Bitcoin Forum

Earlier last month, there has been an uproar from many about Nigeria's Central bank on its decision on cryptocurrency among Nigerian citizens. This led to panic among cryptocurrency investors in Nigeria, as the CBN directed that trader's accounts in Nigerian banks should be closed.

In a recent report released on March 22nd, the CBN says they are not discouraging citizens from trading or making use of Bitcoin. But it only told the banks to close accounts that had traded cryptocurrency

https://www.coindesk.com/nigeria-central-bank-bitcoin

If the citizens are free to trade cryptocurrencies, how will it be possible without making a transaction to or with their local banks? Of course, it might be possible with the P2p transaction. But what is the need of encouraging them, when you will still close their accounts?

Now my question is, why all this confusion? Isn’t the CBN confusing Nigerian crypto traders?
I feel they didn’t think this through before releasing their ban statement in February with their wild claims.

I think it wasn't really their intention but considering that the days in between the on and off relationship of CBN towards cryptocurrency is short, this might have caused some accidental confusion towards the cryptocurrency users in the country but I might be wrong and that there was a conspiracy that they really did plan to confuse the people in the first place to make them not get into crypto because there is an uncertainty.

Accounts involved in cryptocurrency trades through peer to peer platforms cannot be restricted neither can they be closed by the central Banks as their source is unknown.
When deposits or withdrawals are made through regulated exchanges it is reflected in the banks to be affiliated with cryptocurrency, but in peer to peer transactions it is simply reflected as an exchange between two individuals, which could be from any means and hence Banks can't interfere.

Banks are quite oppressive to cryptos anyway. On one hand, if I think about it, allowing BTC usage only off-banks sounds good, lol. The less we use banks, the better.

It does probably sound confusing to the avg person indeed. If banks are bound to close all accounts trading crypto, it means most txs will go offline. I'm quite sure a government would rather have txs they can control (banks are perfect for that) than barter and offline p2p ones. I guess they're going to come out at one point and clarify their statements, because this sounds quite weird coming from a gov..

It is true, this statement is a polemic and a dilemma for Nigerians, as well as the government and the central bank will give half hope and the rest are question marks. This should not be tolerated, because the government's position needs to provide a statement that is legitimate and accepted globally. It is like making a circle but only obscure scraps of paper. doesn't this seem floating, Nigerian society is being toyed with. they said last week that they would open a cryptocurrency exchange, but a few days ago they gave a vague statement.
this is to the detriment of the bitcoiner there. Certainty needs to be enforced, not to become a statement that ultimately only hangs in vain hope.

I guess CBN or any bank just doesn't want to get involve with cryptocurrency at all but still let people get cryptocurrencies. I don't think there's anymore meaning to this and they really mean it as they've released a statement regarding this. They just don't condone the use of cryptocurrencies because “Due to the fact that cryptocurrencies are largely speculative, anonymous and untraceable they are increasingly being used for money laundering, terrorism financing and other criminal activities,” (https://www.coindesk.com/nigerian-central-bank-says-its-ban-on-crypto-accounts-is-nothing-new) which is absurd if you think about it since fiat has been doing these activities for decades.

Although, I like the reason why Central Bank of Nigeria governor said this week that cryptocurrencies are not banned in Nigeria, some Nigerians can think cryptocurrencies are banned but not. Only crypto institutions are not just allowed to make transactions with Nigerian banks as the transactions are crypto based. Also, CBN can not go beyond its capability, only what they can do is to look for ways Nigerian banks will not make deals with crypto institutions. So, the CBN governor do not have power to ban cryptocurrencies generally in the country, it is not even possible. Such total ban will likely come from Senate while president will have to sign the bill, but that can even never happen.

https://i.ibb.co/XFtD3C3/CBN.png

It almost looks like they are following a trend of other countries without taking into consideration other possible benefits of crypto or its effect on its citizens.


Since CBN controls all the banks, it's more like the chief of all local banks. I don't think there will be 'any' banks that will be willing to accept or allow it users to trade with any exchange. They risk been scantioned.

I do it think we should not blame the CBN, even when banks transactions to or from crypto organizations are banned now, p2p are now used. The so called fraud will soon be done using p2p which is even more safe. What the CBN should do is to regulate, not ban crypto transactions into banks in Nigeria.

Perhaps they are not just clear on their crypto regulations, sort of in the grey area as far as I understand. The good thing is that crypto trading is not illegal, but traders need to be careful on how to exchange their crypto to local fiat as they are not allowed to use local banks. Maybe Nigerians need to find a way to sort of 'exploit this loophole', like using p2p or other methods.

Politics my friend, the art of trickery and deceitfulness... It's like the government confiscated all the bicycles of the country and suddenly they told you: well, we didn't forbid anyone from riding a bycicle, we just confiscated all of them...

