NGNT: empowering Nigerians ’freedom of investment’
The lack of a social safety net in Nigeria is one of the most compelling motivations for many Nigerians seeking financial security. This drive manifests itself in several ways, good and bad. I mean the idea that a workplace accident to the family bread-winner could spell the end of any income for the whole family or the unfortunate loss of a store owner’s inventory could be the difference between a child receiving crucial medical treatment or not, is bound to push some people to do anything, these scenarios and many more like them are happening all over the country right now.
This situation has led people to look at all sorts of ways to secure their financial freedom or at least put some extra money in their pocket. For instance in some parts of the country a traditional saving scheme known as ‘ajo’ is very popular among market coops, workers guilds and corporate workers. Multi-level marketing programs are also popular and common place as are ponzi schemes to extremes such as making the very dangerous journey across desert and sea in search of a better future in Europe.
The words ‘hustle’ and ‘side-hustle’ are so popular with Nigerians that Google recently launched an ad campaign in the country around the word ‘hustle’.
Enter the Blockchain
Prior to ICOs as a fundraising mechanism investing in the companies of the future such as Google and Amazon was the exclusive preserve of the ‘big boys’ club, the average citizen in developed countries couldn’t get into this ‘club’ not to talk of the average Nigerian or even the above average Nigerian for that matter.
But with the advent of ICOs the situation is rather different now, ICOs have given anyone irrespective of location, class or creed the opportunity to invest in the Googles or Apples of tomorrow, empowering people with the ‘freedom of investment’, thereby giving them the opportunity to make massive returns on their investment.
This is not to say all ICOs will make you money, the fact is many today are outright scams but with proper due diligence you can mitigate the risk involved in ICO investing.
An example of a good ICO to have invested in was the Binance ICO. When the ICO launched in July 2017, BNB the issued token cost around $0.10. if you were fortunate enough to take part in the ICO, after six months you would have made a whooping 22,000% return on your investment, when the token topped at $22/BNB, as at time of writing this ROI stood at over a 100x.
Now bear in mind that some Nigerians pay as much as $8,000 to make the treacherous journey over the Sahara desert and Mediterranean sea risking life limp and even slavery in the hope of a better life. With such a risk appetite wouldn’t investing in ICOs prove to be a better alternative, not only for these people but for all Nigerians in the rat race of trying to attain financial security.
The Binance ICO is just one example of a successful ICO in 2017, according the Crypto Finance Conference the top 10 crypto deals of 2017 had an average return on investment of 136,000%!!!
The Fiat-to-Crypto Challenge
Converting between BTC /ETH and Naira to participate in ICOs or to trade and invest in altcoins can be a tedious and complicated process especially when transacting in relatively large volumes, most local exchanges don’t offer a way to liquidate to Naira while the few that do, offer very restrictive services such as only being able to complete transaction during banking hours and also take a very long time to for these transactions to complete.
Buying BTC/ETH with Naira also presents its own challenges, exchanges that manage to offer purchases/deposits via debit cards are also very restrictive in terms of volumes and have high fees associated with it.
NGNT — more than just a stablecoin
NGNT is a fiat-backed digital token pegged 1:1 to the Nigerian Naira, issued by us at Cowrie Integrated Systems on the Stellar decentralized network.
While most fiat-backed stablecoin projects are focused on proving their reserves via complex and expensive auditing processes, we have taken a different approach focusing on issuing and redeeming NGNT from and into Naira as fast and as easy as possible.
With our implementation, NGNT can be issued from any Naira denominated bank account in Nigeria and can be redeemed for Naira into any Naira denominated bank account in Nigeria, both actions are completed in an average time of 2 minutes!!!
The question for us is that what does it matter if you can prove your reserves but holders can’t easily redeem these tokens for the assets they are backed by?
This feature takes NGNT beyond just being used as a hedge against the volatility experienced in the market, it provides a utility for exchanges that list it by giving their users an easy way to bring liquidity directly on the exchange without any complex integration with a financial institution.
No Story!!!
‘No story’ is a common phrase in Nigeria which means ‘delivering on your promise without any excuses’. We believe that making it easy for holders to issue and redeem NGNT fast and at anytime — ‘No story’, will build confidence in the token.
We at Cowrie Integrated Systems are of the belief that biggest social impact of NGNT will be empowering Africa’s largest economy with the ‘freedom of investment’.
