Bitcoin Forum

I am so much concerned to why Nigerians government is banning the use of p2p on some crypto apps. To their allegations, it's said the crypto is affecting the currency and it also aids money laundry. Can anyone enlighten if what the government is doing is the right thing. The government left the banking sector and blames binance and other crypto companies.

Are you a Nigerian? If yes, your question will get a wider response from Nigerian citizens. We have a local board; you can just check the  bottom level of this thread and move it over there in the board section to search for Nigeria (Naija). 
 
The reason they are fighting P2P is simple: they believe and assume P2P traders are the ones manipulating the naira to dollar exchange rate, which is far from the truth. As they are trying to manipulate the market, forex and crypto traders are conducting their normal trade based on market demand, and I don't see any big effect on how such can contribute to the naira depreciation. 
 
 
They should focus more on tackling things that can boost the economy of the country, encourage high usage of locally made products, and reduce too much dependence on imported goods.

This is an attack on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. This is their Anti- Bitcoin campaign. They keep blaming crypto exchanges for facilitating money laundering and manipulating the foreign exchange yet according to the report from their anti-graft agency 58 ex-governors had looted N2.187trn, did they do it via Bitcoin or through an exchange? No. Currently the Nigerian customs services charges clearance for goods at the port in US dollars. Is this supposed to be? Why did they abandon the nation's currency to use dollar. As you can see, they have no tangible reason. It's is their Anti- Bitcoin campaign and their next target is you, me, and the rest of Nigerians that have Bitcoin and cryptocurrency.

*Topic suited more for local board

I imagine P2P naira transactions also aid money laundering as well. (I am not Nigerian.)

The Nigerian government always comes up with a lot of excuses just to undo the crypto community. Is Nigeria the only country in sub-saharan Africa to use P2P, why are other African countries not have the same issue. My own question is, how is P2P affecting the countries currency, does the value of the countries currency depend on P2p?, They should explain to us. How does P2P aid money laundering and why is the laundering happening only in Nigeria?

The government claims that the speculation of the Naira in these exchanges is the cause of the drop in the value of the currency. The litmus test for this claim is to check if the value of Naira will rise if Naira P2P is delisted from exchanges. Nigerian currency has kept losing value even before the popularity of cryptocurrencies in Nigeria, therefore I suspect that the sector is not the main problem of the Nigerian currency.
Regarding money laundering, fiat is the major means of carrying out criminal transactions in Nigeria. There have been situations where the Central Bank transfers funds to fraudulent accounts of government officials. One of the witnesses in the judicial trial of the former CBN governor testified of how physical fiat currency where moved from the bank to individuals. So the test for the claim is whether this move will reduce money laundering in Nigeria.

It's a very fine balancing act for these countries between getting everyone to pay their share of taxes, which keeps the country going and overstepping their boundaries to shake down people for additional funds. Whoever controls the money flow controls the people within that country, so the politicians at the top will be able to coerce and pressure anyone who doesn't agree with what they say. It's a very fine line between oppressive corruption and trying to monitor that everyone is contributing correctly. However this sort of action is just likely to push p2p further underground and the government will have no visibility of it whatsoever, because overseas companies are going to cooperate with them much less than local companies might.

Different governments of different nations have different opinions and views on cryptocurrency. You should post this in your local board so you can talk about your government more intricately because a lot of us here do not have context regarding the Nigerian government. Our only reference would be our country thus we can not answer whether your government is doing the thing or not.

That’s the way the government painted it, but the main reason why they are trying hard to bring every P2P platform down is because they see it as a place where manipulation of naira/usdt take place and to them it’s the main reason why the Naira currency is depreciating against the dollar. You ask me if they are right, my answer will be Same way other countries governments think bitcoin is the one aiding money laundering and neglecting other actual things leading to it is the same way Nigeria government are focused on the P2P.

Yes i wouldn’t say the P2P has a very large/rapid adoption rate because it is the easiest way that the citizens get hodl of the foreign currency but it definitely isn’t the manipulator here or result of money laundering. The government just wants to get hold of a thing to accuse and cryptocurrency came right into the equation for them

It's very sad and pathetic  by the Nigerian government thinking that banning p2p transaction will strengthen the naira, because they have fail to understand that as it stands now, the country is doing more importation than exportation, even the least tooth pick is being imported, tell me why the naira wouldn't lose value?