It makes no sense, right? But there must be a hidden reason behind all this nonsense that will become very clear soon. So keep watching the next episodes.

This is like India all over again to me, lots of confusion, even the parliament debated about it. As for Nigerian government, we don't know if they intentionally did it or not, perhaps they themselves are also confuse in the beginning, LOL.

So for our Nigerian crypto traders, you have to read between the lines, you don't want to be caught in the middle because of this misleading circular coming from CBN.

I believed the central  Bank top officials don't really have an in-depth knowledge of how cryptocurrencies operates and took a hasty decision by banning it, they later realised that  that had goofed having researched about it and later the Nigerian vice president later made a positive comment about cryptocurrencies on how it potentials can be harnessed which made the central bank to be retraced their earlierr statement.

It could be. It really seems they regret about the first decision of forbidding national banks to deal with crypto currency, but they are too proud to admit it was a mistake.
Maybe just now they start realizing how profitable can be for the country and for the government to adopt a more friendly stance regards bitcoin in Nigeria.

It seems like they are pushing traders on a trap. They would appear lenient and neutral at the matter, at face value, all the while ordering banks to suspend and close accounts of traders who used their bank accounts to trade crypto. This, to me, is a kind of manipulation and deception since the CBN and the government wants to be the 'good guys' while doing their part in the dark alley, enforcing this rule onto the local banks for the traders to not have any option but to stop trading.

Lol ;D what kind of central bank is this? I’ve been following up with this news and I am very sure that they closed bank accounts of cryptocurrency traders and I have seen this news as of recent, I think last weekend and I just laughed about it.

How can they just turn on what they have said, while they gave our orders to banks to close accounts trading cryptocurrencies which a lot of people saw their statement, so why are they now saying they didn’t try preventing traders from trading cryptocurrencies when they actually did it. It is totally wrong, so are they now encouraging people to start trading cryptocurrency again or what exactly?

I guess they are now regretting the actions they took, they should have taken time to consider it. And it’s good they now know that they can’t ban bitcoin, people will quickly switch to P2P.

The Central Bank is not only clueless with her decisions, they are so inhumane and  wicked. Imagine labelling the whole Bitcoin transactions as a medium by which terrorists operate and buy ammunitions in Nigeria as if it is not very possible with the banks as well, Bitcoins transaction transaction is an open source that can be used by anyone. They had been Militia attacks in the South South region of Nigeria before the introduction of bitcoin, how were those terrorists able to carry out their attacks? They have said in a statement released by;
Imagine Banks in other countries have started adopting the use of crypto in their sector, here in Nigeria the Central Bank is closing down the accounts of traders, where as companies like Binance, Crypto.com, Luno, Paxful and several others will start laying off some of thier services in Nigeria which will render a lot of youths working with those companies jobless.

If the CBN wants to protect the Naira, it should encourage an export styled economy and make loans readily available to those who need them to go into agriculture and manufacturing rather than the import module Nigeria runs. When a country depends on other countries for her supplies to feed her citizens, that country will be left at the mercy of those other countries. And this makes her currency suffer. That's the situation with Nigeria.


Fraud is as old as mankind. It's even older than the days of cowries and fiat. A lot of fraudulent activities occurred with the above medium of exchange but that didn't get them banned. I blame the CBN in all ramifications for such confusion on its stance on cryptocurrency. Emefiele shouldn't have dabbled into what he doesn't know its modus operandi in the first place. Also, remember that more people have been scammed through Fiat usage than crypto. So, why the hullabaloo on crypto by various governments if not that it tends to take away financial power from them and transfer it to the masses. That's the simple truth.

If they are not having a stable decision then they will confuse people who are investing in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency. I have seen reports about Nigeria coming up or planning to regulate the bitcoin market and if they identified that they cannot ban the market completely then it is a fair decision as they can implement those but you cannot expect everyone to stop trading all of a sudden in an open global market.

The Nigerian Central bank quick decision to reverse the ban it placed on crypto transactions is a sign that it was very well misinformed prior to making the decision. But in terms of confusing crypto its citizens, i think the citizens no longer care much about what the government says, especially when they know that the motive behind such was just to twat progress of the masses already involved in crypto.

The same has happened here in India. The citizens no longer care about the stupid polices and laws formulated by the government. Three months ago, the government announced that they are going to ban the possession (sic) of cryptocurrency and make it a criminal offense. After that, the local Indian exchanges have reported a 200% surge in trade volumes and millions of new users registering to their platforms. People simply don't care about incompetent governments and their blackmail tactics.

