The CBDC is doing such a flop that the Central Bank of Nigeria wants to popularize it by force. One of the stated objectives is to slow down inflation…
$225 max, unless using the CBDC
From January 9, daily withdrawals will not be able to exceed 20,000 naira, or about $45. Additionally, the weekly cap will drop from $338 to $225.
It will always be possible to withdraw more at the counter of your bank, but by paying a tax of 5% for individuals and 10% for businesses.
This limit aims to promote the use of the CBDC, the eNaira, a new milestone in the policy of “cashless society” initiated in 2012 in this most populous country in Africa.
Thus, unlike Western central bankers, the objective is clearly assumed. The goal is to put an end to cash!
Arise News took to the streets of Abuja to collect the reactions of Nigerians:
” It’s inhumane. It will not work. They don’t live among us. They are completely above ground. Here, on earth, it will not work, it is not possible. »
“In this economy, most people trade in cash. Most do not want this change. »
“The truth is that this policy aims to reduce the amount of money in circulation to reduce inflation. »
This last statement is confirmed by the Director of Banking Supervision Haruna Mustafa, who spoke on the set ofArise News :
“Inflation is at a worrying level [21 %]. These singular actions [limites de retraits] will allow us to control inflation. »
The other assumed reason is force Nigerians to pay via mobile banking apps, bank cards or CBDC eNaira…
Problem, only 12% of the Nigerian population has a quality Internet. The Alliance for Affordable Internet affirms that only 6.6% of the rural population and 16.4% of the urban population have good Internet service…
Rationing vs Inflation
In short, these withdrawal limits are a kind of disguised rationing… They aim to reduce the consumption of millions of Nigerians who live in regions where merchants are poorly equipped with payment terminals.
Another motivation is obviously to be able to charge fees on each transaction… Visa and Mastercard together weigh more than 700 billion dollars on the stock market. Hardly surprising given that this duopoly takes between 0.5% and 3% on each transaction!
Not to mention personal data. Transaction histories are valuable data. Especially if the goal is ultimately to profile the population in order to establish social credit in Chinese style.
Nigeria already has a digital identity system: the National Identity Numbers (NINS). This system makes it possible to put a name on each transaction which has been financed by the World Bank, the EU and the French Development Agency.
Fortunately, the population shuns eNaira. Bloomberg reports that barely 0.5% of the population would use it. A total of 8 billion eNairas (700,000 transactions) have been traded since its launch in October 2021.
Or about 18.2 million dollars for a country of 211 million inhabitants. This is ridiculous, especially when comparing eNaira to bitcoin.
Cointelegraph revealed in April that more than 17 million Nigerians would have allocated more than half of their savings to it. The volume of transactions in BTC achieved more than 30 million dollars per month, in particular thanks to the P2P sites of Paxful and Localbitcoins.
Remember the Indian fiasco
China is the first country to test the CBDC. The test phase involves six of the largest banks in the country. These promote CBDC as an alternative to popular private payment apps such as WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Central bankers from more than 100 countries hope to follow in Communist China’s footsteps and are therefore closely monitoring the fate of the eNaira and eYuan.
Africa’s largest economy is being used as a guinea pig and the reality is that things are not going as planned. Nigeria indeed displays the eleventh highest bitcoin penetration rate in the world.
Faced with this humiliation, the central bank decided to attempt an Indian-style coup. The 200, 500 and 1,000 naira notes will be renewed by the end of January 2023. The aim of the maneuver is to repatriate the notes which are currently 85% out of the banks.
India took part in the same experiment in 2016 to force Indians and businesses to digitize. Five years after this chaotic demonetization that cost 2% growth, cash is still king.
According to the Reserve Bank of India, cash held by Indians has jumped by 57% between November 2016 and October 2021. However, the number of digital payments has also increased, by more than 170%.
However, more than 90% of Indian households live on a monthly income of less than 15,000 rupees (180 euros). These small incomes are largely earned and spent in cash. Forcing this part of the economy to go digital makes little sense.
Unless the goal is to deploy a total control and monitoring system…
Ethereum, the CBDC of the future?
The failure of the CBDC in Nigeria should cast serious doubts on the possibility of implementing it worldwide. On the contrary, India is back in charge with the launch of a test phase of the e-Rupee.
This will soon be the case Japan, and we bet that Christine Lagarde is impatient. CBDC projects are underway pretty much everywhere under the umbrella of the bank for international settlements. The Basel bank has every intention of infiltrating all international transactions and becoming the CBDC’s SWIFT.
Thanks to Satoshi for #bitcoin, which gave us a decentralized alternative. »
CBDCs are a threat to freedom because they will be programmable and therefore conditioned “currencies”.
Here are the words of Bo Li, an IMF pundit, that we reported last month in this article:
“Government agencies and the private sector can program the CBDC via smart contracts allowing, for example, the payment of social assistance such as food stamps. The programmability of the CBDC makes it possible to precisely target who can use it and how. This money could, for example, only be spent on food. »
Speaking of smart contracts, it seems that the Norwegian central bank has set its sights on Ethereum. The entire infrastructure of its CBDC prototype is based entirely on Ethereum code.
In addition to smart contracts, the bank is testing monitoring tools such as BlockScout and Grafana as well as identification technologies. Here is what we can read about the CBDC on site from Norges Bank:
“Given current technology, a smartphone wallet is the best option. However, it should also be possible to pay using a card. Solutions are also being developed for payments without physical equipment. Users could make payments by identifying themselves via biometrics, artificial intelligence and other technologies [reconnaissance faciale, scan de l’iris, etc.] »
The CBDC is the centerpiece of a totalitarian system similar to what the Chinese Communist Party is trying to put in place. A total surveillance society governed by social credit. For Anglophiles, here is the scenario that is emerging:
Bitcoin is the shield of freedom against the end of cash and totalitarianism.
Receive a digest of news in the world of cryptocurrencies by subscribing to our new service of daily and weekly so you don’t miss any of the essential Tremplin.io!
