Cashless Policy & Redesigned of Banknotes Make Citizens to Use BTC in Nigeria

[GiftedMAN]

I would have agreed with the op if the whole drama as seen in the image posted by the op is caused by the cashless policy in Nigeria, you can explain better than this simply by pointing out the reason why that drama took place maybe because the country changed some of her currency note and a lot of people find it difficult to get the new notes in the bank that is very simple but coming up here to talk about the cashless policy as the reason behind this is not true. For a country that is yet to accept bitcoin as a means of payment, how will citizens of that same country choose p2p transactions knowing that they can't get all they want without them local fiat currency? In promoting bitcoin we shouldn't forget that even though bitcoin is generally accepted in the world, fiat will still be needed because not everyone is going to know how to do the transactions.

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[so98nn]

Yeah, seen even bigger que in India when demonetization was done. Moreover, considering the population in India this was 100 fold drama here and sometimes there were riots for getting the cash because ATM's were not able to fulfil the daily requirements. Whether it is private sector bank or government, everything was raided with negative impact.

So I can feel the same in Nigeria. However, back then Bitcoin was not much popular in India, but in Nigeria the timings are perfect and we can easily see the adoption on its peak. It is now bitcoins grand entry in Nigeria and we can already see many nigerian based posts around the forum which is telling the story.

[Zaguru12]

Exactly what I had in mind, after my recent experience with a local trader the hope that Bitcoin will be used as a payment method because of this scarcity of cash just dropped drastically. I don't know how someone who doesn't even know how to operate their bank account will be able to comprehend how Bitcoin works.
Even the normal bank transfer most traders don't even allow it in their businesses and you want them to accept Bitcoin that's just unthinkable.

If the government doesn't find a way to solve this problem more quickly it's going to result in a more devastating case.

If you study the whole thing very well you would know that bitcoin adoption isn’t close by talk less of it been accept for payments. The whole saga is because people are scared to accept bank transfers because some still think they could be defrauded by it. Other problems like the lack of knowledge on even common USSD codes for transactions could tell you that bitcoin isn’t get that adoption OP is talking about. Personally I think if people can’t go through this cashless period then bitcoin transaction will not be easy because bitcoin knowledge seeems harder than normal bank transactions

I believe the cause of this is just mismanagement done by the country's Central Bank and the institutional bank in the mobile application area.

Personally I feel that’s is the area the apex bank has failed but also shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the commercial banks who have mobile apps that can’t withstand this mass usage. The apex bank doesn’t control or have knowledge of individual bank app. More also the CBN had in numerous reports said that enough money was disbursed to each bank branch and that can be confirmed with the excess new notes been spread by our politicians. We can’t throw all the blame on the Apex bank alone.

[suzanne5223]

I believe the cause of this is just mismanagement done by the country's Central Bank and the institutional bank in the mobile application area.

Personally I feel that’s is the area the apex bank has failed but also shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the commercial banks who have mobile apps that can’t withstand this mass usage. The apex bank doesn’t control or have knowledge of individual bank app. More also the CBN had in numerous reports said that enough money was disbursed to each bank branch and that can be confirmed with the excess new notes been spread by our politicians. We can’t throw all the blame on the Apex bank alone.

If the statement made by the country's Central Bank about the disbursing of enough funds is true then the main cause of the limited fiat currency and the online mobile banking application not working are the institutional banks.
I first blame the Central bank for the limited fiat because they are in charge in redesign currency distribution and if the government of the country wants to settle this issue all the CEO of the institutional banks should be charged.

[kryptqnick]

I am sorry that Nigerians are suffering because of ill-planned policies of the authorities. It's ridiculous to limit people in their abilities to pay because that produces an obstacle to the essence of economy, which is an exchange of goods and services for money, which in turn finances more goods and services. However, it's a positive unforeseen circumstance that this policy may push people toward using Bitcoin more. I don't fully get how it works and why Bitcoin is more desirable than debit payments, toward which the authorities were probably pushing people, but as long as it does, great.