That's a relief. The ones whose bank accounts were closed are affected the most, they would have to signup to another bank at least so they can participate in the p2p soon. Its a sudden decision for CBN, leaving the funds of the closed accounts that will likely not going to be touched by the owners. But true that it creates confusion. The citizens in the country as we all have heard rely upon BTC.

I figure it wasn't actually their goal yet thinking about that the days in the middle of the on and off relationship of CBN towards digital money is short, this may have created some unintentional turmoil towards the cryptographic money clients in the country yet I may not be right and that there was an intrigue that they truly intended to confound individuals in any case (https://waterfilterly.com/best-water-softener-resin/) to make them not get into crypto on the grounds that there is a vulnerability.

Yeah, I read the news where the Central Bank of Nigeria banned cryptocurrencies and directed all banks in the country to block every accounts that has been involved with crypto sites. However, few days after that, the Vice President of the country spoke against the ban, urging the Central bank to lift the ban.
I'm sure the vice president speech must have in a way influenced their actions because days later, the ban was lifted and the Central Bank released a statement stating that Nigerians can now use cryptocurrencies.
You should know that despite the ban, Nigerians still used cryptocurrencies using the old method of P2P

Actually the case with most of the governments around the world is that they have no clarity about crypto regulations as they fear its usage being decentralised currencies unlike fiat but on the contrary basis they also don't want to loose revenue from the tax proceeds of crypto users.Nigeria being the country with most crypto traders and users obviously don't want to decrease their revenue sources and promote its usage with economy boost.So they are floating in two boats and just finalizing their decision which is why different statements are coming.But CBN has issued notice which states crypto P2P trade exchange can resume their work which is good news for all Nigerians and other.Most probably its their fianl decision as they have recognised its importance and main aim is to earn profits from business.

I have also been confused with this clarification of the CBN. Which makes me suspect that they will not be able to contain the desire of Nigerians to fully adopt bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in their lives.
The adoption has begun every day we gain more spaces. How can they refuse? They cannot, it is like a great wave of innovation and they remain as spectators.

Didn't they already ban all sort of crypto currencies in your country? I remember reading some threads few weeks ago where all bank accounts that were involved in crypto trading were closed without any warning. And that the central bank of your country issued a notice that trading and transacting with crypto currencies is illegal. So I don't think they are confused or anything. They did actually put a complete ban to it. Sucks you guys never got any warning or anything.
Since they said any transaction involving crypto is illegal, wouldn't that mean p2p transactions are also illegal?

Then I wonder what does this singular act of closing accounts does to the crypto community in Nigeria and around the world! What rubbish!! These politicians just go about viewing their subjects or the public not to be of reason at all. Its so unfair. They think as though, they have come to Lord over the flys 'Lord of flys'.
They see when a thing is working so good and they throw in an element of confusion and believe just a statement is all it takes to back there dirty acts up.

This calls for a more unified crypto community in Nigeria and the world and that, the crypto citizens of the world must stay strong in what we believe in and keep pushing till its accepted.

I think this is a good example of how governments test public opinion! They just throw a duck with some viral news and they look for comments and reactions, after that they will make a final decision on what to do... basically, it's how parties are staying in charge! It's easier to rule over confused masses!
For fighting against confusing government rules the entire nation should rise, all communities, not just a unified crypto community! I guess one community can start the process of changes, but for realization, a lot more people are needed! Just remember, those governments have their military and police protection!

They actually have a grasp of it and they know the potential, what they don't want is for the people to fully understand because it threatens the power of their authority especially in the banking services. I think that any government will do anything to keep their subjects docile and if confusing them is the key to it then they will do it.

I almost fill pity fir humanity after reading your comment. I wonder where we are heading with all this world politics and how it would help the world. Using fellow men, country men as test lab rats or Guinea pig. Creating chaos and then try to solve the problem! While the country is just trying to recover from the injustice that was done to its youths in the recent end sars and police brutality for which, the government has denied the truth behind its revelations and the injustice done to the country of killing its youths in course of the protest. I become really emotional when I see these things happen, how another being fails to see his fellow human as another human being.

Its a good point you raised there, they have there military and police to protect them and keep us at bay but most persons won't realise that. Its an institution used to hold us like shackles. They might help a little but really, they work for the government against the citizens.

I am sure the crypto community in Nigeria is quite upset with the Nigerian Central Bank's decision, indeed on the one hand it does not prohibit
crypto trading. But Nigerians cannot use local Banks for crypto transactions, this is indeed confusing crypto users in Nigeria. Indeed, the crypto
community in Nigeria should have started using P2P platforms for solutions that are happening in Nigeria. Maybe the Nigerian government wants
to make it more difficult for crypto users in Nigeria, so that Nigerian citizens prefer to use fiat. Whatever the reasons for the Nigerian government
for doing this, it is indeed a confusing decision.

