There's quite a lot not happening in the Nigerian crypto scene these days and frankly speaking, this is a good thing. The last time crypto got into the news, a lot of people were spooked and even misconstrued the central bank circular to be a permanent ban.
Things were so bad that I was a victim of police harassment back in the day but as of late, things have cooled down. There's not so much hate and aggression towards crypto but you just know that it is lurking.
We're in February and this is election month. In two weeks time, Nigeria will have a new president and most of them aren't talking about cryptocurrencies in their manifestos.
The stats don't lie and what the stats say is that nigerians absolutely love crypto. However, just as with everything else in Nigeria, emphasis will not be placed on this fact and steps will not be made to harness this potential.
It is just like how Nigeria produces oil but we have fuel scarcity while selling crude oil. We don't produce fuel, we suffer shortages and if you make any attempt to alleviate this situation, the government will shoot you down.
Nigeria is always in the top ten of crypto usage and activity. The West African country is without a doubt a sandbox for the evolution of cryptocurrencies and if you take a good look, you'll find that crypto is having a direct impact on the lives of many.
I'm a prime example of how crypto can change lives and every day I wake up, I'm grateful for the decision I made on the 17th of December 2017. Safe to say that I've never looked back ever since.
As I delve further down the cryptographic rabbit hole, I find myself feeling a bit too exposed but not to the crypto market. Oh no, the market will always be volatile and that volatility is what makes it fun.
Everyday, I feel a bit more exposed to the whims of the government and I fear that one day, the circular could morph into an outright clampdown that could effectively destroy my entire source of income.
Holding USD
I stumbled into the Railgun project after a friend told me about it and the more I look into it, I see how important it can be for Nigerians. My first contact with Railgun was through the Railway wallet and the tokens I received were on Ethereum with the accompanying high gas fees, so it left a weird taste in my mouth.
It is important to state that the gas fees paid while using Railway on the Ethereum network wasn't anything outlandish but considering $40 is minimum wage around here, you can forgive me for feeling a bit hard done for paying slightly more than that amount as gas fee.
Anyway, a few seconds of clicking around also showed that you can simply use cheaper networks like Binance Smart Chain, Polygon and the recently added Arbitrum network.
Thanks to these networks with much lower cost, any Nigerian can now safely and most importantly, anonymously hold USD to hedge against the crippling Naira inflation. This basically means that unlike holding USD on Binance or any public website where your assets can easily be tracked using Railway wallet, you will be able to hold USD that will be effectively be invisible to everyone but yourself.
The first step to achieving this is downloading the Railway wallet and then watching this short video I linked below.
If you have more questions about it, drop them in the comment section. I'm still gathering resources towards a live seminar and you can drop in to ask any question you have about the project.
- Leo Glossary
- Hive. vote page
- Raiway wallet Public Address: 0x5B449e0Dc788EceEE73B7fd4637C73ac9392E819
