Nigeria Ranks Among Highest New Users Of Bitcoin

Nigerians usage of bitcoin has continued to rise despite warnings by the Central Bank of Nigeria that digital currencies are not legal tender.

The Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria disclosed this in its release on ‘The Nigerian Banker’, in its December 2019 edition.

Part of its report on digital currencies read, “The CBN has also declared that digital currencies are not legal tender with naira as the sole legal tender.

“There are concerns on the use of other digital currency which is currently changing the global payment ecosystem.

“It was stated that in 2018, 41 per cent of new users in bitcoins, a cryptocurrency, hailed from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa.”

In the CIBN’s publication, a report on, “Legal issues in ecommerce, by Senior Partner, Punuka Athorneys & Solicitors, Chief Anthony Idigbe, made some recommendations on cryptcurrency.

He said, “The CBN has to consider ways of applying its regulations to the new consumer behaviours of blockchain and cryptocurrency as there are new infrastructure or payment gateways that allow online/offline merchants to receive other modes of payments from the regular fiat currency such as cryptocurrency.

“To improve recognition of credible ecommerce, the CBN can require payment gateways and merchant aggregators linked to an ecommerce site, to issue its merchants with a visible certification badge.”

On information governance-data protection and privacy, he said most e-commerce platforms were reservoirs of sensitive customer information, which was often collected via contact forms, customer registration, and during payment for purchases.

The cavalier manner in which this private information was used had eroded consumers’ trust in the Internet and their confidence to engage in electronic transactions, the report said.

It stated that, “Massive data invariably ushered various forms of data breach which would lead to proliferation of law suits against such entity from aggrieved consumers.”

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