Nigeria continuous banning of crypto

[Sarah Azhari]

Is this the same situation going  on in Nigeria as at now?

During the just ended elections we were reading all sorts of news such as shortage of hard cash which made trade difficult for goods and services, and people  resorted to using digital currencies such as Bitcoin..After bitcoin feeling the gaps where fiat failed does the Nigerian government still see bitcoin as the bad asset?? By now they should be working on the regulatory side of  cryprocurrencies and not trying to sweep it under the carpet, the dirt will accumulat and we all shall it sooner or later.

Maybe better for Nigerian people to lobby the senate or opposition party on the council and tell if Bitcoin is doesn't risk and loses money, or money laundry terrorism. I agree with what you said, this is also considered to convince the council to build crypto legislation in Nigeria. Indonesia was also like that, before there was a law like today, Enthusiasm People for crypto try to lobby the council to make governing rules so that people make crypto is not abused for criminal purpose.

[loopes]

Is this the same situation going  on in Nigeria as at now?
During the just ended elections we were reading all sorts of news such as shortage of hard cash which made trade difficult for goods and services, and people  resorted to using digital currencies such as Bitcoin..After bitcoin feeling the gaps where fiat failed does the Nigerian government still see bitcoin as the bad asset?? By now they should be working on the regulatory side of  cryprocurrencies and not trying to sweep it under the carpet, the dirt will accumulat and we all shall it sooner or later.

Sad to know that nigeria banned crypto currency. As you said before, that nigerian start to use digital currencies after there was the failed gaps on their fiat, then nigerian have flocking to adopt crypto currency such as bitcoin and etc. Based on the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index, nigeria at sixth rank refers to the country that adopt crypto massively, although the nigeria's central bank said that using crypto currency is "a direct contravention of existing law". ¹

Maybe better for Nigerian people to lobby the senate or opposition party on the council and tell if Bitcoin is doesn't risk and loses money, or money laundry terrorism. -snip-

Nigeria's government not only judge that crypto currency will cause money laundry, investment loss, terrorism financing but also they committed to ban commercial banks from dealing in crypto currency. they take a serious action to deny crypto currency in their country. Hope future will be better than this.

Reference ¹ =
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/cryptocurrency-usage-soars-in-nigeria-despite-bank-ban-70497781#:~:text=This%20is%20despite%20the%20country's,laundering%20and%20and%20terrorism%20financing.

[cydrix]

Despite efforts by the Nigerian government to outlaw the use of cryptocurrencies, we continue to rank among the countries that utilize them the most for a variety of trades and activities. The e-naira is insufficient to meet the expanding needs of online users because it only allows for the exchange of the currency that is currently in use in digital form. Other governments might be amenable to the cryptocurrency trend and adopt it lawfully, but they also make an effort to ensure that online police organizations assist in preventing a very nasty use of the cryptocurrency for other illegal or money-laundering operations.

[touseefahmad1999]

It is becoming more strict to transact crypto in Nigeria as the CBN now plant agents on Binance P2P to trade with you and intentionally add crypto keywords to the payment transaction so it can alert the bank to block the receiver's account.

This however is becoming outrageous for the Nigerian government and with no single doubt, the non-compliance of the young Nigerians not believing and making use of their newly launched E-naira must have triggered this action.

These wise traders are just exhausted of having their money controlled by the government.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigerian-banks-tracking-customer-accounts-for-crypto-trading

Nigeria has had a complicated relationship with cryptocurrencies. In February 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular prohibiting banks and other financial institutions from servicing cryptocurrency exchanges, effectively banning crypto trading in the country. The CBN cited concerns around the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and terrorist financing.

This move was met with criticism from the crypto community in Nigeria, as well as from some government officials and lawmakers who saw the ban as a barrier to innovation and economic growth.

However, the ban was recently lifted in October 2021, allowing Nigerians to once again participate in the crypto market. Despite this, the crypto market has continued to experience volatility, influenced by various global and local factors such as regulatory actions, market sentiments, and economic conditions

[lixer]

Despite efforts by the Nigerian government to outlaw the use of cryptocurrencies, we continue to rank among the countries that utilize them the most for a variety of trades and activities. The e-naira is insufficient to meet the expanding needs of online users because it only allows for the exchange of the currency that is currently in use in digital form. Other governments might be amenable to the cryptocurrency trend and adopt it lawfully, but they also make an effort to ensure that online police organizations assist in preventing a very nasty use of the cryptocurrency for other illegal or money-laundering operations.

Is Nigeria the first country to create its CBDC? I think the countries where the usage of cryptocurrencies is at a high rate are mostly trying to regulate the cryptocurrencies and any platforms that are directly or indirectly dealing with cryptocurrencies, and Nigeria is obviously one of them since there are a lot of users of cryptocurrencies.

