Top 3 crypto market trends for Africa in 2023

Gracy Chen is the Managing Director of Bitget and oversees the growth and expansion of global markets, strategy, execution, business, and corporate development of Bitget. She started her journey in the crypto world in 2014 and has been an investor since the early days of BitKeep, Asia’s leading decentralised wallet.

Gracy Chen, Managing Director at Bitget BI Africa

Early this year, Bitget published a report in partnership with the famous American management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and crypto-focused investment firm, Foresight Ventures that examined the cryptocurrency market size in Africa.

READ: South Africa and Nigeria have the largest market for cryptocurrencies in Africa in 2022 – Bitget report

The report titled: “What Does the Future Hold for Crypto Exchanges” ranked South Africa as the country with the largest market, followed by Nigeria. Another interesting finding from the report showed that South Africans primarily use crypto as an alternative investment, while Nigerians use it mainly for savings.

Speaking to Business Insider Africa about the report, Chen said, “Right now, Africa only counts for less than 1% of global crypto spot and derivative trading. However, we see that Africa is one of the up-and-coming regions for crypto and derivatives trading, as there has been a big increase in trading volume and activities within the past year.

Looking at the future of cryptocurrency, if the past is any indication, investors in cryptocurrency are in for an exciting ride. According to Gracy Chen, here are some interesting crypto predictions to watch out for in 2023.

1. Massive Adoption

Cryptocurrencies have become an important tool for investment and saving for people in Africa. We expect to see huge growth in crypto adoption in that region, and leading cryptocurrency exchanges are making efforts to support this trend. Bitget, for instance, offers its users One-Click copy trade and Strategy Plaza features that provide a very good stepping stone for beginners to try out derivatives trading with the minimum experience required. New users can follow experienced traders to copy their strategies or portfolio to gradually develop their own insights.

2. Lay-offs and Hiring

Crypto companies are still hiring but might not actively recruit amid the market downturn. Anyone considering joining the space at this time is right on track. The limited talent pool still represents a challenge for companies in the space, even with the wave of layoffs that slashed over 11,000 positions in the past six months. For instance, Coinbase reportedly laid off 18% of their workforce, Gemini 10%, Crypto.Com 5% and BlockFI 20%. In Africa, Nestcoin, a crypto start-up in Nigeria, announced that it would lay off some of its staff following the collapse of FTX. The company claims to have lost all its assets in cash and stablecoins to the collapse. Amidst this, we at Bitget seek to expand our workforce globally, and Africa will not be left out.

3. The need for Transparency and Trust

The FTX collapse has caused concern of trust and fear sentiment among investors in the crypto space. Close to ten(10) exchanges have issued separate statements stating that they would publish their Merkle tree reserve certificates to increase transparency.

Bitget has been making different efforts to assure users and rebuild confidence.

In the past week. We have:

Launched a $5 million Builders Fund to support those impacted by FTX to help users depressed by FTX’s fall
Started Merkle tree Proof-of-Reserves audit for better transparency and to rebuild confidence.
Increased Bitget Protection Fund from $200 million to $300 million to provide better protection and further assurance to crypto users, especially in extreme and unexpected situations.

Bitget will keep building a trustworthy and safe trading environment for users and working hard to cultivate the crypto world.