CRYPTOCURRENCY users are currently racing to save their investment as commercial banks such as Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) and Kuda, a Fintech startup, are reportedly shutting down accounts acclaimed to be linked to cryptocurrency.
This may be as a result of their alignment in support of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in its bid to get rid of cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria.
The clampdown is coming barely ten months after the CBN had instructed all banks to severe ties with crypto exchanges on February 5, 2021, with traders of bitcoin and other stablecoins reportedly losing their accounts.
The apex bank later released a statement explaining its reasons for ordering Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and other financial institutions to ban transactions by entities using cryptocurrencies.
In a series of letters, and circulated to individuals who received large amount into their accounts in a space of few days or involved in outflow of huge sum, they were asked to submit documents backing the transactions.
Zenith Bank, in its letter, told a customer, whose account was closed due to cryptocurrency trading, “The decision to close the account is due to CBN regulation/circular of January 12, 2017, February 5, 2021, which prohibits institutions and individual accounts dealing in cryptocurrency and facilitating payment for cryptocurrency exchanges.”
A Kuda representative had said to reacted to accusations of blocking accounts, saying, “Kuda is a microfinance bank, and we don’t [deal] in crypto-related businesses.” It added that the Fintech firm doesn’t just block an account, that there has to be a cogent reason.
Meanwhile, Kuda had written to an account holder who received 50 transactions within two days, to “Please explain the source and purpose of these inflow.”
In the rep’s explanation on why Kuda sought clarification on large inflow, the rep stated that for every transaction above N5 million, the account holder is mandated to supply some information to back it.
The currently CBN war on cryptocurrency traders comes at a period the most popular digital crypto, bitcoin, surpassed its all-time high of $66,975, to set another record of $68,990.90.
This represents a difference of 3.0 percent, as it added $2,015.9 to its cost per coin on Wednesday. It later fell back on Thursday, losing $1,697.52 of what it added the previous day, as it depreciated by 2.55 percent.
