Market value of popular cryptocurrency – Bitcoin – has exceeded the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.
Bitcoin with a current market value of $468 billion, outmatches Nigeria with a GDP of $448 billion by $20 billion.
The digital currency aside outmatching Nigeria, also outsizes many leading African economies including; South Africa – $351.4billion, Egypt – $303.2billion, Algeria – $169.98billion, Morocco – $118.7 billion, Ethiopia – $96.12 billion, Kenya – $95.5 billion, Angola – $94.6 billion, Ghana – $66.9 billion and Tanzania – $63.2 billion.
The flagship cryptocurrency is on its record high amid strong purchases seen in institutional and accredited investors gaining more exposure to Bitcoin through the world’s biggest crypto hedge fund, Grayscale, and the CME Bitcoin futures market.
Bitcoin earlier this month broke its all-time record by going over the $20,000 mark.
The world’s most renowned cryptocurrency has seen an unprecedented increase this year, with its value witnessing a 240 percent jump since the beginning of the year.
Ever since PayPal announced in March this year about enabling its account holders to use Bitcoin, the value of the cryptocurrency has shot up from $5,000 to $25,000, marking a colossal 400 percent increase in the past eight months.
Launched in 2009, Bitcoin became the first cryptocurrency to adopt a decentralised network for transactions based on block-chains. This exempts the currency from central bank policies and regulations, thereby deriving its value through a process called ‘mining.’
Bitcoins can be transferred using peer-to-peer transactions, the data record-keeping of which are done by blockchains. Bitcoin today, is responsible for about 66 percent of the global cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin, as at the time of this report was trading at $26,000.
