SEC Warns Nigerians Against Investing In Bitcoin, Other Digital Currencies

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has warned Nigerians against investing in digital currencies such as Swisscoin, OneCoin and Bitcoin.

SEC revealed this in a public notice on its website, stating that none of the individuals or companies promoting the use of the currencies is recognized by any regulatory agency in Nigeria.

According to SEC, such digital asset were designed to work as a medium of exchange to secure transactions and to control the creation of additional units of the currency.

Advertisement

The financial regulatory body also confirmed that Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a payment system, invented by an unidentified programmer, or group of programmers, under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin was introduced on 31 October 2008 to a cryptography mailing list, and released as open-source software in 2009, which is being regarded as “cash for the Internet”.

The notice reads in part “Given that these instruments and the persons, companies or entities that promote the digital currencies have neither been authorized, nor any guidelines/regulations developed for them by any of the regulatory authorities in Nigeria, there is no protection available to users or investors in these virtual currencies from financial losses if the virtual currencies fail or the companies promoting them go out of business.

“The public and consumers of financial services are further advised that before making any investment or entering into any financial services transaction they should ascertain that the entity with whom the investment or transaction is being made is authorized by the Commission or other financial services regulatory authority as applicable to provide such services.,” it said.

Advertisement

Recall that Nigeria’s most popular Ponzi scheme, Mavrodi Mundial Movement, MMM, has introduced the use of bitcoin as part of its payment options.

MMM Nigeria, on December 13th last year, froze the accounts of its participants and has for the past few days been informing participants of a couple of plans for its awaited return this weekend.

Leave a comment

Advertisement