African Bitcoin Markets Explode Ahead of Bitcoin Halving

The bitcoin halving is four days away, and the hype is hitting every part of the world, including Africa. In the last week, Africa has experienced record-breaking volumes on bitcoin trading platforms.

Africa – The P2P Power House

Trading volume on popular peer-to-peer platforms LocalBitcoins and Paxful recorded high volumes last week in Sub-Saharan Africa. The continent recorded $10 million trade volume for the first time in 7 day period.

UsefulTullips, a P2P volume tracking platform, showed this record as tweeted by Creator, Matt Ahlborg.

[1/5] Holy Smokes! Sub-Saharan Africa had its first 10M voume week ever on P2P exchanges, stomping the weekly record set in Dec 2017! The volume is likely a bedrock of utility use with a substantial bump of speculation related to the halvening: pic.twitter.com/CTIAoFbSRf

— Matt Ahlborg [UsefulTulips.org] (@MattAhlborg) May 5, 2020

Ghana, Kenya, and Central Africa all hit new volume records in this same week. Kenya recorded $1.6 million, and Ghana recorded $800k, respectively.

Nigeria nearly broke its all-time high record too, seeing $7.2 million worth of Bitcoin change hands. Central African Republic is also establishing itself as a P2P powerhouse with high volumes for three weeks.

Paxful founder Ray Yussef also noted the increase of trade in Africa, especially in Ghana and Nigeria. He tweeted:

Another BlockBuster week on @Paxful. Trade volume up over 20%+ and record breaking new user signups! Ghana Nigeria and Pakistan are leading the way! #bitcoin recent upswing will soon have another wave based on real human demand! #p2pfinance

— Ray Youssef (@raypaxful) May 5, 2020

Other peer-to-peer platforms like LocalCryptos and CryptoLocally have also experienced growth in sign-ups and trades from Africa.

Exchanges Stake Their Claim

Traditional exchanges are also experiencing a surge in new users and volumes. Ghanaian local exchange Ebitcoinics, saw a sharp increase of over 70% in trade last month despite having to shut physical bitcoin stores in Accra and Kumasi. The situation got very overwhelming to the extent that the site went down due to extreme traffic.

Also, Luno, a top-rated platform in Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda, also shared insights on how the exchange is faring a few days to the halving.

We’ve seen a huge influx of new users ahead of the halving Excited to see a new wave of users signing up! Please bear with us while we work through our support backlog

— Luno (@lunomoney) May 6, 2020

The bitcoin halving happens in less than five days. Ahead of the event, bitcoin is trading at over $9,600, very close to the $10,000 psychological level.

What do you think will happen after the halving? Let us know in the comment section below.

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