Nigeria’s eNaira only has a 0.5% adoption rate, just a little over a year since its introduction in October 2021. This is why the legislation that will soon be passed was made possible by it. Recent reports claim that the Nigerian government will soon approve legislation to officially recognize Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency as a means for the country’s practices to be in line with the rest of world.
The news was published in Punch Newspapers on December 18, after an interview with Chairman Babangida Ibrahim of House of Representatives Committee on Capital Markets.
According to the report, the Investments and Securities Act 2007 Amendment Bill (Amendment Bill) Bill will allow the local Securities and Exchange Commissions to recognize cryptocurrency and other digital assets as investment capital if it is passed and signed into legislation. These types of funds are not currently recognized by the SEC as investment capital.
This report comes close to 24 months after Nigeria banned cryptocurrency activities in February 2021. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), at that time, ordered Nigerian cryptocurrency exchanges to stop operating and required service providers to close their accounts of anyone involved in trading activities. This report is almost 24 months following those events.
If the bill passes, the Investments and Securities Act of Nigeria 2007 will be amended to reflect the new changes.
The article outlines that the legislation will provide official recognition for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency, and also details the regulatory functions of Nigeria’s Securities Exchange Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria (SEC) with respect to digital currencies.
This regulation comes at a moment when Nigerians are not interested in the digital currency, the eNaira. In October 2018, 12 months after its introduction, the eNaira only had a 0.5% adoption rate.
After the ban was implemented on February 20, 2021, adoption continued to grow. This indicates that attempts by the Nigerian government to crack down on cryptocurrency activity early on were unlikely to succeed.
The volume of Bitcoin trades in Nigeria between January and August 2017 was second only to the United States. In the same period, Nigerians were more likely than any other nation to search for Bitcoin.
