Nigerian Central Bank’s Digital Currency E-Naira Has Launched, And It's Brought In Half A Million People

The E-Naira has arrived, and less than a month after its arrival, it has created a revolution in Nigeria.

According to Bloomberg, the Central Bank of Nigeria reports an “excellent” adoption rate for this digital currency.

“More than 488,000 people have downloaded the consumer wallet that’s needed to transact E-Naira while about 78,000 merchants from more than 160 countries have enrolled,” said Osita Nwanisobi, a representative for the Central Bank of Nigeria, to the outlet.

Furthermore, according to Nwanisobi, 62 million naira ($150,000) of the virtual currency have been traded since it was introduced.

While Nigeria has been quick to adopt the cryptocurrency, it’s not the only African country to do so.

Nigeria has the E-Naira, but Ghana has the E-Cedi. As AfroTech previously reported, the e-cedi is the first digital currency of its kind in Africa.

According to Dr. Ernest Addison, the governor of the country’s central bank, the new proposed digital currency will go into effect after three pilot stages confirm it to be a positive thing to introduce into the local economy.

“The Bank of Ghana was one of the first African Central Banks to declare that we were working on a digital currency looking at the concept of an e-cedi,” Dr. Addison said at a news conference in Accra.

The e-cedi has completed the first phase of the process, where the design has been made and finalized by a centralized committee. Right now, the digital currency is in a limited implementation phase, meaning that some online transactions will accept the digital currency if it’s applied to the payment.