Since they decided to be fighting cryptocurrency and the forex trading, what have they achieved? Has the naira gained value? No, they are doing the wrong thing over and over again thinking and be expecting a different result, am just curious to know how they want to go about it, because in Nigeria that am from, I know for a fact that we are crazy technologically, their is always a way to beat sanctions, let's just watch and see where this line of actions leads them too.

There is an existing similar thread like this which I made couple of days now at the other board but was redirected meant to be in the local board which I did and fortunately we came from the same country Nigeria.
The fear of our Nigerian Fed. Govt. over Crytop transactions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5495307.msg64032449#msg64032449).

I will only say that the federal government is a confused one and the current government in power have been incompetent to carryout their civil and economical duties professionally.
They are failure to the masses because there had been no good record to be recommended ever since the present government assumed office. So literally they are cramping on what they give unnecessary excuse account of their inability to satisfied the nation with their necessary needs but meanwhile.... They(government) are the ones backwarding the growth of the economy and depriving their citizens from engaging on productive opportunities.

How can a country be in such odd financial regulatory staggers in facilitating transactions and undergoing unemployment challenges and its citizens were able to discover how helpful the Bitcoin and the Crypto industry as a whole could be profitable to fill those lapses of the federal government being unable to create job opportunities for their citizens which attracted them (citizens) to had adopted the digital and financial technology to venture in to earn income and also to facilitate on their financial transactions with the use of the crypto P2P with the fact that the centralized banks is not offering flexible services but yet the government is fighting against the treasury opportunity?

Currently as it is, the government has to an extend trying to disassociate the fiat naira (#) from every P2P platforms while majority has already been delisted living the citizens with their crypto holdings frustrated from trading their assets from the exchange platforms.

Of course what the Nigerian government doing is not right. On the issue of money laundering, people also launder money through naira, so why only looking at crypto? Cryptocurrency can be traced and that's why we've the blockchain analytic companies like Chainalysis, Elliptic, Ciphertrace etc. Also, currency speculators are not responsible for the fall of naira, the government is, with their half baked policies and they're actually looking for who to blame by going after BDE operators and crypto traders. Even if they succeed in delisting naira on all exchanges, it won't revive the naira and they'll miss out on an opportunity to tax users and crypto operators.

Haven’t you seen that this is just a misplacement of priority by the government. They neglect the basic solution and go after the secondary solution that won’t help solve the problem they’re facing forever. They banned Binance initially and if the result they get after banning Binance is not positive, why will they go after other exchanges? What can’t kill a man can’t kill it no matter how you try. Naira is falling and the main causes of it are known but due to government corrupt mindset and take away the eyes of the public on their corrupt practices, they’ve now blamed everything on cryptocurrency so that it can be viewed as a bad investment idea or initiative to ride on. Let them ban all p2p on exchanges, it can’t stop crypto and bitcoin from wide adoption and use, it can’t be stopped at this point again.

All these are lame excuses as government just wants to control everything and they are so corrupt and sadistic that they don't want anyone to prosper on life hence they are banning it though money laundering has been happening since ages and it irritates me to the core when they try acting like they really wanna fight illegal activities when they are the most corrupt establishment on earth. Same applies for Indian government.

But it won't stop the money laundering syndicate from doing this though, they will all end up just finding more craftier ways to circumvent the existing restriction and at the end of the day, the people that they're going to mess up good will be the ones that don't have anything to do with money laundering. So in short, the attempt to prevent money launderers from committing their crimes, they end up making them much more sneakier, they could've just kept P2P and those money launderers wouldn't be straying to new ways and their work would be much more easier.

When you say "some crypto apps", does that mean some crypto apps are also running and continue facilitating P2P transactions? If yes, then it's probably a cleanup operation that the government has undertaken. If not, it's surely a blow on the crypto community.

