During the Monetary Council meeting held yesterday in Abuja, Mr. Godwin Emeifele, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria shared his doubts surrounding digital assets.
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According to Mr. Godwin, CBN has conducted research to show that most cryptocurrency transactions are legal with a number of them being illegitimate.
The Governor went ahead to affirm that citizens of the country still transact with digital assets even after the proposed ban by the Central Bank while acknowledging that cryptocurrencies are beneficial while stating his fears of some being illegitimate.
“We have carried out our investigation and we found out that a substantial percentage of our people are getting involved in cryptocurrency which is not the best. Don’t get me wrong, some may be legitimate but most are illegitimate”.
Under cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, Nigeria comes 2nd while on the global side of the economy, Nigeria comes 27th. We are still conducting our investigation and we will make our data available.”
– Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
The Governor’s argument sounds optimistic for the first time in four months since the CBN banned all financial and deposit-taking firms from dealing with cryptocurrencies and crypto exchanges in the country.
The Governor noted that they are still working on their data and will make it available to the public soon. He also made comments about the unstable movement of Bitcoin in a couple of weeks motivated by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s tweets.
He pointed out that the major supporter of Bitcoin, Elon Musk, has shown strong concern in recent times about the Bitcoin mining process, therefore, the public should be alert.
He also raised concerns about the ease of generating wealth through cryptocurrency which may not demonstrate as a means of growth in the economy.
Finally, given the encryption found in cryptocurrency transactions, the Central Bank has reasons to suspect most transactions as defrauding. Governor Godwin Emefiele’s understanding and policy on cryptocurrency may have taken a positive turn in recent weeks
