If you’ve been in crypto for years and already learned the ropes, buying Bitcoin won’t come as a challenge to you, no matter where you are and what fiat currency is in your pocket. However, for newcomers to this space, it goes a long way and is far from being a walk in the park. The task is further complicated by the fact that the Nigerian authorities frown upon cryptocurrencies and have banned local financial institutions from opening and maintaining accounts of entities involved in crypto.
That’s why there’s a need for a broad review of the options available to Nigerians, and this guide aims to supply one.
What to Look for in the Best BTC Exchanges in Nigeria
Every country across the globe has a unique profile when it comes to buying, selling and trading crypto. This “portrait” defines the crypto landscape in the country, as well as explains why some methods and approaches there are better than the others, and what we should reasonably expect from the local crypto market.
Due to the global nature of digital assets, you can exchange them for each other from anywhere as long as you have a working Internet connection and know how to use a VPN in case you happen to live in a place where your access to online resources as such is censored or otherwise limited.
Things get tricky when you want to buy or sell crypto for a national currency.
In some countries (aka crypto-friendly nations), it’s just as easy when you have everything in place (think of a bank account here). However, while cryptocurrency ownership is not a criminal offense on its own in Nigeria, local monetary authorities (mostly represented by the Nigerian central bank) don’t exactly make it easier to trade digital assets for Naira (NGN), the national currency of Nigeria:
From this perspective, your search for the best site to buy BTC with NGN should start by checking whether Naira is supported there at all. You might be using some really cool global exchange like Bitfinex or Kraken, but will it be of any help to you if you can’t exchange your favorite cryptocurrency for NGN there?
Only after you narrow down your search this way (and we will help you with this) can you apply the regular yardsticks of evaluating a cryptocurrency trading platform. There's not much of a choice anyway – if that counts as the good news.
Typically, you would want to examine the following metrics:
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registration and ID verification
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supported cryptocurrencies
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payment methods
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fee structure
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available liquidity
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exchange rates
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security and trustworthiness
Let’s now quickly look into each of these metrics and see how they fit into the bigger picture of selecting the right trading platform in Nigeria specifically.
Registration and verification
Registration is worth mentioning here because it precedes what is to follow and known as identity verification.
With a few exceptions, in today’s world, it is no longer enough to provide your email as proof of identity. Nowadays, you need to confirm your phone at the very least, and more often than not, you will have to submit real docs to be able to trade. Although it’s hardly in line with the main thesis behind crypto (as a p2p means of payment), we can do nothing but comply.
Supported cryptocurrencies
If you want to trade Bitcoin, the one and only, virtually any cryptocurrency platform will do as they all offer the option. However, the number of supported cryptocurrencies and what they are becomes a consideration when you consider altcoins a legit investment as well.
Anyway, most cryptocurrency trading platforms today also offer a bunch of other cryptos (at least ETH and USDT).
Payment methods
In a country like Nigeria, payment methods will become a critical part of your Bitcoin purchase strategy. You may be able to withdraw BTC instantly from an exchange or marketplace after you have bought it, but why should you care if you can't deposit fiat or pay for the coins in the first place?
Just in case, the same applies when you want to pull out the profits and thus need a fiat offramp.
Fee structure
If you are using a traditional, orderbook-based exchange or a p2p marketplace (for example, Binance or Bitpapa), normally you don’t need to worry about trading fees. These are either negligible (like 0.1% per trade) or absent altogether. However, withdrawal fees may still make a difference.
With instant swap services (like NairaEx or Yellow Card), on the other hand, the fees are often sitting in the bid-ask spread – the difference between the price at which you buy (bid price) and the price at which you sell (ask price).
And the fees at the couple of Bitcoin ATMs in Lagos will make you cry.
Available liquidity
If the trading platform lacks liquidity, you won’t be able to execute a big order at the best price. Put differently, not only should you look at the price itself, but also at how much you can buy at that price.
Indeed, this doesn’t amount to much if you are buying a little now and then. However, it may and will become an issue when you embark on a buying spree of many thousands of dollars.
Exchange rates
Global exchanges and marketplaces offer essentially the same prices across the board (as we will see later). On the flip side, if you are going to use a local exchanger service (for whatever reason), be careful lest you overpay monumentally.