May I ask, if these apps are all Nigeria based? Are international P2P crypto exchanges working in your country? Any government can choose to ban crypto exchanges but as logn as it is not a blanket ban, things should work!

Governments don't care about what citizens think about their decisions, they don't care whether it's the right thing to do or not, they make decisions that will benefit them or won't affect them having more power and control over their citizens, and to be precise, this is mostly happening in third-world or developing countries where governments aren't able to accept cryptocurrencies and they are always looking for excuses to keep them away from their countries.

This money laundering and criminal activities and stuff are nothing more than excuses they make to make people think that they are protecting them but the reality is different and those who are involved in cryptocurrencies and use them understand that they are trying to suppress them doing this.

This is not something new Russian government also did the same and they not only banned p2p but they have banned the crypto overall. Just because there financial advisor or relevant person said, it is devaluing the local currency. Speaking of your country, I won't say its a bad move but if they will be banning p2p services then how people will withdraw funds and how can they use their own money? This way the demand for there money will decrease as people won't be able to withdraw funds and to get more local fiat.

According to my knowledge, the demand for local currency should be high, and if foreign current is being earned by locals and then converted into local currency then it's a good thing for the country's economic state. And when more money comes more financial transactions will be made in local communities and money will flow as work will happen on the local level as with more money consumption increases thus production will increase too. However there is a bad side to it too. As a lot of supply of the local currency can also devalue it CMIIW. As there are many of the other possibilities exist too. But who knows the actual reason? Maybe these P2P platforms are not paying taxes to the government or what?

The government in Nigeria is probably trying to fix up it dilapidating economy but using a wrong approach on that, maybe they should device on other means to use for such, if they are to continue in this regards, then they should be getting ready to ban as many as possible crypto trading platforms and exchanges and with that, they should still expect the economy to keep getting worse than before because that is not the effective approach to dealing with economy challenges.

they were doing this by banning p2p on exchanges that were not within their jurisdiction afaik. i guess this is like controlling what they can only grasp and whats outside their reach is something to be banned. very reasonable i think, the ones that were banned were binance and OKX so far.

i'm just not sure if the information i saw was true because their government still allows p2p from Bitget and some other local crypto exchanges.

Even if they want to control people, this is crypto market, so they can't control all the crypto activities of people. They will always find a way how to transact in this market. They can only regulate the use of it but total control? They are just fooling themselves if they think they can totally contain all the crypto transactions within their jurisdiction.
So I have the feeling, sooner or later, they will change their stance on this matter. If they will see neighbouring countries to be very open on this type of crypto business, they will alter their decision on this matter. I guess, it is only a matter of time to change such outlook on this market.

I don't know to what extent those allegations are right but I don't think that banning p2p exchanges could ever be a good step taken by a government. The Nigerian government is making it much harder for crypto users to be part of the crypto market because most crypto users buy Bitcoin and other crypto currencies from p2p exchanges and if those aren't allowed then it gets tough for them to invest in Bitcoin or other crypto currencies. I know the ones with good technical skills can come up with alternative solutions but most citizens won't be able to purchase anything.

All this is Because the government doesn’t know what is the problem of the country and let me say it’s also a greedy government, if you take a look at this you will know that this thing they are doing doesn’t have meaning, they are just doing it because they should steal what the youth of Nigeria have work for because they know that many Nigeria youths now are having money in crypto ways, the country did not provide work for the youths, there are many graduates on the street running about and complaining of being unemployed, and now that some of the youths have become successful in crypto ways the leaders are trying to stop them, to be honest, Nigeria government are not good leaders because if they are they will surely in support of crypto not in other ways of stopping the youths that did not have work to get a way to survive.

Stopping P2P can not bring back Nigeria, what is happening to Nigeria is not a dollar problem, the problem is from the business people and the rich people in the country, the last time they were complaining about the dollar that it was dollar that made things price increase and when the dollar price come down the price of things remains the same, and now that things price are still getting High every day they are now blaming the crypto, I’m not saying this just to feel like disrespecting the leaders but presently the Nigeria government and the leaders don’t know what the exact problem of the country.

