Parker praises Maja’s positive start at Fulham / 30

rency usage; his company ( Tesla) recently bought $ 1.5 billion worth of bitcoin and has said that the currency will be accepted as a payment method for their products.

- Deutsche Bank recently said that: “while only a decade old digital currencies have already been shown to have the potential to radically change payments, banking, central banking and the balance of economic power.”

- Bill Gates also holds the view that “transforming the underlying economics of financial systems through digital currency will help those in poverty directly, and it will also support a host of other development activities, including health and agriculture.”

- Grayscale, a publicly traded investment management firm, launched cryptocurrency trusts, which enable institutional investors to gain exposure to digital assets. The company currently has over $ 30 billion of cryptocurrency assets under management, primarily owned by companies and high net- worth high individuals.

The CBN argued that cryptocurrencies have no intrinsic value and neither do they create value.

Fiat currencies such as the naira and dollar are believed to have value due to the backing by respective governments and the trust individuals have in these governments. A statement by the U. S. Federal Reserve of St. Louis stated that: “Bitcoin is not the only currency that has no intrinsic value. State monopoly currencies, such as the U. S. dollar, the euro, and the Swiss franc, have no intrinsic value either. They are fiat currencies created by government decree. The history of state monopoly currencies is a history of wild price swings and failures. This is why decentralised cryptocurrencies are a welcome addition to the existing currency system.”

Paper currency replaced trade by barter because it was a more efficient medium of exchange and addressed problems of trust and reciprocity. Cryptocurrencies are a more efficient medium of exchange due to the transparency, speed and lower transaction fees, which they provide. In any event, the decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies makes it almost impossible to stop their usage. Even though Nigeria has banned cryptocurrency, there is no way to stop the movement of digital assets within the country, as there is no central authority that issues these currencies. Instead, there is a decentralised network that operates through millions of servers spread around the world.

For Nigeria to stop cryptocurrency trading within the country, it would need to shut down every server around the world that processes cryptocurrency. In the few days since the ban, Nigeria has risen to the country with the second- largest volume of peer- to- peer bitcoin transactions in the world. Before the ban, most of this volume was traded through indigenous exchanges that paid tax in Nigeria and were being monitored and regulated by the SEC.

So, the question is whether more robust regulation could not at least save the baby from the rejected bath water? Other jurisdictions have approached the issues in this more preservatory way.

Osinbajo, a technology entrepreneur, graduated from the London School of Economics.