The leader of the Nigerian blockchain association, Senator Ihenyen, has implored the country’s lawmakers — currently pushing for the securities law to be revamped — to consider crafting laws that regulate the crypto industry.
Proposed Law Does Not Expressly Mention Cryptocurrencies
As Nigerian lawmakers debate a bill that proposes a ten-year jail term for operators of Ponzi schemes, a leader of a Nigerian blockchain lobby group, Senator Ihenyen, has urged the country’s lawmakers to consider crafting a law to govern the cryptocurrency industry. He argued that an “unregulated crypto space is not in anyone’s best interest.”
Ihenyen, who heads the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SIBAN), however, concedes that while the proposed bill does not expressly mention or refer to digital currencies, crypto Ponzi schemes are included in what the lawmakers call “prohibited schemes.”
The remarks by the leader of SIBAN follow reports that Nigerian lawmakers had passed a bill to repeal and re-enact the country’s Capital Markets, Investment and Securities Act for a second reading. Ibrahim Babangida, one of the lawmakers leading the push to have the law changed, is quoted in a Premium Times report explaining why this needs to be changed. He said:
The bill prohibits Ponzi/Pyramid Schemes as well as other illegal investment schemes and prescribes a jail term of not less than 10 years for promoters of such schemes.
In addition to seeking…