[Franctoshi]

I don't see this reason here to make people resort to using Bitcoin for transaction when they can pay for good and services using their ATM cards or use a mobile transfer. But where I can agree with you is in the aspect that base on the recent development, that some people are now finding it difficult to even do transfers including me, due to network congestion. Now I think there's a need for people that are into crypto could resort to using Bitcoin base on this issues or maybe fear of uncertainty that Banks maybe seize their money in the bank, hence they may decide or prefer to store their money in Bitcoin than in the banks.

[Casdinyard]

What goes on right now in Nigeria if proven true is very catastrophic. You don't fforcibly make your people adjust to a drastic change. You give them enough leniency to understand the ropes. Poor governance on Nigeria's part. As much as I love seeing people resorting to bitcoin for everyday transaction, being a hopeful fan of the cryptocurrency as well, if it's at the expense of millions of people suffering because their country forbade using cash for everyday use then that's just not it for me. I hope things get better in that country bro. A lot of young genius minds in there that would be jeopardized once again due to poor decisions

[Nobility17]

To me, the Nigerian government are just clueless. Personally I've not seen the difference between the E-Naira and the bank apps If that's what they're trying to promote. Trying to promote cashless economy should be a gradual process.
Though the OP is not correct with claims that bitcoin is being accepted in Nigeria. Its only a few set of persons that are actually conversant with p2p btc transactions. Moreover, cash shortage in the country
 shouldn't be a yardstick to say the country is having a shift towards Cryptocurrency.

[Daltonik]

Still, I can't understand what the monetary policy of the Nigerian government in the field of non-cash payments actually has to do with the restriction on the issuance of cash to the fact that citizens will start using bitcoin en masse. Firstly, favorable conditions for the use of bitcoin should be created in the country for this, of course, now citizens will have less cash and this will allow for more frequent p2p exchanges, but at the same time, Nigerian citizens will not become richer enough to actively buy bitcoin.

[Nwada001]

I wouldn't doubt you if you said many people are having difficulty making payments for purchased goods because of the scarcity of physical cash. On Tuesday, January 31st, I had a nearly identical experience in which I was unable to use my UBA debit card to pay for my purchases because I had previously used the card to withdraw $10,000, which I believe is the card's daily limit, and I also attempted to use my mobile app, which was also experiencing network downtime. My saving grace that day was that I didn't rely on one bank, which gave me the option of using my KUDA to make a transfer; however, did you know that the party to whom I transferred had to wait about 32 minutes before he could see it? If the crypto payment system was available that day, I could have offered to pay with crypto and saved myself the stress.

I dont think crypto would have saved you on the 32minutes stress you inquired that day, why? Because even the btc transactions can sometimes take up to that amount of time mentioned especially when the number of blocks required for your transaction to be successful Has not been reached. I remember a day when I sold some of my coins but its took more than 30minute for the coins to arrive

It could have saved me, unless the person doesn't trust Bitcoin transactions. If I see a transaction being sent out successfully and it's waiting for confirmation, I can easily let go of the sender because I'm 80% certain that the transaction will reach my wallet. But in the case of a Nigerian bank transfer, if the receiver doesn't see the money yet, he or she can't let you go because of the fear of the money being reversed.

[Merit.s]

Though, presently the Naria swap brought so much drama to the country and made many people inaccessible to their funds because Nigerians depend more on fiat currency for their daily spending. I also had little difficulties to get enough cash to spend. What I did was this,I got little Fiat currency which I only use to buy stuffs in stores that don't accept transfer. The bank network is very poor this period and you will not receive alert on any transaction made,to be on the safe side, I use my palm pay account to make any online transactions. I saved my btc because it is hard to get your cash out there,if you trade, how will you cash out.

[Vaskiy]

The long queue infront of the ATM reminds me of the year 2016 when the Indian government announced demonetisation without any prior arrangements. People suffered much and many lost their lives standing in queue for long hours due to the temperature. Whenever something to be executed, first the government needs to educate the people and then go for it. Same looks to be the scenario with Nigeria government. It takes more time as people needs to understand as everything looks to be completely new for them.

[armanda90]

No doubt with Banking hall drama about cashless withdrawing our money, I don't unacceptable with your country Bank policy about limit withdrawing trough ATM and very small fund. How possibility with our money saving in the Bank and we can't withdraw all when having urgency needed.

