The premier cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has lost 52 per cent of its value since the crypto crash began in March 2022.
Experts said the crash was partly due to the then rebounding US dollar and inflation which caused a lot of traders to embark on massive sell-offs, prompting many exchanges to halt withdrawals.
Many traders in Nigeria are counting their losses as the crash continues unabated and the market value of Bitcoin crashing even faster.
Since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has lost about 52.84 per cent of its market value which wiped off $473.34 billion in market cap, causing other coins to face massive liquidations, according to Punch reports.
At the beginning of 2022, Bitcoin sold at $47.686.81, having a market cap of $902.10 billion, CoinMarketCap says.
On Tuesday, June 14, 2022, bitcoin traded at $22,487.39 with a market capitalisation of $428.76 billion. The drop comes after a crash on Monday, June 13, 2022, when it fell below $25,000.
Cryptocurrency analysts say the industry has lost its trillion-dollar status, falling from $2 trillion to about $938.41 billion.
Nigeria, a top crypto trading country in the world Nigeria remains a top crypto trading country despite the restriction of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on cryptocurrency trading.
In 2021, a report by Chainalysis placed Nigeria as the sixth leading country in the world with the highest adoption of cryptocurrency.
Paxful, a crypto wallet, said Nigerians are among its biggest traders of Bitcoin in 2021, with about N300.48 billion in volume.
The crash is affecting local traders, as many online groups crying about how much loss they have incurred since the crash started.
An investor said he lost about N4 million in direct sales, while others blamed the crash on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Others are speculating that Bitcoin could crash to as low as $10,000. One trader lamented that his company has lost about N40 million, on a conservative side, stating that there is still hope since they are still in the market.