I'm not sure if you're Nigerian, but the same topic has been created on our local board. But let me respond to your question. In Nigeria, our government has no other good reasons for trying to delist our local currency from P2P trading. I wonder how p2p causes naira manipulation. Based on your question, our government is not doing the right thing because they've been trying to ban cryptocurrency in Nigeria for many years, and is impossible. This year seems to be different from previous years when our government banned Twitter in Nigeria, but it was later unbanned.

Our government refuses to see the challenges that we are going through in the country, they are unable to fight for our right to a better living, all the strength they have is to fight against Cryptocurrency, they want to ban anything associated with it. Even our local banks have informed us, that any account associated with cryptocurrency trading would be closed. They believe that's the best way for Nigeria to improve.

The issue is grey; they're saying P2P is the reason why the naira is failing against the dollar, but they haven't fixed the core issue. They're just clueless, in my opinion; crypto can't be stopped, and I think they're fighting a battle that can't be won, haha. Most of my friends have migrated to Bitget P2P already, citing their rates as one major reason.

They clearly abandon the well being of thier citizens.These decisions that they have taken can cause significant damages to individuals,businesses and the financial sectors to a very large extent.
Extremely,governments manipulative actions towards the citizens increasingly contributes to financial breakdown and decline in the overall economic activities.
There are several other suspicious means whereby people can illegally participate in financial crimes,but they choose to regard bitcoin as a means which people carry out there illegal activities.People see,understand,respond,and retaliate to things differently,and that's a truth sincerely..

When I first see this on Nairametrics, I wasn't move a bit because p2p didn't start today and wouldn't end tomorrow. We were doing p2p transactions right before the exchanges implementated it, even in this forum there were escrow here acting as the middle person to settle trade but centralized exchanges saw this opportunity as marketing strategies to draw customers by not charging any fees and it became so big as a multi billion dollars investment.

If the government decides to ban this, I think this will bring a rise in decentralized p2p where the government doesn't have anything to do with them, even this one they are threatening it's left for the centralized exchanges to agree with them or not but as long as the exchanges doesn't charge anything for those p2p transactions, the government has nothing on the them and beside, dollar to naira is now an open market which depend on the forces of demand and supply, I don't understand why the government is chasing shadows.

Yes what they are just doing now could be initial gragra, tell me how possible they can control the system, even if the ban P2P some investors can still hold their BTC or any other crypto till when their is a way out it's effects only will be the slowing down on investor, I believe before the P2P was introduced people where even not too comfortable at the first restrictions they placed on crypto and that is the origin of P2P today it's the best way to transact other way will come out, is not to make law or policy but enforcing the policy to work. When you look at some problem facing our nation crypto is not meant to be in the list we always pursue shadow in place of the real facts.

They started with Binance exchange but they're also attacking other banking systems as they have restricted fin tech banks to stop accepting registration of new users and they have also made other crypto exchanges to stop support for the Naira trading peers on their P2P exchange but they are focusing on centralized exchanges and fin tech. That is where they have the power but not on decentralized P2P services and the threat of delisting Naira on all Decentralization P2P exchange is an empty threat.

They aren't wrong with their statement of cryptocurrency affecting the volatility of our Naira since some big whales has been manipulating the price of Naira on those exchange and the citizens don't trust the economy and the local currency so they're saving in foreign currency. But the problem of the Nigeria economy and Naira stability is bigger than what is happened in crypto P2P trading.

What the government are doing isn't right but they won't stop since they keep seeing result from the bans and attacks on the fin tech and crypto exchanges. The government wants to be in control of the forex exchange markets and anybody using crypto for the exchange of dollars and Naira through usdt or other crypto is an enemy to the government so they want to take down any means of foreign exchange in the country all in the attempts to stabilized the Naira. They don't have solutions but just looking for short term fixes that won't last so let not be bothered that much.

The Nigerian government have not officially banned Nigerians from trading in Naira on cryptocurrency exchanges, but they are systematically targeting the exchanges and "forcing" them to delist Naira from their platforms, they have also warned banks in Nigeria to block accounts that receive funds from a crypto transactions. Thus i think the ban is inevitable or maybe this might just be a temporary attack.

