The CEO of Flincap, Nathaniel Luz, advises the Nigerian government to deal with licencing concerns for regional exchanges rather than holding the cryptocurrency industry responsible for monetary difficulties.
Nathaniel Luz is the chief marketing officer and co-founder of Flincap, a local over-the-counter (OTC) cryptocurrency exchange. He believes that the Nigerian government needs to be clear about its position on the business because its recent moves have sent confusing signals to the larger crypto community.
This comes after local cryptocurrency users reported recently that they were unable to access the websites of other cryptocurrency exchanges, like OctaFX and Binance, using regular telecommunication providers. On February 21, there were rumours of a potential government ban that gave rise to this situation.
According to Luz, it appears that the Nigerian government is not interested in building positive relationships with anyone involved in the cryptocurrency industry. The government holds OTC merchants who trade naira for dollars on the P2P market responsible for the current exchange rate of 1,800 naira to $1.
The economic slowdown and the naira’s drop, according to Luz, are not the fault of the cryptocurrency business. Instead, the blame for the current value of the naira lies with OTC traders. He declared:
“I’ve witnessed a variety of things in my life. I’ve researched currencies and central banks. However, I have not yet witnessed a government assign blame for the devaluation of its currency, as the Nigerian government is currently doing.
Luz listed a number of reasons why the value of the naira has declined, including an abundance of naira, a lack of dollars, a reliance on imports, emigration and currency exchange, and uncertainty around Eurobond payments. She clarified that these problems have nothing to do with the local cryptocurrency trade sector.
By eliminating the 2021 crypto ban enforced by the SEC and CBN, the Nigerian government had a favourable effect on the entire cryptocurrency market. With this action, cryptocurrency exchanges should be allowed to apply for licences to trade in Nigeria.
Many firms are still working to meet the licence requirements, which include paying an application fee of $20,420 (30 million naira) and having a paid-up capital of $340,343 (500 million naira). Luz said that rather than holding the local cryptocurrency ecosystem responsible for the country’s FX problems, the Nigerian government would be better served by addressing the licencing issue for local exchanges. Nigeria is now the largest peer-to-peer market globally, thanks to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s 2021 prohibition on institutions purchasing and selling cryptocurrencies.