Nigeria's heightened crackdown on cryptocurrency companies over the naira’s slide is driving the local crypto community underground, moving traders to informal channels on instant messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram for peer-to-peer (P2P) trading.
“They can’t shut us down,” one crypto vendor with a years-old P2P trading desk on WhatsApp told WT, asking not to be identified to protect his business.
“We have always been able to trade outside of Binance and this ban is just going to push people to trade using other means," he added noting that non-custodial (or self-custody) crypto wallets such as Trust Wallet remain useful for this purpose.
The recent suspension of P2P trades and the discontinuation of the naira/dollar stablecoin pair on major crypto exchanges, including Binance, has prompted Nigerians to explore alternative avenues, such as Telegram and WhatsApp groups, as well as employing virtual private networks (VPNs) to navigate the blockade on crypto websites.
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