Well, the Nigerian central bank ordered the banks to close bank accounts belonging to local cryptocurrency exchanges, not individual traders. Many people failed to understand this yet they are spreading FAKE NEWS. The bank accounts that were closed are corporate accounts belonging to cryptocurrency exchanges that accept Nigeria's local currency called "Naira".

I think that the bank doesn't want people to use cryptos, and that's natural. After all, cryptos show how people can make financial transactions without a bank, and how they can be fully in control of their money. However, I still don't think that the Central Bank is authorized to introduce a legally binding ban of cryptocurrencies. What they can do is make statements and close bank accounts, but it has to be either the government (and the Minister of Finance seems to be on it already) or the Parliament to introduce the legislation which would actually regulate cryptocurrencies. So now the bank is backing from the initial statement because it cannot enforce a ban, and also because it wouldn't want to fall out of favor of the Minister of Finance who said they'd be looking for a way to regulate cryptos rather than ban them.

They take decisions too fast before they get more information about cryptocurrencies, and when they update about the ban they reasoned that they only prohibit crypto currency from operating in the banking sector, they are afraid that when the public finds out about crypto that has the potential to threaten its power in the financial sector  , and they make up about news that is still not clear that might be aimed at seeing the reaction of the public about it.  this is just my assumption for a while.

It's obvious the CBN doesn't even have a solid reason for restricting Nigerian citizens from making transactions with thier bank accounts, it's clearly seen that CBN must have noticed that alot of crypto traders are really making it big in crypto therefore making them not being broke and can compete with those on power, like my friend said Nigerian government like being in control so maybe that's why there ban crypto to be able to be in full control monetary but there can't deny the fact that crypto is really helpful to their country.

well, I think it really affects nigerian citizens. Some decisions can be just fake news made in order to get the price of bitcoin below. After panicking Nigerian investors they started making the real news of bitcoin's return and prices started to rise. That often happens in cryptocurrencies.

I believe the Nigerian government is just confused and short of ideas. The best they could come up with as a solution to fall in naira was to ban crypto as they claimed it was responsible for the decrease in the value of naira. The question now is Why the sudden change of heart?  Was there a new research or findings that made them change their decision or is the government just playing games as usual. The  current administration quite popular for its incapability and inefficiency. All they can do is come up with things to distract the public from the real damage they are doing to the country( embezzlement of funds, extra judicial killings, e.tc.). I won't be surprised if they place a ban on crypto again.

The Nigerian central bank has a bad PR department,I guess.
Why can't they just share publicly their views on cryptocurrencies and their legal status in Nigeria,instead of sending a bunch of confusing messages to the public?
Was its so hard to say "It's OK to trade cryptocurrencies,but do not use your local bank account for buying cryptocurrencies or receiving fiat money for crypto coins that you have sold".
There's a reason platforms like Paxful are full with people from Nigeria. 

Yeah you're right. The government find it difficult to communicate with the citizens. This is not the first this has happened. It is a chain reaction really. The FG comes up with such tactics every now and then to derail the people from asking questions.

Its not just Paxful there are Nigerian exchanges like roqqu and Patrica that are being used by a lot of people. The ban was an effort to frustrate the citizens

that's what is happening in my country, the government in my country does not legalize crypto trading. neither do they prohibit. it's just that everyone has to comply with the rules. So I think this is a step that the country is taking, and Nigeria seems to have taken a wise step towards it

There are speculations that the reason is that CBN is trying to protect the value of Naira, hence the funny policy from them.

Most youths are now involved in crypto-related activities and blockchain technology cannot be stopped since it centers on the principle of decentralization.

However, crypto traders have been able to overcome this setback by falling back to the old way of buying and selling digital assets popularly known as Peer to Peer method.

A good number of exchanges have integrated the P2P platform and with this in place, traders can fund their crypto wallets and also withdraw from their crypto-wallets.

One of the things to consider when using this approach is safety. Scammers will want to take advantage of this opportunity and milk innocent crypto enthusiasts hence the need for newbies also known as noobs to transact using an exchange.

Personally, I prefer Quidax.com (http://Quidax.com) in funding and withdrawing my crypto assets. Quidax has an easy-to-navigate interface with a reliable customer support team.

For details on how to use the Quidax P2P platform, kindly visit this link:  https://blog.quidax.com/make-way-p2p-is-live-on-quidax/
 (https://blog.quidax.com/make-way-p2p-is-live-on-quidax/)

You can only get confused if you are confused already I don't think any of the steps taken by the government moved me a bit when I got the news, some friends were asking this and thatat but I wasn't moved because I know there are many platforms for me to trade without the central bank interference and all but its only the novice or starters that won't get this