called Olumide. “My friend, I need you to fix this right now, please, and I have no Naira and my cards don’t work so I’ll have to figure out how to pay you later, I’ll call some people and try and do a direct transfer, will that work? You can trust me, I just need you to fix it right now” I said.
He looked at me and smiled.
“We can fix your laptop my friend, less than 24 hours, but this is Nigeria, it’ll cost you 500k Naira and you’re going to have to pay me now, but I’ll accept USD, Euro, and Bitcoin — what do you have?”
I looked at him in bewilderment, wait for a second, I’ve got cryptos, I thought to myself. “I can pay in cryptos?”
“Of course, we’ll give you 480 Naira per USDT”.
FYI : USDT is a cryptocurrency that’s pegged to the USD. So basically you pay $1 US dollar for 1 USDT, but when you have USDT you’re part of the crypto ecosystem and you can use it to trade for other coins, and evidently from Olumide people were taking USDT in lieu of actual US dollars itself.
I had just swapped about $150 US dollars to Naira at 390 per dollar and on google, the exchange rate said 380 Naira per dollar. I asked Olumide what was going on. How was he able to offer 480 Naira per US dollar?
“The Central Bank sets an exchange rate, to keep the flow of USD reserves coming in from abroad when the government sells oil. But the people aren’t able to access USD at that rate, the government keeps printing Nairas and devaluing the currency domestically — it’s a way to tax the people. Right now it’s about 475 Naira to a dollar, but you’ll see next month it’ll be 575, we Nigerian’s don’t want to hold Naira, the richer you are, the poorer you become because you have more to lose if you hold the Naira. Give me your USDT I’ll give you 485 for it.”
Well, that was an easy bargain.
After paying for my laptop to get fixed in a peer-2-peer crypto transaction you can see in this video here, with <10 mins to settle and a zero transaction fee — a lovely lady wearing a hijab came into the store. Seeing us with our Binance wallets open, she asked what cryptos we were invested in — she was a fellow crypto HODLER!
I was inspired…
That was my first real-world transfer of goods and services with crypto, but not my last. I called the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and told them to f@#$ing unblock my accounts, as someone working in emerging markets I was sick of my accounts getting blocked. I let them know before I arrived I was going to be in Nigeria, they had still blocked my accounts. It was the 5th time this had happened, twice when I had made transactions to pay our Russian staff, twice when making payments to China for manufacturing equipment. And now in Nigeria. I was seriously over it.
A few days later, and my bank still hadn’t let me access my accounts. Something I’ve gotten used to. International transactions take time to clear, accounts get blocked, fees are through the roof.
Now I had to pay Babangida — my landlord. “my friend, do you accept Crypto?” I asked, more hopeful than anything really.
“Of course, but give me BTC, it’s going to go to the moon!” he said.
What the hell?
“How about cash? Can I pay you some more crypto and get some cash too?” — I asked.
“I can get you Naira” shouted out Adam from another room, who must have overheard and was also staying at Babangida’s place. “Let me break my fast and then I’ll get the money out for you, just transfer it to me via binance P2P”.
During my entire 6 week stay in Nigeria, I only converted $150 USD of cash on day 1. For the rest of my time there I paid for everything in cryptos or gave cryptos to strangers (there’s a Telegram group to find traders) via Peer-2-Peer who gave me Naira back. Transacting with cryptos helped me survive and get my job done.
I am a strong believer that leapfrogging takes place where it’s needed most. Decentralised currency — just like decentralised energy — doesn’t need to wait for the future, just take a look at countries like Nigeria, it’s here now..
