If you don’t know what Cryptocurrency is let me simplify it for you, “Cryptocurrency is digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange, meaning, you can use it to buy and sell just like real money but the only difference is that all transaction are done online with a strong cryptography to secure transaction.

Crypto has no single regulation, meaning, It’s kind of a trust killer as you can never be 100% sure how much the crypto is going to be worth tomorrow.

With Crypto, people are able to do quick payment (legal or Illegal this is called peer-to-peer) just to avoid traces or transaction fees. According to an experts analysis ” Investing in Cryptocurrency is always risky” as you can wake up tomorrow to find out that your billions worth peny or your peny worth billions. While the peer to peer is an action used by computer network to share file or do transaction without the need for central server.

Enough is enough about defining Cryptocurrency, if you wanna know beyond what i just explained please do more research.

Now let’s talk about what concern us as a Nigerian and what the effect or closure of the account may have on us, although, experts are saying that CBN may have issued the directive because of the bitcoin price that run of 2020 and growing interest of Nigerian in cryptocurrencies which is causing Nigerians to convert their earnings to crypto. People have started moving their money (Naira) to to the digital wallet, while some experts are saying that CBN is not banning crypto trading but just telling financial institutions not to allow their platforms to be used to buy or sell crypto on exchanges like binance. Most crypto transactions in Nigeria happen on peer-to-peer exchanges, so once the panic dies down trading will continue as usual.

So as Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered all banking and other financial institutions to close citizen bank accounts for using cryptocurrencies what are the effects on the country.

The order which was signed by Bello Hassan, Director of Banking Supervision who instructed all Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), Non-Bank Financial Institutions (NBFs), and Other Financial Institutions (OFIs) in Nigeria to follow the mandate strictly will surely do no good on the already tarnished image of the country.

Again, rumor are going around that the purpose for the closure was as a result of the protests in October against the excesses of the police’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS, which saw organizers of the protest accepting Bitcoins for funding after the government allegedly blocked local payment platforms for collecting donations.

We all already know what Nigerian will start doing, looking for alternatives, using VPN’s and opening a foreign account that will further cause more damage to the already scarcity of dollars.

I will keep you more inform as I gather more insight on the issue.

Thank you for reading and please be safe out there.