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Nigerian blockchain startups raised $20M in 2024, claims 3% of global developers — Report

The report dubbed the Nigeria Web3 Landscape Report says 3% of global blockchain developers are in Nigeria.

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Nigerian blockchain startups raised $20 million in 2024, according to a new report by VC firm Hashed Emergent.

The report also reveals that Nigeria now accounts for 3% of the world’s blockchain developers, with over 300,000 active builders in the space.

The details

Hashed Emergent worked with Nigerian blockchain firms Quidax, Convexity and Web3Bridge alongside tech law firm, Infusion Lawyers to create the report.
The document titled the Nigeria Web3 Landscape Report 2024 presented an overview of blockchain funding, adoption, regulation and developer activities in 2024.

According to the report, Nigeria has seen a marked increase in blockchain developers in the last three years.
Nigeria is home to 3% of developers in the global decentralized economy and contributed 4% of the newest entrants to the global blockchain talent pool
The survey of 800 developers found that over half entered the blockchain space within the past year, showing a sign of rapid, ecosystem-driven growth in talent.
Nigerian blockchain startups raised $20M in 2024, down $2M from the year before, with funding activities driven largely by ecosystem grants.

However, while the number of funding almost doubled from the year before, the total monetary value was less than was recorded the previous year.
This points to a rise in smaller, grant-level deals over large institutional investments, underscoring the growing influence of grassroots blockchain ecosystems in Nigeria.

Finance-focused blockchain firms raised $7 million in 2024, a jump from $2 million in 2023, though still well below the sector’s $50 million peak in 2022.
The slow recovery has been driven by investors paying more attention to stablecoin payment products in line with a broader market shift towards the asset class.
Blockchain infrastructure firms raised $11M, a 270% increase from the year before and the most of any category, driven largely by cross-chain interoperability and payment infrastructure projects such as Hyperbridge and Zone.
On the other hand, decentralized entertainment firms raised only $2M, $15M less than they raised in 2023. Only socialFi protocols got funded, while blockchain gaming projects recorded zero funding activity, the report stated.

Trading data analyzed by the report shows a significant pivot towards stablecoins among retail crypto users in Nigeria, the demographic that constitutes the bulk of crypto usage in the country.
Nigeria received the most stablecoin value of any African country in 2024, with $24B worth of fiat-pegged crypto making its way into wallets controlled by Nigerians.
Between January and March 2024 alone, stablecoin transactions in the country reached nearly $3B, according to the report.

Key context: The increased lean towards stablecoin as reported by Hashed Emergent is consistent with a broader crypto market shift in African countries.

Unstable local currencies have pushed Africans to turn to stablecoins as a hedge against inflation and to protect their savings from rapid devaluation. Per a Chainalysis report, interest in stablecoins in Nigeria grows when the naira devalues.
The report also named some federal agencies and state governments at various stages of implementing blockchain technology in aspects of their operations, such as records management and identity verification.

According to Hashed Emergent’s report, there are 300 thousand blockchain developers in Nigeria, accounting for 3% of the global total.
While half of respondents preferred Javascript as programming language because of its application across blockchain and non-blockchain protocols, 39% picked Ethereum’s native code language, Solidity and Solana’s Rust as their code language of choice.

Other ecosystems that recorded the most developer activity in the country include Ethereum L2s Base and Starknet, Ton, Polygon and BNB.

Several blockchain ecosystems have a presence in the country. Some notable names are Solana, Base, Ethereum, Starknet, Lisk and Sui. Others are Polygon, Avalanche, Polkadot, Sei Celo, Algorand and Arbitrum.
In terms of grants, Solana gave out $134K to more than 160 projects while Base granted 188 projects $201K.
Community-focused entities such as Superteam, BaseAfrica, Web3Ladies and Web3Bridge also racked up activities in Nigeria in 2024.