Tell an average Nigerian about investing in cryptocurrency, and the first respond would be suspicion, indifference or outright disdain.
The reason is not far-fetched. Nigerian has had a recent history of dubious characters marauding as digital currency merchants, investors etc.
Just yesterday, a Bitcoin company on Bassey Duke Street in Calabar, Nigeria vanished into thin air with millions of investors' money!
These are the people and companies that give cryptocurrency a bad name. And this is one of the reasons why the industry needs to purge itself. Else, like Facebook is currently being pushed to, as a result of the recent data breach, external pressure may be brought to bear resulting in Government regulation. The risk of government regulation, or interference if you like, is that it may whistle down the decentralization of cryptocurrency, which is one of the industry's selling points.
Just recently, Nigeria survived MMM fraud that swept away hundreds of billions of investors' funds. Now, this shame.
It hurts to see people duped in the name outright fraud masquerading as cryptocurrency. We cannot and should not keep quiet. We must do more to protect the public and train them to be able to identify frauds from legitimate cryptocurrency dealings.
The fact is cryptocurrency is not the same as MMM and is not fraudulent but many who have had their hands burnt by unscrupulous elements would be quick to disagree. And this is where there is work to do.
Steem and other must in deed show to the public that their platforms are credible and not fraudulent.
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