The same gap, from the other side
Buying a stablecoin means taking the selling side of the order book, which sits above the official rate. Selling it back means taking the buying side, which sits below. Neither transaction announces a fee, and together they consume the entire gap.
This is the cost that is hardest to see, because at no point does anyone charge it. It shows up only as the difference between the rate you could have had and the rate you took — twice.
What the round trip costs
| Amount | Reaches the table | Comes back | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| ₦5,000 | ₦764 | ₦0 | ₦5,000 (100.0%) |
| ₦10,000 | ₦5,469 | ₦1,351 | ₦8,649 (86.5%) |
| ₦25,000 | ₦19,582 | ₦14,697 | ₦10,303 (41.2%) |
| ₦50,000 | ₦43,104 | ₦36,940 | ₦13,060 (26.1%) |
| ₦100,000 | ₦90,147 | ₦81,427 | ₦18,573 (18.6%) |
| ₦250,000 | ₦231,278 | ₦214,887 | ₦35,113 (14.0%) |
| ₦500,000 | ₦466,496 | ₦437,320 | ₦62,680 (12.5%) |
Worst case. The two highlighted rows are amounts where the movement costs more than a third of the money being moved.
The practical conclusion is not "do not withdraw". It is that the route rewards fewer, larger movements over many small ones — and that intention matters: someone who decides the amount and the exit in advance pays this cost once, and someone who moves money back and forth pays it every time.
The spread is not symmetrical, and that matters
It is tempting to treat the round trip as paying the same percentage twice. In practice the two sides of the book move independently: the gap on the buying side and the gap on the selling side are set by two different populations of people with two different reasons to trade, and they are rarely equal at the same moment.
- Demand is directional. When many people want to acquire dollars, the buying side is crowded and the selling side is not.
- Timing does not repeat. A favourable moment going in says nothing about the moment coming out, which may be weeks later.
- The reference moves too. The official rate is not a fixed point; the gap is measured against something that is itself in motion.
Which is why this site prints a range rather than a figure, and why the worst case leads. A round trip planned on the best case for both legs is a plan that requires two separate pieces of good fortune.
Fewer crossings is the only real answer
Everything above points at the same conclusion, and it is not a clever one: each crossing of the naira–coin boundary costs a spread and a flat fee, so the cheapest version of this route is the one with the fewest crossings. One in, one out.
| Pattern | Spreads paid | Flat fees paid | On ₦100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| One in, one out | two | two | ₦18,573 |
| Two deposits, one withdrawal | three | three | more |
| Weekly in and out | many | many | far more |
The bottom row is not hypothetical — it is the ordinary pattern of someone who treats a casino balance as a current account.
Holding instead of selling
The obvious way to avoid the second spread is not to cross back — to leave the balance in coin. That trades one cost for a different one. A dollar stablecoin is stable against the dollar; against the naira it moves with the exchange rate, which over a period of weeks has historically moved a great deal. Deferring the conversion is a position, not a saving, and this site is not the place to take a view on which way that position goes.
Nearby on this route
Three pages that pick up where this one stops: Chains and flat fees, When documents are asked for, Cashing out.