Their efforts to crack down on every platform and to possibly regulate and if not possible, ban cryptocurrencies for the users so that the users turn to the CBDCs that they've created in order for them to keep an eye on everyone's finances.

[SirLancelot]

Nigeria has had a complicated relationship with cryptocurrencies. In February 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular prohibiting banks and other financial institutions from servicing cryptocurrency exchanges, effectively banning crypto trading in the country. The CBN cited concerns around the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and terrorist financing.

This move was met with criticism from the crypto community in Nigeria, as well as from some government officials and lawmakers who saw the ban as a barrier to innovation and economic growth.

However, the ban was recently lifted in October 2021, allowing Nigerians to once again participate in the crypto market. Despite this, the crypto market has continued to experience volatility, influenced by various global and local factors such as regulatory actions, market sentiments, and economic conditions

I don't really understand why an underdeveloped country would impose a ban on an innovation that can literally help their economy grow better and help the country and their people to have better lives and more income opportunities. I believe developing or underdeveloped countries should be the ones who should be more welcoming to a technology like blockchain and cryptocurrencies in general.

What do they really want to achieve by creating all these complications or by banning cryptocurrencies within the country? The government should let the people have their freedom with it and if they want, they should try to regulate it if they can.

[Lida93]

Nigeria has had a complicated relationship with cryptocurrencies. In February 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular prohibiting banks and other financial institutions from servicing cryptocurrency exchanges, effectively banning crypto trading in the country. The CBN cited concerns around the use of cryptocurrencies for money laundering and terrorist financing.

This move was met with criticism from the crypto community in Nigeria, as well as from some government officials and lawmakers who saw the ban as a barrier to innovation and economic growth.

However, the ban was recently lifted in October 2021, allowing Nigerians to once again participate in the crypto market. Despite this, the crypto market has continued to experience volatility, influenced by various global and local factors such as regulatory actions, market sentiments, and economic conditions

I don't really understand why an underdeveloped country would impose a ban on an innovation that can literally help their economy grow better and help the country and their people to have better lives and more income opportunities. I believe developing or underdeveloped countries should be the ones who should be more welcoming to a technology like blockchain and cryptocurrencies in general.

What do they really want to achieve by creating all these complications or by banning cryptocurrencies within the country? The government should let the people have their freedom with it and if they want, they should try to regulate it if they can.

It's not about being develop or underdevelop as a country or people, it's about the kind of leaders a country have as leaders in government. In the case of Nigeria I perceive a system of deliberate negligence on the people by the government, a situation where the government through the use of legitimate force barring all form of technological source of empowerment such like the cryptocurrency innovation to the timid youths. This act is meant to keep the youths broke, hunger for the scrumps that may fall off from their tables, thereby continuously acting as stooges and rubber stamp tools for their political ambitions.

Hence, should the timid youths have a much means if generating incomes with the free use of cryptocurrency it then pose as a threat to their stronghold on them. This among others are the underlying local factors and sentiment the engulf the whole situation.

[coupable]

No matter how the Nigerian government try to impose ban on the use of crypto currency, we still, however, rank high as one of the most users of the crypto for varying transactions or trade. The e-naira is insufficient to meet the grown needs of online users, in that it is limited to the currency in use, by making it available in digital form for exchange. Other governments may be open to the crypto currency trend and adopt it legally but they also try to ensure policing agencies online help prevent a rather malicious use of the crypto currency for other criminal or laundering activities.
Hopefully with a new government to be elected and sworn in by next year, we hope to see a widespread embrace of the crypto currency already in existence for trade and commerce. This will help curb inflation too.

I think even this current Government have found out they made a mistake trying to replace it with E-naira. We could see they are trying to cover some ground by there recent events. The partnership with Binance to educate youths about blockchain is already a sign that there is hope of its legality

This need not be a good indication of the Nigerian government's intentions to go more smoothly with cryptocurrencies, at least not to let the digital naira project fail. All African countries are not expected to take any significant step towards adoption, unless this is prompted by allied economies at the same time that citizens do not value them in the first place.
Binance launches training courses and conferences in many countries, even those that do not officially adopt cryptocurrencies, as they did recently in Egypt and before that in Morocco, which are countries that are very strict in their legislation against the uses of crypto. Most estimates indicate that Binance wants to qualify people to work for it or is looking for potential employees, since this sector is going through a severe crisis in the lack of developers in the field of blockchain and dealing with Web3 applications.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

This need not be a good indication of the Nigerian government's intentions to go more smoothly with cryptocurrencies, at least not to let the digital naira project fail. All African countries are not expected to take any significant step towards adoption, unless this is prompted by allied economies at the same time that citizens do not value them in the first place.