Also keep in mind that the official USD to NGN exchange rates as published by the Nigerian central bank are completely off base. It is the real conversion prices (along with Bitcoin price in USD) that determine the market value of BTC in NGN.
Security and trustworthiness
Security mostly refers to what you do, while trustworthiness is more about what the trading platform does (or did in the past). You increase the safety and security of your funds by enabling things like 2FA and by providing a strong and unique password. Exchanges, on the other hand, are trying to build a solid reputation by offering reliable and predictable trading services at low costs.
In this manner, it is prudent to stick with global and established platforms (like the ones examined in this guide) that have an advantage over local and mostly shady services.
Best Sites to Trade Bitcoin
You can buy Bitcoin with Naira on traditional exchanges and p2p marketplaces, and the list of the ones that can be regarded as best consists of the following entries:
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Binance Spot
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Binance P2P
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Luno
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LocalBitcoins
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Remitano
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Bitpapa
Technically, you can buy Bitcoin on a number of other exchanges and with a few local exchanger and instant swap services operating in Nigeria. However, they don’t cut it as the “best ones”, for one reason or another, and such a description is not entirely arbitrary.
For example, you could try to trade BTC on OKX P2P. OKX (formerly known as OKeX) is a decent exchange that operates globally. At the same time, its p2p market lacks liquidity, so it can hardly be thought of as the top platform for Nigerian users in particular, that is, those who want to trade BTC for the Nigerian Naira.
Further, it is possible to purchase Bitcoin with payment (remittance) platforms such as BitPesa or MoonPay. But they are not meant for trading crypto, and their prices may not be quite competitive with specialized trading platforms.
Some of the metrics can be ambiguous and may rather reflect personal preferences. However, the one metric that everyone is looking at before anything else (and which luckily allows impartial assessment and comparison) is price (aka exchange rate) – in this case, how much you will have to pay for 1 Bitcoin in Naira.
Therefore, we start with the price across different platforms (alongside liquidity).
Binance Spot
Binance is a global cryptocurrency platform that offers a bunch of cryptocurrency services including ordebook-based (Binance Spot) and p2p trading (Binance P2P). Its two major selling points are a huge number of supported coins and plenty of liquidity.
On Binance Spot you can buy BTC with NGN via USDT – at first you buy the stablecoin with Naira and then exchange it for Bitcoin. It works the other way too.
Because Binance Spot attracts the most liquidity, the calculated cross rate based on its price feed can be used as a benchmark exchange rate against which we can compare the prices on other platforms. To determine this price, we are going to use two charts: BTC/USDT and USDT/NGN.
At the moment, Bitcoin trades at $20,852.12 on Binance Spot:
And 1 USDT can fetch you 783.0 NGN there:
Then the calculated cross rate of BTC to NGN will be:
20,852.12 x 783.0 = 16,327,209.96 NGN
This is what you’ve got to pay in order to buy 1 BTC on Binance Spot with two trades (NGN ⇒ USDT and USDT ⇒ BTC), and will receive for selling as much.
Binance P2P
Alternatively, on Binance P2P, you can buy Bitcoin with Naira directly, and the best price is currently at 16,347,837.24 NGN:
The difference between Binance Spot and P2P is negligible, and in practical terms, the choice is basically about how fast you can buy the coins.
Of course, if you are going to use the p2p marketplace, you don’t need to deposit fiat anywhere. So unless you’ve been using the spot market all your life and don’t want to learn a couple new tricks, p2p seems to be a better option with Binance.
Luno
Luno is an orderbook-based exchange where you can buy Bitcoin with Naira. At the moment, 1 BTC is worth ~16,360,000 NGN on it:
The price follows the Binance benchmark price pretty close, and therefore Luno is a viable alternative to Binance Spot. However, depositing (as well as withdrawing) fiat on this exchange requires the use of vouchers, which can be cumbersome and costly.
LocalBitcoins
LocalBitcoins is the oldest p2p cryptocurrency marketplace in the world, and the offers to sell Bitcoin start at roughly 16,200,000 NGN on the platform:
The lowest prices on LocalBitcoins are below Binance Spot market price (and Binance P2P, for that matter). However, the real liquidity starts at around 16,300,000, which is more like the Binance benchmark price.
