Nigeria’s eNaira Wallet Nears 500,000 Downloads in First 3 Weeks: Report

More than 488,000 people have downloaded the consumer wallet for Nigeria’s central bank digital currency, the eNaira, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.

Launched on Oct. 25, the eNaira has been used for NGN 62 million (US$150,000) in transactions, according to Osita Nwanisobi, a spokesman for the central bank the Bloomberg story cited.
Nigeria has minted about $1.2 million eNaira, central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said when the CBDC was launched.
Nwanisobi said 78,000 merchants from 160 countries have signed up for the merchant wallet.
The eNaira was developed by Barbados-based Bitt, the fintech company that also worked on the Eastern Caribbean central bank’s digital currency.
Nigeria banned the use of cryptocurrencies in the country in February.

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Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi was CoinDesk's AI/crypto reporter.

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