The eNaira that the government launched wasn't their idea, it was that of the CBN government and it was a targeted strategy to win the just concluded election. They won't tell Nigerians this but immediately the election ended, things about the new currency and eNaira immediately started dieing off the media. The government are thinking of removing the just launched new note. Their plans for the election wasn't successful so they saw no use of it since the incoming government mightn't support their ideas. The problem of Nigeria not accepting Bitcoin was mainly because we had a clueless president (government) and they'll be leaving office this month.

The newly elected president is pro blockchain as he has made statement supporting blockchain throughout his campaign and also during his acceptance speech so the ban would be lifted soon I believe. He isn't Nigerians prefer candidate but winning elections without corruption is something that has become part of our election process and it'll take a very long time to educate the citizens to removed themselves from such mindset if accepting bribe to vote. By the end of next year I believe the ban would ha even lifted as there wasn't no need for it in the first place, it didn't stop anything they thought the ban would stop instead it increase the awareness of the citizens towards the cryptocurrency industry.

[ancafe]

-Snip- The newly elected president is pro blockchain as he has made statement supporting blockchain throughout his campaign and also during his acceptance speech so the ban would be lifted soon I believe. He isn't Nigerians prefer candidate but winning elections without corruption is something that has become part of our election process and it'll take a very long time to educate the citizens to removed themselves from such mindset if accepting bribe to vote. By the end of next year I believe the ban would ha even lifted as there wasn't no need for it in the first place, it didn't stop anything they thought the ban would stop instead it increase the awareness of the citizens towards the cryptocurrency industry.

We hope it happens so that Nigeria becomes one of the countries that accept bitcoin as a commodity asset that can be traded legally, many countries are implementing this system and one of them is the country where I live, where bitcoin is illegal to use as a legal means of transaction but legal as a commodity asset, so the growth of crypto in general is attracting a lot of young people and some older people especially in my country. To me accepting bitcoin as a commodity asset is far more than enough, even though they manage a centralized exchange with regulated operational licenses.

I am a little optimistic that for the foreseeable future Nigeria will treat crypto and bitcoin as commodity assets. Moreover, if they are able to conceptualize it correctly, the exchange can take part of the profits by applying taxes, so that indirectly the state's income will also increase slowly according to the education given to the people there. I see this great potential and our government is also implementing it, so that the presence of crypto and bitcoin is not a threat to fiat currency as many people accuse.

[Dewiana]

Sad to see this happening in Nigeria and its like that they are closing the doors of their citizens to learn something beneficial to them and it looks like their government doesn't want their citizens to improve their lives by discovering new technology which can possibly give them decent income. Anyways hopefully we can see a change of decision here since imposing a law like this is quite not good for people and its adoption.

Because a poor and vulnerable population is easy to control. They are scared that if people look for other ways of earning wealth away from their reach, then that would mean that they would not be able to control and manipulate the population.

It's a war the Nigerian Government will never win, the best thing they would try to do is maybe regulate crypto trading and maybe tax, but banning? Impossible.

In the country, if we take a quick look, the country is lagging behind economically and so on, that's what happened robbery and other crimes and why ban crypto because nigerian government wants to improveFinancial security prevents excessive digital transactions because it impacts the stability of the country

[Patrol69]

I feel heart broken knowing that the Nigerian government, up till this point haven't withdraw the ban on Crypto Currency. That is a major setback because it could lead to more loss of business and employment opportunities.
I don't know if the government are ignorant of the disadvantages of the ban because how on earth would they say they don't know that crypto currency through the help of blockchain has improved many financial institutions in the world.

Since Nigeria is a financially weak country, they should accept the challenge of adopting Bitcoin to alleviate their financial woes. Perhaps the adoption of Bitcoin in their country will improve their country's financial situation. I don't understand why their country's government is deciding against Bitcoin every time. Nigeria many citizens are involved in Bitcoin I think they should accept Bitcoin even if they think about business. 

Nigeria can follow El Salvador if it wants to because this Central American country is already getting positive results by adopting Bitcoin and they are currently implementing various measures in their country through Bitcoin. If El Salvador can improve its financial status by accepting Bitcoin why can't Nigeria.

[LordMiguel]

Every day. it is a new update on crypto ban in Nigeria. i woke up to this current one but i think it will not hold.
https://gazettengr.com/just-in-sec-bans-binance-operation-in-nigeria-declares-it-illegal-entity/
i think the hunt is getting serious. trying to stop Nigerians from utilizing the current decentralized systems to improve their business.

