NIGERIA/SOUTH AFRICA – Paxful, a leading peer-to-peer bitcoin marketplace, has partnered with OKEx, one of the world’s largest and most diverse cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchanges, to offer more bitcoin payment options for users in Nigeria and South Africa.
Paxful in a statement explained that the strategic partnership will offer several payment methods for new and existing OKEx users to buy bitcoin with over 160 fiat currencies through Paxful’s Kiosk.
The leading bitcoin marketplace further noted that users will have access to in-demand payment methods such as bank transfer, gift cards, online wallets, and many more.
“To help grow the crypto community, industry businesses are increasingly collaborating to uplift each other in providing more options for their users,” Ray Youssef, CEO, and co-founder of Paxful said.
“With this partnership, we jointly contribute towards strengthening the overall ecosystem and help make crypto more accessible as a real-world payment method by expanding to different geographic markets,” Youssef, added.
As a result of the new integration, Paxful and OKEx will provide easier access to the global cryptocurrency market specifically in the regions of South Africa, and Nigeria.
Paxful however adds that the benefit of its new partneship with OKEx will also spread to Kenya, Vietnam, Russia, Indonesia, Thailand, UK, India, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Korea, Germany, France, Japan, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Venezuela.
With an unbanked population of more than 60%, Africa is a major focus for both Paxful and OKEx.
In addition, the continent is also spearheading cryptocurrency adoption around the globe with key drivers being high inflation rates, weak national currencies, inadequate financial infrastructures, and growing economic uncertainty stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
All these conditions are combined with a growing population that is largely young and digital-oriented make Africa an attractive market for Bitcoin development.
A recent report identifies that bitcoin is of keen interest to many in Africa.
Kenya topped the list with 94.7% of all cryptocurrency-related searches attributed to bitcoin, while Nigeria and South Africa had high percentages of 89.4% and 89%, respectively.
Nigeria and South Africa are emerging as key hubs of the crypto economy on the continent with the former recording more than $35 million in peer-to-peer bitcoin trades, while rival South Africa saw a transactional value of $7 million.
The surge in trade volume is attributed to various elements, including uncertainty in the ‘traditional’ economy, increasing education about the crypto-economy, and the emergence of various virtual currency marketplaces in Africa yielding more income-generating opportunities through bitcoin.
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