CBN can freeze Fiat but not Crypto

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The demerits of centralization keeps popping up day-by-day. It becomes a problem when an entity has full control over your funds because it can take whatever action against your will. This then shows the need to embrace decentralization brought to us via blockchain and cryptocurrency.


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Of recent, there has been an uprising by the citizens of Nigeria, especially the youths against a unit of the police force called Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). This uprising is as a result of the prevalent and common brutality/ maltreatment of Nigerian youths by this police unit - SARS. There are also cases of SARS agents extorting many youths, raping of female inmates as well as wrongful killings of some Nigerian youths. These and many more reasons give rise to the ongoing protest by Nigerian youths tagged #ENDSARS & #ENDPOLICEBRUTALITY.


Because of this protest, people and organizations donated some money to Flutterwave, an online payment gateway, for the youths to use in ensuring that the protest goes successful and peacefully. According to an announcement on Flutterwave's official Twitter handle, a total of NGN16,706,635.9 had been donated into their bank account, as of Tuesday - October 13. This included donations in foreign currencies too.


This fund was supposed to be used for medical, food, water purposes and other logistics during the protest. However, the Central Bank of Nigerian decided to freeze the account of Flutterwave together with another account owned by a women organization, with claims of money laundering and also that the funds came from terrorists groups.


The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on directives of the federal government has temporarily blocked the account of Flutterwave, a fintech payment platform that is being used to receive donations for the ongoing protest against police brutality in the country.


The apex bank also blocked the account of Feminist Coalition, a pro-#EndSARS women group, was also frozen. - source


Could be the funds came from terrorists groups or not, I do not know. But my point that, such thing rarely happens in the cryptocurrency space. Assuming those funds were sent in the form or cryptocurrency, the CBN will not be able to exercise such power on someone's funds without due investigations.


That act was a show of the flaws of a centralized system. Centralization often brings about undue usage of power. It is time to embrace digital currencies with open arms so as to be in full control of our funds.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta



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