The Securities and Exchange Commission has on Thursday warned Nigerians against participating and investing their money in virtual and digital currencies.
The SEC noted that its attention has been drawn to advertisements promoting and encouraging Nigerians to invest in crypto currencies such as Swisscoin, OneCoin, Bitcoin and others.
The commission in a statement issued warned Nigerian to exercise extreme caution in participating in such digital financial programs.
The warning comes on the heel of the MMM Nigeria online financial aid’s decision to freeze all activated accounts for a period of one month.
In the warning issued by the SEC, the commission advised the public to beware as such investment could be risky.
The statement read: “The public should also be aware that any investment opportunities promoted by these persons, companies or entities are likely to be of a risky nature with a high risk of loss of money, while others may be outright fraudulent pyramid schemes.
“Given that these instruments and the persons, companies or entities that promote them have neither been authorised, nor any guidelines/regulations developed for them by any of the regulatory authorities in Nigeria, there is no protection available to users or investors in these virtual currencies from financial losses if the virtual currencies fail or the companies promoting them go out of business.
“The public and consumers of financial services are further advised that before making any investment or entering into any financial services transaction they should ascertain that the entity with whom the investment or transaction is being made is authorised by the commission or other financial services regulatory authority as applicable to provide such services.”
