HD INTERVIEW SESSION: VENTURING INTO CRYPTOCURRENCY IN NIGERIA

Honeydrops: Good evening, Sir… Welcome to the HD interview session.

Victor Daniyan: Good evening, I’m delighted to have this session with you

Honeydrops: Can we meet you?

Victor Daniyan: My name is Victor Daniyan. I am a Telecoms Engineer with Nokia Nigeria 🇳🇬. I’m also working with some IoT firms and a crypto trader.

Honeydrops: Great. You founded/started BULL DISCOVERY?

Victor Daniyan: Yes, I have developed an interest in acquiring more knowledge about cryptocurrency and how it works. So, I started with my findings, got involved, and I decided to create an avenue to give some of this knowledge back to society.

Honeydrops: Do You mind telling us what BULL DISCOVERY is all about?

Victor Daniyan: Cryptocurrency has been having a relatively good impact on social-economic growth since the first crypto coin, “Bitcoin “ and the awareness has been growing massively over the years. Statistically, there has been very high growth in investment rates from 2018 to date.

This gave birth to more interest from individuals and organizations, investing in crypto is no rocket science, but you still need basic knowledge and continued support and information on things happening in the Crypto market. I, therefore, decided to mediate the gap between getting updated about cryptocurrency, handling your crypto account, and always getting the best knowledge on the go.
So, I came up with BULL DISCOVERY. We are just on Twitter for now, but our website is opening soon.

Honeydrops: That’s a very impressive one, educating people and giving back to society.
What’s your take on cryptocurrency being just an investment or on it being the future of money?

Victor Daniyan: Ok, to answer this question, let’s define money. What’s money?

Honeydrops: Anything accepted as a means of payment…

Victor Daniyan: Good. There was a time when trade by barter was the closest thing to money; then, Gold; maybe Silver; then, coins and later, paper notes.
All of these have one similarity, they are regulated by governments. Cryptocurrency isn’t.
Truth be told we need a universal currency to trade and invest which can not be directly influenced by any government. This is Crypto; The future of money. You can buy and sell on Amazon with Bitcoin already, same with Alibaba. I have made payments with Bitcoin and Ethereum several times.

Honeydrops: With cryptocurrency not being regulated, don’t you believe there is a tendency for people to be ripped off? The world is getting familiar with Bitcoin, how about altcoins? There seem to be a lot popping up, how do people make sure they are not being ripped off?

Victor Daniyan: That’s why you should follow BULL DISCOVERY. We will give you all this information first-hand.
No matter how good the intentions of a product are, there are still some bad eggs. We will tell you coins to invest in and chose not to.

READ OUR PREVIOUS INTERVIEW HERE

Honeydrops: How can people secure their money?

Victor Daniyan: Good question, you need to understand that your crypto wallet must be with a secured company. The best and the most popular ones we have in Nigeria (Luno and Binance). I have 99.9 assurance that you won’t lose your money from them. Even if you do, you’d be refunded. If you ever do lose money on them.

Honeydrops: Hmm… Sounds encouraging….

Victor Daniyan: Luno has never been hacked. Also, Binance security has been tested but never overthrown

Honeydrops: What are the common misconceptions you have heard about cryptocurrency in Nigeria and what are your takes on them?
An example, cryptocurrency is like forex and is unstable or it is like MMM

Victor Daniyan: The major issue is that many Nigerians don’t read or research and make findings of new things we discover around us. We rely on 3rd class information. People need to read more. Be ready to learn.
No matter how good you or crypto is, I tell you, you won’t believe or even accept investing until you’re well informed about it. ‘My people die because of lack of knowledge, Biblical reports, not from me.

Honeydrops: Hmm… Profound
A word of advice for those who want to venture into cryptocurrency in Nigeria?

Victor Daniyan: You need to be patient, don’t be greedy if you want to go into crypto trading and try as much not to sell at a loss, be patient with your investment.

HoneyDrops: What is your opinion on the Federal Government or the Central Bank of Nigeria banning cryptocurrency trade in the country? What is it all about, how does it affect cryptocurrency trading in Nigeria and how can people go on from there?

Answering your question about the Nigerian government banning cryptocurrency, the Nigerian Government has no power to ban cryptocurrency in Nigeria. No country can ban cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is decentralized and there’s no central body attached to it. So, it is difficult to ban it. What the CBN /FGN just tried to do was to limit the transactions of cryptocurrency in Nigeria.

They made it complex or difficult for a commoner to want to involve themselves in cryptocurrency, by cutting short inbound and outbound cash transfers using local banks. What this means is that you can not sell your cryptocurrency and withdraw it to your Nigerian bank account and you cannot also fund your cryptocurrency exchange from your Nigerian bank account. So, that has crippled the rate of a lot of things.

It is good to have a policy on cryptocurrency, it is good to have policies that govern your country, and it should be regulated, but not trying to kill a technology that is growing worldwide. It is like we used to ride on horses, and horses would take us to the nearest village or town. Someone begins making a car that moves faster than a horse, and you ban the importation of vehicles.

You can’t stop vehicle production, so they cannot stop cryptocurrency. They can ban the importation of vehicles in Nigeria, though. They can tell us that if vehicles come into Nigeria, it means thieves can get into a vehicle and run faster, making it difficult for the police to arrest them.

