A little over a year after its inception in October 2021, Nigeria's eNaira has only been adopted by 0.5% of the country's population.
According to reports, the Nigerian government will shortly enact a legislation recognising the use of Bitcoin BTC.
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and other digital currencies to stay current with "global norms."
Following an interview with the chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Markets, Babangida Ibrahim, Punch Newspapers, a Nigerian publication, broke the news on December 18.
According to the article, the local Securities and Exchange Commission would be able to "recognise bitcoin and other digital monies as capital for investment" if the Investments and Securities Act 2007 (Amendment) Bill were to become law.
Ibrahim emphasised the need of Nigeria being current with capital market trends and developments:
"We need an effective and robust capital market in Nigeria, as I stated at the second reading. We must be up to speed with international standards in order to do that.''
The allegation comes nearly 24 months after Nigeria outlawed cryptocurrency trading in February 2021, when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) ordered local cryptocurrency exchanges and service providers to halt operations and ordered banks to shut the accounts of anybody found trading cryptocurrency.
Ibrahim, who presided over Nigeria from 1985 to 1993, is adamant that the law's passage does not represent a reversal of the prohibition but rather a secondary examination of the CBN's authority:
"We are examining the legality: what is lawful and what is within the parameters of our activities in Nigeria," the statement reads. "It is not about [the] removal of the prohibition."
The CBN found that the majority of these investors don't even have local accounts when bitcoin was first outlawed in Nigeria. Therefore, they fall outside of the CBN's purview. There is no way for the CBN to check them because they aren't using local accounts, he said.
The 2007 Investments and Securities Act of Nigeria would be modified if the legislation is approved.
The bill would specify the Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) and Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) (Nigeria) regulatory functions on topics connected to digital currencies in addition to giving legal recognition to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, according to the article.
The eNaira, the digital currency issued by Nigeria's central bank, has received little to no attention from Nigerians and only has a 0.5% adoption rate as of October, 12 months after its inception.
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