Investing in Nigeria is a hot chocolate on a Sunday morning topic. Many people talk about it, there’s an abundance of so-called gurus, and you’ve probably watched 1 million (just kidding, maybe 10) YouTube videos on the subject.
Like you’ve discovered or are about to discover, many of the investment advice freely available online are cookie-cutter, word of mouth shenanigans — they rarely work, and even if they did, the yield is, in very frank terms, piss-poor.
So how then can you invest as a Nigerian in something worth the effort (not some 10% treasury yield, which makes no sense considering the Naira free fall and resultant inflation)?
Can you still invest with Naira in 2021 and make significant gains?
Is all hope lost?
Well, no, all hope is not lost. In this guide, I detail steps you can take to get your money working, and not just working, but working to yield sizable returns.
First things first, what’s the problem with most Nigerian investment opportunities today?
Except you’re starting a business, which is arguably the surest most profitable way to make your money work for you, every other Nigerian-based investment vehicle will only pay sub 20% interest yields.
On a good day, when the Naira was still a bit of a competitive currency, close to 20% interest on your money was not bad.
In fact, many people grew their wealth significantly in the early 2000s extending to 2010 by just simply dumping their monies in a savings account and compounding interest from there.
It’s 2021, and the Nigerian financial climate is very different, I’d say crazily different. We’re in the middle of a surreal upsurge in inflation. Official stats from the CBN peg overall inflation rates at 16%, with inflation in food prices searing to a dizzying high of 22%. For context overall inflation rate for our near neighbor Ghanaians is just approx. 9%.
Then there’s the issue of the falling Naira. Just today — 10th September 2021 — the Naira reached one of its lowest points in recent memory, trading at an abysmal NGN540 to the dollar.
This time last year, it was NGN380 to the dollar, meaning if you had a one-year savings, bond, or treasury account paying you 20% interest (it’s typically lower than that but let’s assume), you’d have actually incurred a loss because even though you earned 20%, the purchasing power of the Naira dropped by more than 20% in that savings period. Get it?
When you save/invest in Naira, you’re betting on a currency that’s for now on a free roller coaster ride to devaluation.
You’re losing money, and except you’re the most Patriotic Nigerian (more patriotic than our fat-bellied senators who prefer the refreshingly calm coffers of Swizz, English banks for their illegitimate wealth), it makes no financial sense.
Okay, Okay, I get it. So where can I invest money seeing as I’m not that keen on patriotism?
Anything that’s not based on the Naira or doesn’t pay you profits in Naira. Ideally, this would be Foreign Domiciliary savings accounts, foreign stocks, or bonds, but with the CBN seriously clamping down these direct foreign investment strategies, it’s hard to keep your neck afloat.
Just last month, in June of 2021, it (the CBN) obtained a court injunction order to freeze the accounts of Popular foreign investment platform Bamboo.
Bamboo allowed Nigerians to buy US stocks, and it was making a killing with Nigerian Investors who had caught wind of how poor the Naira was performing and how bleak its future looked like.
This then leads us to one place where the Nigerian government (or any other government for that matter) cannot flex its malnourished muscle of financial oppression (they’ll call it monetary policies, but I digress) — Cryptocurrencies.
You’ve probably heard of crypto (Bitcoin, hello). If you’ve not, it’s in very simple terms a global digital currency system that’s free from government or any central controlling entity, at least in theory.
Crypto has its many flaws. People have lost huge sums to crypto scams, ‘dips’ have rendered some others homeless, and if you’re not careful, you might fall for the antics of some guy in Bangladesh who’s telling you his recently contrived ERC-20 token is the next best thing since sliced bread (read Bitcoin). It’s not.
However, regardless of its many flaws, cryptocurrencies have a unique value proposition, especially in developing (and struggling) economies like ours.
It’s a solid medium to hedge against inflation and devaluation!
Inflation? Devaluation? How’s that investing?
So, the major premise of cryptocurrencies, at least according to Bitcoin’s creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s Whitepaper, is establishing ’a peer-to-peer electronic cash system’ with limited supply and inflation-proof systems.
But, the good news is this is not the only advantage. Over the years, several cryptocurrency-based investment platforms have sprung up with different approaches to investing, but all with the same output — paying out cryptocurrencies as earnings.
Again, not all of these systems are safe and legitimate. A lot are blatant scams, as a matter of fact, but as long as you don’t go chasing the next ‘how to make $10 million with $10,’ you should be safe.
How do I use my Naira to invest?
For a growing majority of Nigerian youths, the best way to invest in cryptocurrencies using Naira is to trade crypto on popular exchanges like Binance or bet on relatively new cryptocurrencies or ‘shitcoins’ or ‘memecoins,’ as they are called, with the hope that they’d one day ‘moon’ just like Bitcoin and Ethereum’ mooned.’
Many people, some of which I know personally, have made literal millions doing this.
Mooning is a term used to describe the sudden, usually massive rise in the value of any one cryptocurrency. In 2010, Bitcoin was worth just $0.08. Today in 2021, it’s worth well over $46,000 (as of 10th September 2021). If you invested NGN100,000 in Bitcoin in 2010, you’d be NGN207 billion richer today!
Those investment strategies though solid, come with risks. As I said, you could invest in a shitcoin, and rather than go up, its value might tumble down. You could trade on exchanges (either as direct trades or leveraged trading), and your predictions might fail. You could stake your crypto, but that’s another entirely complex proposition on its own.
So is there any safe, beginner-friendly, and relatively low-risk strategy to invest in crypto with Naira?
Yes, and that’s where we come in.
Saving in Naira with Remicash and earning in crypto-dollars
Remicash takes a strategic path to investing that significantly reduces the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. Here’s what we do
- You invest in Naira
- We convert your Naira into USDT, which is for all purposes of practicality USD (dollar)
- We invest your USDT
- You earn and get paid in any cryptocurrency of your choice
What you do with your savings and earned cryptocurrency is then up to you. You can decide to convert it back to Naira at a true value exchange rate, save it for the long term to capitalize on the growing value of cryptocurrencies (just like most other crypto investors do), or transfer it to an exchange and then trade.
True value exchange rate means any currency conversions you do on the Remicash Platform will proceed with the current exchange rate on that day. Not the lower bank rate or ‘CBN rates’ that most providers use to shortchange consumers.
For more information on how to earn on Remicash, see our how to earn guide here
To conclude…
Yes, you can save in Naira. And yes, you can start a business.
But if you’re looking to save on the side and earn money that’s not overshadowed by inflation, you’re better off saving in cryptocurrencies. It’s savings that protect your monetary assets and plugs you into the ever-expanding world of digital currencies.
We believe in Digital currencies, and we believe someday, they’ll be the de-facto standard currency in the global financial market.
Remicash presents you with an opportunity to be part of that future market now.
