Central Bank of Nigeria attacks cryptocurrency users
The Central Bank of Nigeria is attacking cryptocurrency owners.
© Ozan Kose / AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
This is a big blow for cryptocurrency owners in Nigeria.
The Central Bank has asked banks to close accounts using cryptocurrencies, recalling that they are not allowed in the country.
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Davido, the undisputed star of the Nigerian music scene, will undoubtedly have to give up his project.
He announced this week that he wanted to launch a bitcoin trading company, attracted like hundreds of thousands of his compatriots by the insolent health of cryptocurrency.
Nigerians are indeed the kings of bitcoin, in Africa, but also in the world where they appear in the top three of countries with the most cryptocurrency accounts.
But the regulator and the Central Bank have been making life difficult for the hundreds of thousands of bitcoin users in Nigeria for a few years now.
In 2017, they declared the use of bitcoin illegal.
This time around, the Central Bank goes further and asks banks to close cryptocurrency accounts.
Organized crime and fraudsters in the sights
The authorities know that these virtual currencies are not only safe havens to protect savings from high inflation.
They are also used by fraudsters and criminals to launder money or evade taxes.
And it is organized crime that is first in the sights of the monetary authorities.
It remains to be seen whether the measure will be effective and even applicable, or if it will not, on the contrary, tip cryptocurrencies into the underground world of the gray economy.
►Also read: Today the economy - Will bitcoin be the safe haven of the 21st century
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