In the past few years in my country Nigeria, Cryptocurrency looks like the newly found black gold for citizens. Almost everyone is directly or indirectly into cryptocurrency trading. A lot of people decide to get paid in BTC so they can withdraw to dollar then to Naira, some are trading futures and margin, another set are interested in putting money into the next Dogecoin or SafeMars so they can become the next millionaire, some are into P2P trading on a daily, a significant amount are into fiat arbitrage, but using cryptocurrency as the channel to change the currency to dollar to make profit, a very few do cryptocurrency blogging, as most left platforms like in 2018 due to the market fall, and the fact that a lot became ambassadors and employed to crypto company like Binance, Aeternity, Infinity, Huobi, Kraken, Okex, and so on, while the last set of people I know are now compulsory photographers, and artist in the NFT space, hoping for their collections to bought at outrageous prices since very few have been lucky.
After listing these activities, I must say that cryptocurrency is really a thing in my country, and the youths are looking to it, to save them from the shackles of poverty the bad governance of the past have decided to put us in, but then, there is a problem with the government again.
Security and Exchange Commission in 2020, announced that all cryptocurrency in the country should be regarded as securities and can be traded but just immediately after the announcement, the Central Bank decided to do a witch hunt on crypto traders. Banks were asked to close all bank account associated with cryptocurrency, and traders of cryptocurrency, or face a heavy fine in the millions for one customer not sanctioned. The central Bank Governor blames the falling of the Naira to Cryptocurrency.
At the beginning of the current leadership of the CBN governor in 2014, the Naira was sitting at 180 Naira/$1, but it has falling so bad that as at the closing of the week's market, the Naira was sitting at 700 Naira/$1. This has also affected the standard of living as simple grocerry and food items, like Egg, has increased 300% in this year alone. The governor, insists that the conversion of the Naira to dollar with in other to purchase BTC and purchase things abroad, is responsible for the fall of naira. He says citizens keep buying the Dollar with Naira, when they aren't travelling out of the country. A regular Naira debit card had an international limit of $3000 monthly when he assumed the position of Governor but today, the limit is at $20 monthly. While the world, including the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, slams his policies, saying it is the reason for the country's problem, Emefiele, disagrees with them and insists that it is Cryptocurrency that is the problem. I am a victim of accounts being closed and money frozen, since it requires CBN to order release because my name came directly from the Central Bank, making me struggle to survive.
I am to look into things categorically, Nigeria is more of an importing country to exporting country. Furthermore, Nigeria import almost everything including petroleum even though we are one of the highest oil producing countries in the world. The government is completely bad, embezzling billions of dollars and keeping it in cash, but the governor says this isn't the reason, he insists it is cryptocurrency.
Is it possible that Cryptocurrency would Destroy the Economy of a Nation?