Founder, Non-Fungible Token Nigeria (NFT NG), Kingsley Momoh, has said that the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Yemi Cardoso, clamped down on crypto currencies because of inadequate knowledge on block chain.

Momoh said this at Decentralised Finance (DeFi) and Beyond Summer summit, with the theme, ‘Building The Future of Finance,’ held at the Landmark Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.

The summit brought together digital creators, developers, NFT lovers, block chain technology enthusiasts and thought leaders, empowering them with opportunities on a global scale. The community aims to bring NFT and block chain technology to the attention of the mainstream audience.

Momoh said the idea for the NFT NG Summer summit is to empower Nigerians.

“The idea of gathering mainly youths is to look into the future; 75 per cent of the Nigeria population is young; so, we are creating a platform for them to liberate themselves financially. Given the current state of the Nigerian economy, it is important that our youths are able to take care of themselves financially.”

The aim is to keep our community engaged, and also educate them constantly on various emerging technologies,” he said.

Advising Nigerians, Momoh said: “Crypto currency is not a scam; it will change your life if you do it the right way. The CBN governor clamped down on crypto currency due to lack of knowledge, and that is why we are holding this conference to educate and create a positive narrative for our economy, because in foreign countries, discentralised finance is welcomed with open hands.”

He advised the Nigerian government to reduce its unfriendly regulation on crypto currency.

Also speaking, Founder, Cyber Patron, Adesola Oguntomehin, said: “The first thing to consider is security, confidentiality, integrity and availability. If those three things can be inculcated or brought into the block chain industry, it will protect both the traders and the owner of the block chain company from jeopardising data and others.”

So there’s a lot of things that we can do because once hackers tap into every industry, they can easily have access to the rest of us. They can steal your data, steal your money but we are trying to make sure that people in our community, the least person that is not even literate understands that when they send you a code and the code does not come from your bank, it should be ignored.

“It’s important for the blockchain industry to understand this aspect of cyber security. They need to understand, to be able to preach it.

Speaking on cybersecurity in Nigeria, he said: “Nigeria is vulnerable to cyberattacks. We read in the news a few days ago that Nigerians data is being sold for N100. I feel that as much as we as professionals are trying to breach the cybersecurity gap , our people are selling us out.

“Nigeria is not doing enough.

“We suppose to have government representatives at this event to learn more about blockchain and know ways to empower the youths but they are not evolving, they don’t have deep knowledge about cybersecurity so, how do they want to protect data.

“The CBN governor clamping down on cryptocurrency is purely ack of knowledge. The fact that they cannot make money from it is the problem. They look at ways to frustrate the youths and take away what gives them money.

“They need to understand that crypto is empowering the youths and not causing harm to the country.