Bitcoin Magazine: Binance and Nigeria Join Forces to Create a West African Economic Zone

According to a news release, Nigeria is working with the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority (NEPZA) to develop plans for the first economic free zone in West Africa that will be dedicated to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies .

Binance, one of the most important cryptocurrency exchanges, and Talent City, an organization that specializes in the construction of special economic zones, are currently engaged in conversation with NEPZA.

The executive director of NEPZA, Adesoji Adesugba, stated that the organization’s objective is to “engender a flourishing virtual free zones” in order to “take advantage of a nearly trillion dollar virtual economy in blockchains and digital economy.”

In addition, NEPZA clarified that, in the event that a cooperation is established, the end result would be analogous to that of the Dubai Virtual Free Zone.

In point of fact, Binance and the Dubai World Trade Center signed a Memorandum of Understanding back in December of this past year. By establishing a “new worldwide virtual asset ecosystem,” as the memorandum puts it, Dubai will be positioned to become a center for the distribution of goods and services related to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

A letter was sent out by the Central Bank of Nigeria in February of the previous year, instructing regulated institutions that they are not allowed to “handle” with bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Following the introduction of the ban, there was a 27% increase in the number of peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin transactions carried out all throughout the country in Nigeria.

In point of fact, in terms of volume, peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions in Africa as a whole became the largest in the world barely a year ago. At approximately the same time, Chainalysis published a global adoption index that placed Nigeria among the top 10 countries in the world for its use of bitcoin.

In addition, as Dubai and Nigeria work toward the establishment of special economic zones that would be beneficial to bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, we may take a look at economic zones that are already in place. For example, the free city of Próspera serves as a model for an economic structure that is amenable to modification.