In February 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria released a letter addressed to banks and other financial institutions, stating that dealing in cryptocurrencies and facilitating payment for cryptocurrency exchanges are now prohibited.
However, there are reports that the apex bank might launch a central bank digital currency pilot, by the end of 2021. With its CBDC, the country will be targeting financial inclusion and remittances that move several other central banks in the world are already exploring.
In a recent chat on the Tech Trends show, Chimezie Chuta Founder of the Blockchain Nigeria User Group shares with us how we can build our digital economy.
CFA: Chuta, Glad to have you on Tech Trends today.
Chuta: Thank you so much, CFA, always a pleasure to join you on this show. Thank you for having me.
CFA: Let’s start by looking at the future of money and new technologies changing the game.
Chuta: All right. For the past 100 years, the global financial system has on the fundamental level remains the same on torture and undisrupted. Someone wants to say that the only innovation we have seen over this period is the arrival of the ATM machine.
Otherwise, it has always been the same system that we’ve been using. But the arrival of a couple of the Fourth Industrial Industrial Revolution types of technologies has kickstarted a new revolution in the financial systems. We are seeing how blockchain technology is driving new types of assets, new kinds of money, and they are set to disrupt the global financial system.
CFA: Let me get your take on this particular issue. Some say that we’re not maximizing or even trying to leverage blockchain properly because we’re just trading and there is no value in trading. How would you react to this argument?
Chuta: Well, trading and speculation are natural occurrences when people see value in any asset class, the real estate, it was fatality, bait, importation, or wherever, wherever people feel that they could speculate the price action and profit from it, then they will do that.
That’s exactly what is happening in the crypto space. And people are speculating the performances of these technologies and how these technologies are gearing to build the next unicorn that will replace Amazon, Facebook, and so on.
Also, people are speculating on the underlying assets that will drive those innovations. So we will not in any way fault anyone who takes advantage of that. Yes, it’s volatile but a volatility market is one of the advantages in trading assets anywhere in the world, people crave volatility.
So, you need to have the right understanding, you have to have a clear picture of your strategy in approaching the market without it, probably you’ll be evicted because pigs get slaughtered every day in the financial market.
You can watch the full interview here.
