Central Bank of Nigeria: the volume of transactions with eNaira after its launch amounted to about $9.3 million

Since the launch of digital naira in 2021, the number of active users has reached over 270,000. They made transactions with eNaira for 4 billion naira.

This was announced by Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria Godwin Emefiele (Godwin Emefiele) at the eNaira Hackathon event, which brought together African entrepreneurs, developers and designers to discuss solutions for the wider implementation of eNaira. The head of the central bank said that since the launch of the digital Nigerian Naira in October 2021, the eNaira app has been downloaded 840,000 times and about 270,000 addresses remain active.

“eNaira will be a big deal for Nigerians. It was created in order to provide citizens with a reliable and secure tool for making economical payments. Digital naira is not like offline payments that use handheld devices, cards and proximity, said Emefiele.

He added that the state stablecoin will increase access to finance for people who do not have a bank account and who do not use banking services. They can make transactions with eNaira using their phone by installing a special wallet. In June, the regulator announced that it intends to introduce a special USSD code that will allow transactions with the state cryptocurrency without a smartphone.

In addition, eNaira-based products and services will increase the participation of Nigerians in the digital economy and promote the development of the fintech sector, Emefiele said. He hopes that in the next phase of digital naira implementation, the level of its integration in the country will increase to 8 million active users.

Despite the presence of eNaira, the interest of Nigerians in cryptocurrencies continues to grow. In the first half of 2022, bitcoin trading volume in Nigeria reached almost $400 million, according to Paxful, due to the difficult economic conditions in the country.