The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele just showed his ignorance on what cryptocurrencies are.
The CBN governor on February 23rd told the joint Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions; ICT and Cybercrime; and Capital Market the reason he banned Cryptocurrency transactions.
The video which can be seen below saw the CBN governor saying the following
https://twitter.com/MunachiOgueke/status/1364626235503083523?s=19
- MunachiOgueke
First remind everyone that cryptocurrency which is the main crux of our sitting this afternoon is generally regarded as an electronic or digital currency that is issued by likely unknown unregulated elements using computer codes that are basically meant to encrypt or hide information about both the transactions and the operators and in the sense it is money that is created out of thin air.
Put another way distinguish ladies and gentlemen, cryptocurrency is used to describe the activity of players in an electronic Dark World where transactions are extremely opaque, they are black, they are not white, they are not visible and they are not transparent.
In another parlance these are people who deal in transactions that not only do not want a trail but instead by its nature cannot be trailed. I am sure that this definition alone is scary enough to create anxiety for any regulator or Central Bank or fed in any part of the world and that is the reason virtually all regulators in the world do not recognise it.
The above is the transcript of the CBN governor statement and it shows the level of ignorance portrayed by someone holding such prestigious position.
The fact that he used unknown unregulated elements shows ignorance. He's basically talking about bitcoin not knowing we have more than 6000 cryptos out there. We have so many known founders of this coins out there.
Godwin Emefiele also put cryptos in the same vein with the dark world. It's safe to say the likes of Jack founder of twitter, Elon Musk, Michael Saylor and others are definitely knights in the dark world.
The Nigerian government is clueless in their dealings.
The first narrative for the ban was Crypto users are killing the naira and something need to be done. The ban on crypto saw the naira appreciate to 400 naira per dollar. This gave them the upper hand that crypto ban is justified. The dollar is currently trading at the range of 489-493. This is why they had to form another lie on cryptocurrencies.
The government are only afraid of the amount of citizens cryptocurrencies is liberating. Take for instance, you don't need to pay for a domain name and host to start your own blog. You can simply pick any niche you want on hive, then be an authority there. Be it finance, sports, or general blogging, there is space for you.
How Nigerians have adjusted to the news
Ever since the crypto transaction ban has been in effect, Nigerians have been looking for a way round it. Once of the initiative Binance provided was ability to buy NGN on Binance P2P. Users can buy NGN, convert it to BTC or USDT to buy whatever coin they want. The rule is avoid crypto related memo in sending of funds to avoid closing of account.
If Mr Godwin Emefiele want it or not. Nigeria will continue soaring in the Crypto space. There is no stopping the Eagle.