A few days after the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new regulations that will guide the Nigerian crypto market and the entire digital industry, the federal government has made a move suggesting that it may back it up.
On Tuesday, Koinbanx announced during Twitter Spaces session it co-hosted with Fred Estante that the federal government has entered a three-year exclusive IPR (intellectual property right) agreement with Developing Africa Group to launch a national wallet for Nigeria.
Per People Gazette, the agreement grants Developing Africa Group, a regional software development company, the right to create an official platform for Nigerians to upload any form of IP rights and trade, sell or exchange them abroad while collecting the royalties and proceeds of these operations on their wallets.
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The Developing Africa Group has selected Koibanx and Algorand Blockchain as the payment platform and protocol it will be built on.
Koibanx, a Latin American asset tokenization and Blockchain financial infrastructure company, will be in charge of implementing the wallet.
“BREAKING: @koibanx and @developingafro to develop #Nigeria’s official platform for commercialization of all IP in the country, on #Algorand. As announced by @leoelduayen and @developingafro earlier today on a #TwitterSpace. Replay,” Algorand said on Twitter on Tuesday.
BREAKING: @koibanx and @developingafro
to develop #Nigeria's official platform for commercialization of all IP in the country, on #Algorand.As announced by @leoelduayen and @developingafro earlier today on a #TwitterSpace. Replay ? https://t.co/pGqAc2vp0s
— Algorand (@Algorand) May 23, 2022
At this time, there has not been an official announcement by the federal government.
“Algorand’s protocol not only provides the performance, scalability, security and functionality required to implement such a large scale project but is also environment-friendly which is important for the Government and has a huge philosophical match with the ‘creators economy industry’ we’re targeting here,” said Ben Oguntala, CEO of Developing Africa Group.
This development, though not yet confirmed by the federal government, offers hope that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), may support SEC’s guidelines this time unlike before.
The CBN prohibited crypto transactions in Nigeria last year, even after SEC had made moves to regulate the asset. The apex bank’s decision forced the Commission to rescind its early stand on cryptocurrency. However, measures, like the creation of the digital fiat app, eNaira, taken by the CBN, has failed to dampen the involvement of Nigerians in the emerging digital market that has metamorphosed to include non-fungible token (NFT).
Experts’ call on Nigerian authorities to reconsider their approach to cryptocurrency and regulate it instead of banning it appears to be finally being heeded.