The Adoption of Blockchain Technology in Nigeria

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As a cryptocurrency fanatic, you’ve probably always tracked the legalities of Bitcoin as certain countries have declared it illegal, while others have taken steps to integrate it into society. Well you may be surprised to find out, the first country striving for full blockchain technology integration has actually been recently announced as the country of Nigeria.

The History of Nigeria and Blockchain

Unlike a number of other African countries, Nigeria has never fully been opposed to cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Rather, they were slow adopters at first, but since the year 2019 (and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic) they have been in a rush to catch up with China to benefit as much as they can from the implications of this new technology. Africa has always been plagued by infrastructure issues and population distrust in banks, so it should be no surprise that this society was quick to accept the idea of a decentralized technology. In the early days, Nigeria was mostly using blockchain technology to run their nation's lotteries or for gambling/gaming purposes. But now, their leader, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa is looking to change that, and in the process, making Nigeria one of the stronger financial powers of the world.

How Will Nigeria Use Blockchain?

In an interview with Vanguard on November 5th, 2020, Mr. Inuwa listed nearly a hundred ways the Nigerian society would be using blockchain. Their plans for the technology are massive, but mostly inspired by the recent global pandemic. Thus, they are looking to implicate blockchain technology in the areas of payment processing, the transportation of goods, and identity protection services. While this all sounds amazing, Inuwa recognizes that his people are far from the technology behemoth known as China, but he hopes by innovating quickly they will be able to capture much of the unrecognized value found in blockchain technology in Africa.

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Interestingly enough, Nigeria is well positioned on the continent of Africa to overtake much of the continent's digital trade routes. Nigeria conveniently houses the FinTech center in Africa and already processes much of the digital payment processing which occurs on the continent. That and the fact that there isn’t much competition from nearby countries means Inuwa believes they will accomplish their goal, and with it, enormous amounts of money.

Not only are they looking to improve their standing on a global level, but Nigeria is also aiming to become the first all-digital society with everything from money, to transportation, to healthcare being controlled digitally rather than manually. And they’re going to use blockchain to help them do it. Now, if you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know Ponzi scheme scams having to do with cryptocurrency are the common place in many under developed countries. Inuwa is hoping to curb these illegalities by completely legalizing the currency, which will allow it to be highly regulated.

The Pros and Cons

Of course any major technological innovation has its pros and cons. The adoption of blockchain technology in Nigeria will be great for job creation as well as pave the way for other neighboring African countries to do the same. Africa has long lagged behind in the development of technology as the continent is still plagued by frequent wars between countries (and insurgents) to this day. Which brings up a con, Nigeria is already plagued by instability within their own government. Will blockchain technology integration bring it to an end? Or is there a possibility that the protests and civil unrest will grow to be even larger? It’s hard to know for sure. And there’s certainly a possibility that much of this discussed technology remains in the hands of the government—centralizing it in a way cryptocurrencies aren’t meant to do—and this could lead to an all-out political attack by large political groups or the governments of neighboring countries. Not only that, but many of the current protests against the government in Nigeria are in response to the country’s group of elite police known as SARS. And Inuwa has already placed Bitcoin in a bad light as he suggested using Bitcoin to host a fund raiser to fund this elite police force. It’s unknown how the average citizen feels about Bitcoin, as Vanguard only interviewed Mr. Inuwa. It could therefore be possible that widespread adoption could be met with massive resistance and not happen at all.

Another con is that Africa has long held some of the most traditional societies on earth, most notably the Masai tribe which lives on the plains in the southern part of Kenya and northern part of Tanzania. These tribes rely heavily on a simple way of living, most of them still relying on hunting and gathering, as well as limited farming, for food. And it’s hard to imagine that blockchain technology would fit into a society which doesn’t even accept technology such as the cell phone. It’s not that adoption would be impossible, it’s just that is won’t be as cut and dry as Inuwa would like to believe.

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Another aspect to consider, is that if Nigeria truly establishes the payment processing capabilities they are bragging about, a lot of money to be made from blockchain will be redirected to within its borders. The US and EU are already in place to make billions themselves, but how are they going to feel sharing the pie with the country of Nigeria? On the pro side, this could lead to a wider adoption of cryptocurrency worldwide, but it also could lead to embargoes or restrictions being placed on Nigerian’s interactions with these more developed countries (basically boils down to if the US and EU will “trust” the Nigerian technology).

In conclusion, it will be interesting to see in the coming weeks and months if Nigeria is able to follow through with its promises. Crypto enthusiasts can only hope the announcement of adoption from a country such as Nigeria will lead to a more widespread acceptance of the currency in the more developed countries. Otherwise those of us in the EU and USA might find Nigeria and China quickly surpassing us in the ways of technology and innovation.

This article was brought to you by classic Bitcoin Dice Game on MintDice. Originally posted on MintDice.com.



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14 comments
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If you are interested in blockchain tech be sure to read up on the underlying technology and what it's implications are.

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Well this is a new concept, what do you call it @MintDice?
vote yourself, respond to yourself, and vote that too with an easy to remember acronym vyrtyavtt WTF? 🤔

Ever consider replying to your comment and then voting that too? If not, you're cutting yourself short on reward pool Hive the majority of authors around here work real hard to earn.