Clearly, there’s a bid war raging on LocalBitcoins right now (good for small-time buyers).
Remitano
Remitano sets an example of good prices but low liquidity. At first glance, the offers starting at 16,305,465 NGN for 1 BTC look quite competitive:
But at these prices, you can buy only $30 worth of Bitcoin, while the 0.16 BTC offer (~$3,200) will cost you 16,821,980 NGN (3% premium to Binance price).
Bitpapa
Bitpapa has the highest prices among the trading platforms analyzed here – the best offer to sell Bitcoin for Naira starts there at 16,641,735 NGN (~2% premium to Binance Spot):
Granted, this is good for sellers and not so good for buyers. However, in terms of available liquidity, Bitpapa is on par with Remitano (and to a lesser degree, Binance P2P), which is not bad for a newcomer to the Nigerian crypto market.
Other Factors at Play
You wouldn’t be too wrong if you expected global exchanges and marketplaces to have essentially the same prices – actual numbers confirm this assumption. Then it becomes a matter of taking into account other factors.
Depending on how much Bitcoin you are going to buy, liquidity may or may not be a factor. If it is, LocalBitcoins seems to be the best choice if you are going to stick with p2p trading, and Binance Spot in case you prefer traditional, orderbook-based exchange. Binance P2P, Remitano and Bitpapa appear not to be particularly different in this regard.
Just like prices, fees on these trading platforms are in harmony with each other. On exchanges like Binance Spot and Luno, you pay 0.1% per trade (with zero-fee trading made available occasionally). On p2p marketplaces, you pay nothing when buying with existing offers. So there’s not a lot of room for choice with respect to trading fees – they are all low.
Payment methods are where things become more interesting. Unlike traditional exchanges, p2p marketplaces don’t need to process fiat transactions and thus they are not bound by local bans and restrictions (as is the case in Nigeria).
For example, to deposit fiat on Luna, you need to use vouchers issued by a third party. Now, to buy BTC with NGN on this exchange, you first need to buy a voucher and then redeem it on the platform. On a p2p marketplace, you just pay the seller directly and receive crypto in a few minutes, with the marketplace helping with the smooth execution of the trade
In this way, payment methods are where p2p trading shines at its brightest and has an indisputable edge over orderbook-based exchange.
Further, on Binance you need to go through a complete ID verification before you can do anything useful there. On Luno, you won’t even be able to access your account profile until you have proven your identity. LocalBitcoins not so long ago changed their policies too, and now you can’t trade there without proper verification, either.
This leaves us with Remitano and Bitpapa. Neither requires you to submit paper docs to begin trading. On Remitano, you can buy Bitcoin after confirming your phone number alone. However, you can buy only up to $50 worth of BTC there daily (and sell as much):
If you don’t plan on active trading (which will most certainly exceed $100 dollars) or on bulk investing (a big one-time purchase), that may suffice. But if it doesn’t (and you wish to remain anonymous), your only option that remains is Bitpapa, which doesn’t demand ID verification nor does it set any limits on how much you can trade daily without one.
Not the Only Pebble on the Beach
All things considered, for Nigerian users interested in purchasing Bitcoin with Naira, the real choice appears to be p2p marketplaces, and more concretely LocalBitcoins (with verification) and Bitpapa (without verification). But bear in mind, Bitcoin is the only crypto supported on LocalBitcoins presently, while Bitpapa, in addition to Bitcoin, also supports Ethereum, USDT, Monero, and Toncoin.
And now it all revolves around how diversified your cryptocurrency portfolio is going to be.
FAQ
Q: Do I Need to Buy a Whole Bitcoin?
A: You can buy as little as 1,000 NGN worth of Bitcoin, which is around 0.00006134 BTC at the time of writing.
Q: Which Mobile App is Best for Buying BTC in Nigeria?
A: You can try the mobile apps supplied by LocalBitcoins and Bitpapa.
Q: How Much Is One Bitcoin in Naira?
A: Currently, one Bitcoin is worth ~16,300,000 NGN.
Q: How to Buy Bitcoin with Crypto Wallet?
A: Crypto wallets are for storing crypto. To buy Bitcoin, you would want to register with a cryptocurrency trading platform such as an exchange or p2p marketplace.
