Lets go over some major crypto adoption news that caught my eye in the last few days.
Central Bank of Nigeria recently threatened commercial banks that dealt with crypto exchanges, although there is apparently no regulation of this matter in the Nigerian law. This made Nigerian naira (NGN) hard to withdraw from exchanges like Binance. That in turn resulted in an increase of P2P trading in Nigeria, so aforementioned "ban" was not very successful. That was to be expected, since according to surveys 32% (!!!) of Nigerians "own or use cryptocurrencies". It's not really because they love it so much, more like because fiat NGN is one of those fiats that went bust - it's loosing its purchasing power rapidly making the citizens look for any potential safehaven. It's actually, IMHO, one of best "use cases" for crypto, since this phenomena is nothing new - in many countries in the last years mass crypto adoption was rushed by lokal fiat currency crisis, which proves that no matter what analysts may think, when when push comes to shove, people do see crypto as a store of value in the time of need. Recently also Argentina seems to have similar situation.
It's no wonder Nigerian Central bank did't like this, but recently its stance is softening. Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said:
“We are committed in the CBN and I can assure everybody that digital currency will come to life even in Nigeria"
ha also said:
“We have carried out our investigation and we found out that a substantial percentage of our people are getting involved in cryptocurrency which is not the best. Don’t get me wrong, some may be legitimate but most are illegitimate.”
So... they will probably join India and China in the club of countries that change their mind about crypto whenever the wind blows. Still, it's better news than an outright ban, especially for Nigerians.
2. Australia won't crack down on crypto
Well this is short and sweet. Australia’s Finance Services Minister Jane Hume siad:
“I would like to make something clear: cryptocurrency is not a fad. It is an asset class that will grow in importance. If you want to invest in Dogecoin, I won’t stand in your way. Personal opportunity and personal responsibility are two sides of the same coin.”
Taxes and KYC procedures will still apply, but hey, at least there are some governments that treat citizens like adults.
3. Old school billionaire turns cryptoenthusiast
Billionaire investor and founder of Icahn Enterprises L.P., Carl Icahn thinks "crypto is here to stay in one form or another" and he might get involved "in a big way". When questioned what does "big way" mean he said it's something in a range of $1-1.5B. While this is very nice to hear please listen to this short interview yourself, since his enthusiasm is grossly exaggerated by crypto news outlets.
He is still cautious, just not so skeptical like 3 years ago when he did't even consider crypto investments due to regulatory risks. On the other hand Icahn Enterprises total assets for the quarter ending March 31, 2021 were $28.297B - this kind of money is invested cautiously by default and the sheer fact that crypto is right now seen as a potential outlet for such investments is a new and very optimistic thing, that would be laughed at by most of the financial world just a few years back.
See you next time, perhaps on the moon,
CryptoCat
All tips go to cat treats and catnip for my furry overlord :)
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