An order can arrive almost anywhere for him. It could be at a party, while he is out late at night, or even when he is spending time with his girlfriend.
“I might be chilling with my babe, and then I'll get an order, and I'll probably have to quickly attend to it and then go back,” he says between laughs.
It is an amusing image: trying to enjoy a quiet moment with your girlfriend, only for your phone to remind you that someone, somewhere, is waiting for a transaction to be completed.
This is the reality of being an Accrue agent. Orders do not necessarily arrive when you are sitting at a desk, ready to work. They come when they come, and someone has to attend to them.
Obinna Ugboajah, a pencil artist working on a drawing, a tutor preparing to teach mathematics and sciences, and a cryptocurrency merchant moving funds between platforms, since becoming an Accrue agent in 2021, has managed to fit the work around these different parts of his life.
His phone is the common thread connecting them. When a notification appears, he attends to the order and returns to whatever he was doing.
He has fulfilled more than 30,000 orders and the transactions range from around $10 to $1,000 or more, and he has spent years learning how to fulfill orders seamlessly.
It is a considerable amount of activity for someone who has never relied on a single occupation. Yet, as Obinna's experience shows, working as an agent is not simply about the number of orders you complete. It is also about managing time, dealing with customers, protecting your money and knowing what to do when a transaction goes wrong.
How It Started
Obinna's journey into peer-to-peer cryptocurrency trading began during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before then, he was primarily a tutor. He teaches mathematics and sciences to primary and junior secondary school students, and education remains an important part of his working life. When the pandemic disrupted normal routines and people had to find new ways to work, he began exploring other opportunities. Peer-to-peer trading was one of them.
He started trading on Buycoins, where he learnt the mechanics of buying and selling digital assets directly with other people. It was an introduction to a business that would eventually become a regular part of his income-generating activities.
When Buycoins transitioned into Accrue, Obinna followed. Around 2021, he also noticed that the platform was looking for agents, because he already had experience as a P2P merchant, the opportunity made sense.
The Artist, the Tutor and the Agent
There is an easy assumption that someone who processes thousands of cryptocurrency transactions must be doing it full-time. Obinna is an example of why that assumption does not always hold.
He is a pencil artist, a tutor and a cryptocurrency merchant. His teaching work involves mathematics and sciences, while his artistic practice gives him another outlet. Being an agent sits alongside both.
“When I see the notification, I quickly attend to it and then move on,” he says, adding that Accrue orders are manageable because he can attend to them using his phone, without having to sit in one place or dedicate every working hour to the platform.
This arrangement gives him some flexibility, but it is not quite the same as having complete control over his time. He can be doing something else when an order arrives, and the decision to respond means briefly interrupting whatever has his attention.
The work follows him because the customers are not necessarily operating on his schedule. Someone may need to complete a transaction at a particular moment, and being available can make the difference between fulfilling an order and missing the opportunity.
For Obinna, whose working life already spans several activities, this is part of the appeal of the arrangement. He does not have to give up teaching or art to remain an active agent.
His phone effectively connects the different parts of his working life, allowing him to move between them as circumstances demand.
The flexibility, however, comes with a familiar trade-off: sometimes, personal times have to make room for work.
More Than 30,000 Orders Later
Obinna estimates that he has completed more than 30,000 orders on Accrue since joining the platform in 2021.
The value of those transactions varies. Some are worth around $10, while others reach $1,000 or more, but the number does not automatically translate into a predictable income. An agent's earnings depend on how many orders come through, the value of those transactions and the opportunities available in the market. Obinna's own experience has changed as the agent network has grown.
When he started, he estimated that there were only about five to ten agents. According to him, orders were more plentiful, and the relatively small number of people competing for them made the business more rewarding.
“There are so many agents now, which is crazy because not everybody gets a lot of orders,” he says.
$50 a month is a reasonable starting income for an agent, although he stresses that earnings vary, the volume of work available matters, and an agent's experience may look very different from another person's.
Obinna has the advantage of years of experience and familiarity with several trading platforms, but even that does not eliminate the uncertainty of the market, but he has learnt to operate within it.
It’s Not All Rosy
For all the transactions Obinna has completed, some of his most memorable experiences have had serious consequences.
He recalls a transaction involving what he describes as glitch funds: money that appears to have been transferred successfully but is later disputed or reversed through the banking system.
The situation was difficult because he was not the original recipient of the questionable funds. He had received payment from someone who had, in turn, received money through an earlier transaction and by the time the problem was identified, the money had moved through several hands.
Obinna says he tries to avoid these situations by checking payment details and being cautious when the name attached to a payment does not match the name associated with an order.
His experience has taught him that a successful notification is not always the end of a transaction. The money can appear in an account, the order can be completed and the agent can move on, only for a bank or payment provider to raise questions later.
A Business That Fits Around Life
Obinna started as a tutor, became interested in peer-to-peer trading during the pandemic and gradually built it into a regular part of his working life.
Today, he continues to teach mathematics and sciences, make pencil art and trade across multiple platforms. Accrue is one part of that arrangement, but it is a business he has maintained for years and through which he estimates he has completed more than 30,000 orders.
He is an agent who can operate from almost anywhere, but that freedom comes with the expectation of being available. A notification can arrive in the middle of a lesson, while he is drawing, at a party or during a moment he would rather spend uninterrupted with his girlfriend.
The different jobs seem to coexist because he has learnt how to move between them. He does not need to choose between being an artist, a lover, a tutor and an agent, even if the boundaries occasionally blur.
Whatever the case, Obinna has spent the past several years learning that moving money for strangers is not just about making a transaction happen. It is about being ready for the people, the problems and the unpredictable moments that come with it.
The next order could arrive almost anywhere.
Keep reading
The Money Moves Behind Belema Ogulu’s Many Roles
Belema Ogulu on being a creator advocate, building For Azari, and the brain behind Easel Digital and her relationship with money.
How This Corps Member Is Surviving To Serve His Fatherland
For this week’s Money Moves, we spoke with Emmanuel Ojiji, a NYSC corps member navigating the financial realities of serving his fatherland
Money Moves: Kaduna to Ghana
Abdulaziz works as a medical physicist, and in between, he manages to move money across borders. How does he move money from Kaduna to Ghana? Read his money moves