At first, they didn’t give us the real reason why they banned cryptocurrency. Later on, the government came to say they banned crypto because of fraudulent transfers, some organisations were using it, quote and unquote Boko Haram and I don’t know, maybe IPOB. So, they needed to end inbound and outbound cash transactions using local banks, but I can say, for so many years terrorists have been using Nigerian bank accounts to transfer money to buy weapons in Nigeria.

We have the BVN which everybody should have, we have EFCC monitoring accounts; and till today, nobody has been able to trace the funding of Boko Haram. I think ending this stuff doesn’t solve the situation at hand. To me, it makes no sense just to crash off crypto in your country because you feel terrorists can use it because it is untraceable.

Their major fear about crypto is that they have no direct access to or power over it. No government controls cryptocurrency. Some things might affect the pricing, like some policies in some countries, or strong countries like the United States, it might affect the price, but it cannot kill the market, so there’s no direct impact anybody has on cryptocurrency. If you look at things, it has been a bit difficult for graduates to get jobs and one thing about Nigerians is that they are hardworking. They keep trying to source funds through different means.

So many people have come to study how they can invest, trade, and earn a living through cryptocurrency. Why end it when the rate of unemployment is so high and many people are dependent on this? It makes no sense to me. Why not regulate it, bring out policies, or promote bank transactions on it. Things are tough. There are no jobs in Nigeria. Those who are even employed are underemployed. If people can earn a living and it is legit why not put people under consideration than just crash the whole sector like that.

We have companies like Luno. They tried to have a great impact on Nigeria. They were planning on having an office in Nigeria. People were making legit money from cryptocurrency in Nigeria. You can make policies that don’t allow it to become difficult for people to buy and sell. Yes, it can’t be regulated but not making it end this way. It makes things more difficult. Some people who found a way out of crime through this might end up going back. There is no justification for that, however.

Most times, when we complain about stuff like when they wanted to regulate social media and they wanted to make it difficult for us to have freedom of speech and all; when we complained they compared us to China, I have worked with a Chinese company, Huawei, for 2 years. China has its social media, they don’t use Facebook, they don’t WhatsApp, but they WeChat. WeChat belongs to China, they have its own mail site. China has its cryptocurrency.

In always comparing us to China, you should know the system of government in China is different, always comparing us is not standard. Comparing Nigeria to China and then, living some parts out in areas such as development. They are in competition with the US for world power. Ending crypto cryptocurrency is not the right step at this point.

HoneyDrops: Firstly, we have talked about the ban, the effects, and how nobody controls it but people like me, laymen, those of us who are interested but now do not have access through our banks are halted, are not getting explanations on how to continue. Second, MasterCard has come to say, “You can trade with our cards.” What does that mean? Third, Nigeria is not the only country that has taken steps against cryptocurrency; we also have India and Brazil, two developing countries that have clamped down on it. What’s your opinion on that?

You can continue trading. You can continue investing in cryptocurrencies. This hasn’t stopped anything; it just makes it a bit more difficult or complex. You have to tighten your belt a bit.

An alternative for trading since you can’t use your bank account if you are very used to Binance is what we call Peer to Peer trading (P2P). You can sell and you can buy. It just boils down to trust. In that way, you can continue buying or selling. For now, it is difficult to have that on Luno. For now, you can just switch to Binance. I hope Luno comes up with something better soon. Some people have merchants, with whom they have been doing business for a long time.

With peer-to-peer trading, you have people who are ready to sell coins for a certain price, and you have buyers. You give me money, and I give you the amount of value of your money in Bitcoin, USDT, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies that are on the platform for P2P trading. It is similar to Jiji; you want to buy a car and you meet the person, but here you don’t mean the person physically; you send the money and he sends the coin to your address.

P2P is very easy, there is no stress about it, and it is also very secure. It is secured by Binance. There is a risk level, but the risk level is also very low. MasterCard is also coming out and wants to tag along and partner with Bitcoin but you’d still need to have a dollar account for you to make transactions using Bitcoin. The best way to do it is to have your Binance P2P.

It is not just India that has also banned cryptocurrency, we have China, Iran, and Iraq. But what I just want you to look out for is: are there reasons why they are banning cryptocurrency? China is banning crypto, but they have their coin, they are also looking forward to having a digital bank. If you look, they don’t have Facebook, they have WeChat, and they have their own mail.

Some countries are banning it for good reasons, probably to develop their own cryptocurrency. I have not gone deep as to why India is banning theirs but for Nigeria, they say it is killing the naira and I see no way, making it more complicated for people to buy is helping the naira

Honeydrops: Thanks a lot for doing this with us, your final word

Victor Daniyan: I am a trader and an investor. I have been in cryptocurrency for a while. I have made money and I have made losses. Also, I can tell you that I have made so much money. In the beginning, I made some funny mistakes and lost some cash, but I was determined.

Then, I went back to the building, went back to studying, and now I am earning a living from this and I am enjoying it. I am sure other people are earning from it. So, the FG and CBN should be more considerate when they take actions that have to do with the whole nation. They should look further than the tree in front of them.

If you have any questions, please drop them in the comment section. Victor would be here to answer all your questions. You can also reach out to him via the Twitter Handle for BULL DISCOVERY. Simply tap on it.

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