Lagos based luxury hotel makes history, becomes Nigeria’s first to accept payments in Bitcoin

• Move spurred by inflation concerns
•  Allocates 50% of cash reserves to Bitcoin

Charles Abuede

As Nigeria’s inflation numbers continue on its expansion to a historic height and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in a collaborative meeting with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) begins the development of a new legal framework for trading digital assets following the prohibition by the apex bank in February, a Lagos-based Nigerian luxury hotel, George Residence, has reportedly announced its plans to begin the acceptance of Bitcoin as a form of payment.

Sanju George, the hotel chief executive officer revealed on Monday that it is adopting the digital asset as its primary reserve currency resulting from concerns about inflation which have continued to hold grip of the Nigerian economy. He also said that it will accept the virtual currency through Coinvest Africa, a regional cryptocurrency brokerage has allocated around 50 per cent of its cash reserves to Bitcoin.

“We have allocated around 50 per cent of our cash reserves to Bitcoin, and we hope to increase that as time goes on. Bitcoin is the currency of the future and it is only right that we are strongly positioned so we do not get left behind.”

“Bitcoin permits our guests a faster and more secure way to enjoy the comfort we offer. Our residents desire simplicity, and we are excited to be able to offer that to them,” Yanju George said.

Meanwhile, Paxful, crypto peer-to-peer trading platform, in a recent report said that Nigerians have since 2015 traded over 60,200 Bitcoin, second only to the United States.

Following the ban by Nigeria’s apex bank on deposit money banks and other financial institution from facilitating trades of the virtual currency, which has created some dispute about the legal status of the digital asset in Nigeria, Adamu Lamtek, deputy governor of the CBN, later clarified that the financial services regulator’s directives to the financial services companies from servicing digital currency exchanges did not ban Nigerians from trading or holding cryptocurrencies.