That being said, the government are not leaning towards curbing money laundering, but rather they say they want to cushion the volatility of the Naira, and they claim that Naira speculators on these exchanges are guilty of price manipulations that is affecting the Naira. This is not entirely true per se, as the Naira and the Nigerian economy suffers due to far more serious problems caused by the government itself, but it is what it is, and as long as you live in a particular country, you must abide by its laws.

Well, it's outside their control. Outside equals bad in their dictionary, so they're trying to do something about it but I don't think there's anything solid they can even do about it. Geoblocking can only do so much and they can't exactly force a service online to go down since they only control the rules in their country, not outside of it. Centralized they can control a bit more about it, but p2p, again, limited.

Now If I were to put what they're doing between right and wrong, if it was indeed for money laundering then yea, I mean they need to do it anyway, part of their job in protecting stuff. But most of the time it's not really limited to that, they just choose to use that as their frontal image so that they have a valid excuse.

The government is doing the right thing based on what they think about it. But of course for the people, they're doing something against them.

The Nigerian government has been strict lately. Despite that they're having a large volume that's coming from their country, the government noticed that and they don't want any other platform benefit from that.

And that's why, they're banning exchanges and these p2p crypto apps. That's what they think is the right thing to do so that their people would be relying on their own country's platform if ever they have this kind of tradable apps.

This is also what happening in our country, SEC is trying to fully banned Binance so the local exchanges can benefit from this.

Well, the government will always be corrupt if they only want things in favor to them and will not let their people to control their own money, it looks like they are being manipulated by the banks as well.

We can't do anything about this but to hope that these government will later on favor crypto and make a regulations that will help everyone and not just for their own interest.

I'm not from Nigeria so I don't know exactly what the reason behind it is, but my guess is that this issue is more related to taxes. Perhaps the government feels the amount of tax collected is not commensurate with the amount of money Binance earns, and when an agreement cannot be reached between the two sides, it is understandable for them to ban Binance or other exchanges.

What's more interesting than the word I realized is that many investors have always criticized and slandered centralized exchanges but when centralized exchanges were banned in their countries, they started criticizing the government. This makes me suspicious of people who always say they only use decentralized exchanges as well as non-custodial wallets. Because if they use centralized exchanges, I don't think Binance being banned is a serious problem for them.

Exactly the point, all Government care about is themselves and are not bothered about what the citizens think or want they just want to have total control over everything and are bringing up excuses of money laundering just so they can have a reasonable excuse to shut down p2p and Crypto trading in the country. They also went as far as instructing banks to block every account that carryout any form of crypto transaction this just proves how negatively they think of cryptocurrency and are doing everything possible just to shut it down totally but i don’t think they will succeed, all they can do is try to suppress it but they can’t stop crypto transactions totally and i feel all this is just for thee time being. What is happening to the country is far more beyond cryptocurrency being the cause of the currency being unstable but the government is not ready to tackle more serious problems.

The information you saw are true, p2p have been banned and few exchanges as you mentioned Binance and OKX have stopped Naira trading on p2p and according to news the government will attempt to stop Naira trading on every centralized exchanges gradually so for now there are still some exchanges that allows p2p trading of Naira.

The reasons government is giving are all excuses because despite Binance and OKX delisting Naira from their p2p trading platform the Naira/Dollar rate doesn’t seem to be dropping instead it’s still rising. This shows p2p trades is not the reason behind the drop of value of Naira.

Possible about the taxes and these platforms aren't registered in Nigeria and that's why they're taking them down and starting to ban most of them.

There can be some negotiations and then compliance with requirements to make them legally operate in their country.

But even so, if the government has already discouraged its citizens from using these platforms. I guess that there will still a lot of citizens gonna find a way for them to trade whether with p2p or exchanges.

