The announcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on February 5, directing commercial banks and other financial institutions to desist from facilitating cryptocurrency transactions stirred reactions across various quarters. CBN in a statement by its acting Director of Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi on February 7, went further to clarify that its circular of February 5 was not placing any new restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies, as it had earlier prohibited banks from dealing in same, in circulars dated January 2017 and February 2018. The statement, which sought to justify the ban on cryptocurrencies highlighted terrorism financing, money laundering, high risk of loss of investments as some of the challenges associated with the use of digital currencies.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigerians being the second biggest\nusers of cryptocurrencies have reacted to the CBN\u2019s reiteration of the ban.\nSome experts have countered the position of the CBN on the risks associated\nwith cryptocurrencies. They argue that all payment service platforms have the\nrisk of fraud, which can be managed by introducing relevant regulations. There\nare also arguments that the CBN ban is obstructing a wealth creation\nopportunity, as it is coming at a time when the world is battling economic\nrecession and individuals are exploring cryptocurrencies as recession-proof\nfinancial options. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, some observers have pointed\nout that the ban does not preclude individuals from trading in cryptocurrencies\nas the ban does not have any significant effect on the larger cryptocurrency\nmarket, although it may mean sourcing the currencies from other countries. It\nwould appear that those most affected by the ban are Nigerian cryptocurrency\ntrading platforms, who provide crypto-exchange services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Indeed, many countries across the\nworld have bans or restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies. However, this\nrecent ban by the CBN is seen in the light of several decisions, measures and\npolicies of the Nigerian government, which are targeted at posing difficulties\nfor citizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The announcement by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on February 5, directing commercial banks and other financial institutions to desist from facilitating cryptocurrency transactions stirred reactions across various quarters. CBN in a statement by its acting Director of Corporate Communications, Osita Nwanisobi on February 7, went further to clarify that its circular of February […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[213],"class_list":["post-1898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nigerians-react-as-central-bank-bans-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1905,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions\/1905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}