Better if possibility later withdrawing huge fund don't trust any more with your Bank country, stop give benefit for them with our money saving and they used for another thing until get small withdrawing limit in daily day. I hope your country situation will back recovery actually with Bank cashless policy and give huge fund withdrawing in daily day.

[Rruchi man]

... And because of the long line to withdraw from the ATM, many customers who are already cryptocurrency friendly ones are now swapped to BTC to avoid the stress.

This is hard to believe, swap to BTC to safe stress? If people are looking for something without stress, I do not think BTC is their best option to convert their fiat to, especially in Nigeria where in the current situation people are searching ways to preserve the value of the money they have amidst the large increase in expense due to the scarcity of the naira and petrol. Imagine people converting all to BTC to avoid stress and just as they are about to relax from stress the value of BTC drops...

That is, the cashless policy forces many customers to changed their Fiat currency for easy p2p transaction since the Fiat bank cashless transaction is not smooth because of network issue.

I have had issues with many vendors who did not want to accept internet transfer but wanted physical fiat knowing how difficult it is to get, I doubt there will be many vendors who will be accepting BTC within this time.

[stompix]

Still, I can't understand what the monetary policy of the Nigerian government in the field of non-cash payments actually has to do with the restriction on the issuance of cash to the fact that citizens will start using bitcoin en masse.

It's always the difference in how people see some news.
Some analyze what is happening, some are predicting what's going to happen and some are wishing something to happen because of this.
The Bitcoin adoption triggered by this mess is in the 3rd category and with small chances of changing to the second, as it lacks a lot of things.

Unfortunately, it's obvious is not happening right now, if any kind of migration would have happened since January from cash to BTC it would have been easily seen in the blockchain, there is no pick-up in transactions pace and the only increases happened exactly when the price was going up.
We have 200 000 000 people, assuming only half are getting some kind of payment and assuming again only 1 in a thousand would use BTC instead of $ you would still have 100k extra transactions in the chain or a lot of increase in LN funding, that ain't happening either.

Way to early to claim victory over traditional systems, when people area already familiar with digital payments the plan can be ste in motion but with them craving that much for cash I doubt they would want to embrace anything that is digital, be it CC or BTC

It could have saved me, unless the person doesn't trust Bitcoin transactions. If I see a transaction being sent out successfully and it's waiting for confirmation, I can easily let go of the sender because I'm 80% certain that the transaction will reach my wallet.

Pure curiosity, why 80% and why not 90% or 70%?
Also, if my clients would come each with a 80% chance of paying me I would probably close shop and think of a different career.

[Nwada001]

Pure curiosity, why 80% and why not 90% or 70%?
Also, if my clients would come each with a 80% chance of paying me I would probably close shop and think of a different career.

Though I have not experienced any cancelled transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain, as a learner, I don't always believe in 100% accuracy no matter what that may be. 

[Bushdark]

I still don't understand you because you heading illustrate that citizens were force to use Bitcoin because of the scarcity of fiat banknote. Your post would be been very interesting if you have also illustrated how the citizens were able to use Bitcoin to trade duee to the scarcity of bank note. I was expecting to see some signs of people transacting business with the use of Bitcoin and moreover to see am example from you too. Bitcoin is a digital currency and the use of Bitcoin is still going to be rampard from what we are seeing currently. Recession are coming and making people would be force to use Bitcoin whether they like it or not.

[Broadanbig]

The cashless policy is not bad but the timing is not favourable with the current situation of Nigeria. The system is not yet ripe for such but the CBN is bent on forcing her citizens into cashless transaction, frustrating the citizens of Nigeria. The people have gone through unto hardship for these while if the cashless policy implementation. I strongly believe the banks have hands in this because of the transaction charges involved. This just made them super profit, raking in billions of naira everyday as a result of the transaction fee charges for the cashless transaction being done every day. I the government and CBN are just not prepared for what they are about going into but causing hardship for the citizens.

[Argoo]

In my opinion, this is another proof that cash will exist for a long time until a certain standard of living of the population is reached in each country and all the necessary technical and other conditions for the smooth circulation of non-cash money are provided. But even in such cases, there will always be separate categories of people who, for various reasons, will not be able to use non-cash forms of payment.
The Nigerian government should have foreseen the difficulties with the limited ability to use the new banknote design and in any case not combine this with the simultaneous massive introduction of cashless payments.