Nigerian government have banned cryptocurrency so many times still people in Nigeria is still using a cryptocurrency mostly Bitcoin so it is not a something of new any longer even though this current government restrict all the crypto people to exchange their cryptocurrency through binance exchange and other exchanges Nigerians will still have another alternative to trade their Bitcoin so it is not a new something that government of Nigeria continue to restrict citizens of not participating in cryptocurrency mostly Bitcoin

This is not exactly the situation in Nigeria, the government are not delisting Naira on global exchanges so that the local ones can flourish, they basically do not want Nigerians to be trading virtual currencies, even though they have not explicitly banned it.

What our government sets out to achieve is somewhat vague, earlier this year they lifted the ban on banks processing cryptocurrency transactions, and only a few months later they are requesting the same banks to block accounts that receive money from a crypto transaction, it's fast becoming a farce.

Of course, investors will not accept their fate and will find ways to trade if the government and Binance cannot reach any agreement. But I think the Nigerian government's crackdown on Binance or other exchanges has another purpose, in addition to wanting to collect higher taxes from exchanges, I think they also want to send a warning to investors in their country. I wouldn't be surprised that many bitcoin investors are using bitcoin to avoid taxes because this is also happening in my country. Most people do not want to pay taxes to the government and the government does not like this.

To me, banning of p2p can never be possible especially in a country like Nigeria with low technological advancement. Nigeria is blessed with people with high talented intelligence quotient . These people can go to any length to escape any measure taken by the government to ban p2p.
They know that cryptocurrency transaction is not the real problem of Nigeria let me say they are just looking for excuses.

These sorts of laws are a signal of a very weak and controlling government, which often indicates that the politicians themselves are screwing over their citizens at every opportunity with complete hypocrisy. Overseas banks don't like to hand over information to the Nigerian government necessarily, because it can be so petty and this is a prime example. Crypto has the opportunity to draw more money into the local economy, if it was just left alone, but instead the banking and currency exchange vultures throw their scraps to the politicians who in turn ban the competition against them. I imagine that lots of extra cash would flow in and be beneficial to the wider economy if this law was scrapped.

In additive to this they should try to make most payment in naira. I don't see what stop our airport from collecting our naira as their payment method. If we can still to local products and make almost all transactions withon the country in naira, I believe this will reduce the demand for dollar within the nation and will help naira to appreciate.

The quest and inability to haunt bitcoin is what's revealing and leading to this new improvement.The money laundering allegations are not caused by bitcoin or cryptocurrency.They just find it very difficult for bitcoin to operate freely and get accessible to all users.
Crypto has the opportunity to improve and increase the economical standards but in as much as the governments doesn't see it,there has to be another way out.
Bitcoin is not the problem where facing in the financial field,neither will this continous restrictions proffer any solutions as well.

I don't think the government does not see in what ways or how bitcoin can improve their economic status. Most likely they are just assessing whether the beneficial impacts can outweigh other 'negative' things they think are associated with bitcoin.
There really is no problem so they shouldn't put in anyrestrictions or regulations to try and fix it. You know what they say... Don't fix what is not broken.

The Nigerian government is too afraid of technological developments and this is the attack they are trying to carry out on cryptocurrencies and bitcoin.
The reasons they use make absolutely no sense because there are many countries out there that see this problem as another form that does not affect money laundering or their currency. If the banking sector can be blamed what about the crypto industry and I think your country has absolutely no intention of reaching this stage of technological progress.

If the state restricted this industry for reasons of money laundering, this would have happened long before using the same method using official currency. That is just the behavior of a few people and cannot be lumped together as your government understands.

Do you really think banning of p2p can ever be possible especially in a country like Nigeria with low technological advancement? Nigeria is blessed with people with high talented IQs . These people can go to any length to escape any measure taken by the government to ban p2p.
They know that cryptocurrency transaction is not the real problem of Nigeria let me say they are just looking for excuses which are not really excuses i just see it as a form of hypocrisy and wickedness. The government don't even care about the wellbeing of their citizens. They know what they did to the dollar and naira but they are trying to deceive themselves.

they are just looking for reasons to ban crypto, because they think that crypto is the best place for money laundering. even though we all already know how money laundering is best done using fiat currency and banking assistance. what they are doing is quite stupid, because if they are smart then what they should be doing is not banning crypto, but taking care of their currency which is currently falling and their economy is getting worse.