Why Does Nigeria Have Only A Few Female Crypto Traders?

The average 21st-century Nigerian woman is believed to be financially acquisitive. However, being money-lovers hasn’t proven to be enough reason for them to be crypto lovers.

Cryptocurrencies have gained massive popularity in the past few years, as both retail and institutional investors seek to cash in on the potential of these digital assets disrupting the current economic system.

The restriction of cryptocurrency-related transactions with local bank accounts by the Central Bank of Nigeria, coupled with bans and regulations by several other countries stands as further proof that this phenomenon is no longer negligible in any society today.

One of the fascinating traits of the crypto market is that the playing field is rather level, as it in itself has no gender-biased requirements for participants. Anyone who is curious enough can get involved today, as information is widely available to the public on the internet.

However, metrics from a survey by Allnews revealed a staggering gender gap as over 80 percent of young and educated Nigerian women do not even understand what cryptocurrencies are all about in the first place.

Promise Usiabulu, a 30-year-old serial entrepreneur, said knowing it could fetch her income was enough reason for her to add bitcoin to her investment portfolio, despite having only a little understanding of what cryptocurrencies are about. In her opinion, a lot of women want to partake, but their male counterparts starve them of information and only circulate within themselves. She also claims that fear among women in this sector might be due to their emotional vulnerability, which makes them easy targets for scammers.

Only 7 percent of female respondents claimed to be well-versed in cryptocurrencies, with the residue having only a faint amount of knowledge.

Opeyemi Ogunsakin, a 26-year-old event planner in Lagos claims that just like a lot of women her age, she is more willing to stick with conventional business ventures, and has a lot of uncertainties about cryptos she isn’t comfortable with. When asked whether she had bothered to make any basic research concerning these doubts, she said she had not yet attained that level of curiosity about crypto-assets.

The average young Nigerian lady seems to be more inclined to depend on ventures such as baking confectioneries, beauty services such as make-up and hairstyling, or clothing businesses. On the other hand, tech skills such as graphic design, coding, and editing gain only a little attention from females.

This may be causative to the lack of interest from women, as several people believe the myth that cryptos are only meant for the tech-savvy, or the extremely intelligent. This added up in our survey as 31 percent of female respondents claimed that cryptos “looked too complicated” for them, and thus scared them off the scene. 

“The seeming complexity and risk is the major turnoff factor for women,” said Tasleemah Akinlade, a women rights expert. “Perhaps if it looked less complex and was less risky, women will be confident enough to invest. After all, women are known to be industrious and are currently competing shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts in various industries.”

About 30 percent of total respondents said they were uninvolved due to a sheer lack of interest, mostly because of the belief that cryptocurrencies are simply speculative and cannot be relied on.

This, however, highlights a wider scope of ignorance that may even transcend the feminine gender, as cryptos are not originally built for speculative trading, but as real-life solutions to economic problems. For example, bitcoin, cryptos’ poster-child, was built to function as a more efficient hedge against inflation than gold.

Mercy Oluwaseun, a 32-year-old human-resource specialist and event planner, claimed that just like a lot of women her age, she was concerned about the risk exposure of getting involved with cryptos. She also said that women like her would “probably get involved if they had money they could afford to lose”.

According to Precious Jaja, a 22-year-old shoe dealer from Port-Harcourt, ladies have a huge preference for “tangible” investments and prefer to nurture their investments rather than watch them through a screen. Precious, who is an active crypto investor added that ladies do not have the patience to learn about cryptos or even the stock markets.

There is a huge chance that cryptocurrencies will be the future of finance, and it is important that women are well-positioned to be active players in that future and not have to go through the same old cycle of being second-fiddle in such an even playing field. Beyond the interest in investment, young Nigerian men and women need to understand crypto-assets beyond speculation, as well as blockchain technology.

Additional reporting by Bolanle Akinlade