The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, has emphatically promised that digital currency will come to life in Nigeria.
He made this disclosure during the recently concluded MPR meeting, held today in Abuja. In his words: ‘’ “We are committed in the CBN and I can assure everybody that digital currency will come to life even in Nigeria.”
However, Emefiele raised brows over the growing spate of what he termed illegitimate trading in the digital space, largely influenced by Nigeria’s growing population. Driving home his point, Meffy as he is fondly called said: ‘’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 in the global side of the economy, Nigeria comes 27th. We are still conducting our investigation and we will make our data available.’’
READ: US Multinational Affirms Its Readiness to Accept Cryptocurrency
In addition, the CBN chief briefly commented on the instability inherent in the digital space, citing the recent story on Elon Musk and the impact his tweet had on the crypto space as a classical example. He said: ‘’ We saw the market collapse. Initially, when Elon Musk tweeted around the time when we said our banking and payment facilities are no longer available for cryptocurrency transactions and he tweeted that he will invest $1.5 billion and the price (Bitcoin) went up. He now tweeted and raised a few concerns and the thing (Cryptocurrency) plunged.’’
Recall that CBN had earlier prohibited banks and other financial institutions from carrying out transactions in cryptocurrencies or facilitating payments for crypto exchanges.
