This article examines the emergence and consolidation of automated crypto-currency trading technologies in Nigeria through a historical analysis of regulatory change, market adaptation, and macroeconomic instability between 2015 and 2025. Drawing on regulatory archives, legislative records, industry reports, and peer-reviewed scholarship, the study reconstructs how automated trading tools developed as adaptive responses to prolonged currency depreciation, regulatory prohibition, and structural deficiencies in Nigeria’s formal financial system. Rather than conceptualizing regulation and technology as static or externally imposed forces, the analysis situates both within a dynamic historical process shaped by policy reversals, informal market innovation, and evolving public economic behaviour. The study finds that automated trading technologies did not arise merely through technological diffusion but functioned as practical instruments for managing volatility and uncertainty in a crisis-prone monetary environment. While these technologies expanded access to algorithmic trading strategies and stimulated fintech entrepreneurship, they also intensified market volatility, consumer vulnerability, and regulatory enforcement challenges. The Nigerian experience demonstrates how frontier-market financial technologies become embedded through crisis-driven historical processes rather than linear regulatory planning. The article contributes to African financial and economic history by highlighting the long-term consequences of delayed governance in rapidly evolving digital asset markets.
Ogaleye et al. (Tue,) studied this question.