I mean, Technically, you wouldn't even need to post, just keep responding to yourself and upvote each of your responses all day until your mana dries up. If you only did it once I'd assume it's an error but nope! You're a consistent self responding-self voter. Eh!! :light bulb: That should be your future tags--go ahead, this one's on me.

#selfrespondingselfvoter

I considered upvoting this comment as an example but even my phone was 'no way, dick!' (I didn't know it could talk like that--must be the new iOS)

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Thank you for your concern. If there was more interactivity with the content I produced on Hive, I wouldn't need to do such things. But there's nowhere else to place my mana voting, so better on myself than nowhere.

I try producing very high/top quality content, perhaps you should consider stopping by more often :)

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(Edited)

You're welcome, I'm cool like that.

I just deleted a buncha stuff right to go along with that no interconnectivity theme you mentioned

very high/top quality content, perhaps you should consider stopping by more often :)

Consider it considered! scratch that! you just upvoted your own comment again and now I feel like a slut.

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Or maybe you should get out and make more friends by commenting on their content?
Engagement is a two way street.

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"Wahhhhh, nobody interacts with my content!"

hide in a god damn corner upvoting their own comments

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This account is largely for content creation for Hive, not interaction on other's accounts. We are on multiple platforms. Engaging on multitudes of other people's content across all of these platforms would be virtually impossible time wise although I get where you are coming from.

To make up for this, we own a lot of Hive tokens as a way to support the community and those that interact. Of course, you are free to disagree with this sentiment.

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It's nice that you hold that sentiment, but we, the community, will make our own decisions on how we feel about your sentiments.
I'd guess if you put out original content, and vote more than just yourself, the community will mind it's own.
Hive is a social co-op, we might not take being spoken to like we aren't here as friendly.
We like to be cared about.

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If you care, look at my upvoting history. Anyone that posts on the channels I moderate (Bitcoin & Cryptocurrency) or the commenters, they all get full 100% upvotes. Every single one unless I miss them or if it is a spam/scam attempt.

Really though, I don't think you should be this uptight and worried about what MintDice is doing. I guarantee you the MintDice channel is not what is going to be wrong with Hive. I know what shitty content is, and we aren't it. Our content is high quality. Your efforts are better placed elsewhere, I promise you. That or engage with us and this community in a more appropriate manner.

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I did look over your account, and although your content might pass as classic blogging material, it left me kinda flat.
I'd like to see something more personal, but that is just me.
Other than your 49% selfvote percentage, I don't see what we are doing here, either.
It's not like you are breaking the bank.

Do you really need .1hbd enough to turn off a slew of potential supporters?

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I don't need any amount of money. But I'd rather upvote my content than not upvote anything at all if that's the alternative. More than anything, I don't get why this offends you so greatly, do you not have any bigger problems in life to worry about? Is this literally where you decide to draw a line in the sand? Someone upvoting content with their own credits on an obscure website 99.9999% of the population doesn't even know exists?

If the content from MintDice doesn't vibe with you, great, you have the entire internet worth of content to read elsewhere and that's completely your choice. We are simply one choice out there that some choose to read. We get higher interactivity on some platforms than others. We try to make broad appealing content and do the best we can as a value add to our company and the cryptosphere as a whole. The fact that you specifically find it "flat" is actually the most probable outcome, not the exception. You realize this, right?

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But I'd rather upvote my content than not upvote anything at all if that's the alternative.

That is a false choice, you could join a voting trail to keep your account off 100%.
Or, you could go down the created feed and vote any post with less than 2hbd on it.
Takes but a minute.

More than anything, I don't get why this offends you so greatly, do you not have any bigger problems in life to worry about?

Well, like I said, you aren't breaking the bank, but having been here since before the creator left, call me old skool.

Selfvoting, vote selling, and ganging up to increase rewards break proof of brain.
Those that act solely in the interests of roi, and especially those dumping on the markets, harm the rest of us that would like to see hive moon.

We could be selling at 5usd right now, but people are willing to sell for anything they can get.
It astounds me that the crowd keeps voting them rewards.

You realize this, right?

Yeah, I get it.
I'm just starting my 1000 mile journey with this one step.

Honestly, I don't really care, but you tripped a consensus wire, and I had to weigh in because I just do that, sometimes.
It seems to me that you have served your purpose, setting parameters for flagging, and I doubt we trouble you much further.
But, I am just one guy and can't speak for the others.

Have you been flagging abuse?
It is your duty as a hp holder.

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(Edited)

Speaking for myself, engagements like this are less likely to want to have me engage and instead I'd sell off my Hive tokens. I don't plan on changing the present course of behavior. If this were to happen too often, I'd just leave. I guarantee you if you wanted to bring enough harassment my way, it wouldn't take much for me to step off. So far, I think it's just been you. Just something to keep note of I guess if you want Hive to moon. I think it's important to make a distinction between low quality spammers and those are just being reasonable people minding their own business.

Engagements that I do like are ones that actually talk about crypto and have meaningful discussions, which relative to other platforms, interactivity here is quite low.

Yes, I flag all spam, but its quite infrequent. I moderate the Bitcoin community and Cryptocurrency community which have seen small but consistent growth over the months.

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