[Aikidoka]

Every day. it is a new update on crypto ban in Nigeria. i woke up to this current one but i think it will not hold.
https://gazettengr.com/just-in-sec-bans-binance-operation-in-nigeria-declares-it-illegal-entity/
i think the hunt is getting serious. trying to stop Nigerians from utilizing the current decentralized systems to improve their business.

Even Binance too? That doesn't seem good actually! I wonder why they're banning Bitcoin, considering that Nigeria isn't financially strong and Bitcoin could certainly help many Nigerians make money and strengthen the economy over time. To be honest, It doesn't make any sense. I hope this issue gets resolved soon, and they implement regulations that make Bitcoin and crypto legal in Nigeria again as I'm pretty sure it would help the country alot in the future.

[Timmzzy]

It is becoming more strict to transact crypto in Nigeria as the CBN now plant agents on Binance P2P to trade with you and intentionally add crypto keywords to the payment transaction so it can alert the bank to block the receiver's account.

This however is becoming outrageous for the Nigerian government and with no single doubt, the non-compliance of the young Nigerians not believing and making use of their newly launched E-naira must have triggered this action.

These wise traders are just exhausted of having their money controlled by the government.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigerian-banks-tracking-customer-accounts-for-crypto-trading

I was thinking this topic should be in the local board (NAIJA) , well with that been said, what we pass through here is our leaders, it is very obvious that the citizen of NIGERIA who understood the future of crypto are not given the opportunity to adopt, recently BINANCE was tag to be NOT LEGAL but the question here i have, is it now they did know binance was registered and so on, hwat about those times binance has been sponsoring some events in Nigeria and so many other activities they have engaged with. The leadership system in Nigeria is dam... screwed.

[sokani]

You all got it wrong Nigerian government did not banned cryptocurrency, it was the central bank of nigerian that placed a ban on cryptocurrency or should I say asked the commercial banks to flag accounts associated with crypto activities. That being said, this is now old news as there's a new development. Nigeria now has a new financial act that makes provision for cryptocurrency, so cryptocurrency is no longer banned or restricted in Nigeria. The new act attracts a 10% crypto tax on capital gains. The act is just 1 or 2 months old and we are waiting to get more information on how it will be implemented.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/nigeria-to-tax-crypto-digital-assets-10-on-capital-gains-experts-react/amp

[Alphie12]

A high percentage don't even have banks.

[Woodie]

A few weeks or is it months back during elections, we we reading and seeing all sorts of video clips of unrest because Nigerians were unable to withdraw money from their banks as the banking system was crippled,  but now that the have an alternative I really don't understand why they would still chose to suppress a solution that has come right on their door step...

What are they afraid of?? Loss of revenue of through taxes   well this is a possibility lol, loss of control...

Maybe we are jumping the gun, and this might  have changed for the better??

[Fuso.hp]

It takes a long time to understand such a sudden decision in Nigeria. I don't see enough reason why the Nigerian government is banning cryptocurrency in their country. I don't see enough reason why they are deciding to ban crypto currency in their country again when Nigeria is already a very financially damaged country. Maybe the Nigerian government doesn't want their citizens to invest in Bitcoin anymore. But it is possible to financially empower a country by allowing cryptocurrencies in its own country if the government of that country can plan differently and act accordingly. Many people in Nigeria are involved with crypto currency. If the crypto currency is banned in their country, it could have a bad effect on the families of Nigerians.

[sokani]

It takes a long time to understand such a sudden decision in Nigeria. I don't see enough reason why the Nigerian government is banning cryptocurrency in their country. I don't see enough reason why they are deciding to ban crypto currency in their country again when Nigeria is already a very financially damaged country.

If you read through some text recently you would have come across my post where I mentioned the new financial act by the Nigerian government. The recently signed act makes provision for crypto, so cryptocurrency is no longer banned in the country because they government now wants to tax its citizens for using cryptocurrency.

A few weeks or is it months back during elections, we we reading and seeing all sorts of video clips of unrest because Nigerians were unable to withdraw money from their banks as the banking system was crippled,  but now that the have an alternative I really don't understand why they would still chose to suppress a solution that has come right on their door step...

What are they afraid of?? Loss of revenue of through taxes  well this is a possibility lol, loss of control...

Maybe we are jumping the gun, and this might  have changed for the better??

What you saw on the internet was the reaction to the unavailabity of new naira notes and the poorly implemented cashless policy that brought about a lot of suffering. We're over that now. Concerning the government new position on cryptocurrency in the country, since the ban was not effective as many persons were still using P2P services, maybe it's beginning to dawn on them of the benefits they stand to get if the accept cryptocurrency.