For some weeks now I have been following with great interest the news coming out of Nigeria, an oil-rich African country whose population is suffering the rigors of inflation and severe economic difficulties, a situation that forces them to protect their income through the use of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Faced with the tremendous adoption of the population towards the virtual economy the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the government of that country chose to punish transactions with BTC and any other crypto, as a measure to nullify the transfer of local fiat money Naira towards the acquisition of the most popular of the decentralized virtual currencies.
Among the measures taken by the Nigerian central power against the possession and marketing of cryptocurrencies highlights the consideration as a crime of transactions with cryptoassets, so that financial institutions that incur in this activity will be punished with the full weight of the law. Likewise, any citizen found to have made any purchase or transaction with BTC and other cryptos will be "banished" from the Nigerian financial system, denying him/her access to credit and any banking instruments in local currency.
It seems that the Nigerian government and its central bank are unaware of a characteristic that stands out in the Nigerian people: their vocation for entrepreneurship, which has risen exponentially as the population has adopted cryptocurrencies, especially BTC, as a mechanism to boost their personal economy. Obviously, no central power will consider this type of behavior of the people as something positive, considering the fact that in this way its influence and control over the population would be limited, therefore, the lifestyle of those who govern using the fiduciary model would run the risk of disappearing.
Evidently, the central power forces financial entities and exchange houses to demand the identity of citizens with accounts in cryptocurrencies, a mechanism used to persecute and punish those who possess decentralized digital currencies. Despite the arbitrary measure of the government, the population continues to express its liking for BTC and cryptocurrencies and rejecting the inflationary currency of their country, however, because of this measure of the CBN in Nigeria the main cryptocurrency is quoted at a value bordering US$ 100K, being the place in the world where it is more expensive to acquire it.
On the other hand, citizens have adopted as a form of protection the P2P (peer-2-peer) method that executes direct person-to-person exchanges without third party intervention, therefore cryptocurrencies, far from perishing, seem more alive than ever. Likewise, due to the high price of BTC in Nigerian territory, it is more practical for Nigerians to receive remittances from their relatives and friends in cryptocurrencies, an action that the central power cannot avoid given the anonymity of the movements of this type of transactions.
It is necessary to consider that a large part of Nigeria's income in foreign currency, especially dollars, comes from remittances sent from the diaspora to the country, given that part of these resources are retained by the central power in the form of taxes, it is dramatic then to observe how this income is decreasing from its coffers considerably to the same extent that cryptocurrencies take over this aspect of the Nigerian economy.
Because of the situation described above, the CBN opted to create an incentive program where an incentive of 5 Naira (1.2 cents) is added for each dollar remitted in the exchanges that offer currency exchange at the official price, whose value is always lower than that offered by the entities dedicated to the exchange of currencies. However, this proposal implies more printing of paper money, devaluating the local currency as the dollars are exchanged. Obviously, this governmental measure does not have an impact on citizens' taste for cryptos, especially since they are increasingly appreciating with respect to the dollar and, of course, the Nigerian currency.
Regardless of the measures implemented by the Nigerian (and world) central power, the citizens of that country are focused on establishing their own economic style based on the weight of BTC and cryptocurrencies, a reality that is translating into a better quality of life for the population and the center of an economy outside the fiduciary model.