Central Bank of Nigeria: A lot of people misinterpret the central bank’s recent bitcoin warning
The Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Banking and Payments System (CBN), Musa Itopa-Jimoh, clarified the CBN’s stance on bitcoin, citing that a lot of people misinterpret the central bank’s recent warning.
Nigeria has issued several warnings against a few cryptocurrencies in the past, including bitcoin. On January 12, the CBN issued a circular to banks and other financial institutions on virtual currency operations in Nigeria, requiring them to take certain actions relating to digital currencies. The notice reads: “The CBN reiterates that VCs [virtual currencies] such as Bitcoin, Ripples, Monero, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Onecoin, etc, and similar products are not legal tenders in Nigeria, thus any bank or institution that transacts in such businesses does so at its own risk”.
On the same day, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a statement cautioning citizens from investing in Bitcoin, Onecoin, and Swisscoin. Putting them in the same category, the SEC told the Nigerian public that such investments are risky by nature and some of them are “fraudulent pyramid schemes.” The public notice reads “The public is hereby advised to exercise extreme caution with regard to digital (cryptocurrencies) as a vehicle of investments”.
Despite all the warnings, Mr. Musa Itopa-Jimoh clarified that the CBN has no intention of stopping bitcoin usage. “We are not the issuing authority for bitcoin. It’s not our currency. We do not control it. We don’t issue it, we don’t control it,” he said. “we are just issuing caution to Nigerians”, he continued, citing that if they participated in cryptocurrencies, they cannot come to the CBN for consumer protection “because it is not within our control”.
“A lot of people misinterpreted it that we wanted to stop bitcoin. We can’t stop bitcoin. Bitcoin is not an invention of 2015 or 2012; it’s not even an invention of 2010. So, how can the Central Bank of Nigeria, not central bank of the world, stop the running and implementation of bitcoin?” said Itopa-Jimoh.
