The Hoax Of Being Financially Free In A Price Inflated Country
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Financial freedom can be defined as having to cater for one's need, wants, excesses and desires without even to having to be gainfully employed or earning a monthly persay for a long period of time, but how about having a massive chunk of money stored in a commercial bank and spending it duly in an appropriated rate for let's say a person who feels they have enough money to last them for a life time? Truth is, the Nigerian naira is constantly depreciating and it's been like that for the past ten years now there's no opportunity to earn passive income unless you're into real estate. The other opportunities would require you to setup a standardized business venture which will require your skill, your attention and yet your probability to make profit isn't really assured.
Money is quite volatile in Nigeria in other words, prices are constantly on the rise while the currency is stagnant which means the Naira loses value on a constant basis which means hypothetically you are not going to spend the same amount of money you planned to spend if your savings are in naira and stored or kept in a national commercial Bank. Tax is something we inadvertently pay. Nigeria doesn't have a steady form of tax payment, but we P.A.W.U which means "pay as we use" for buying airtime we pay enormous charge rate that includes tax to the national treasury, for buying online, we pay enormous fees too and even for saving money in a bank, we pay charges on ATM and even the banks are paying the government covid-19 palliative and deducting the money from the accounts of customers.
So even if one hypothetically saved let's say ₦10 million in their bank account and plan to spend it for 5 years without having a source to earn passive income from any venture, the person might become poorer than they thought and spend the money within three years because they'll keep spending on all angle, they'll pay bank tax, tax on purchase, tax on housing and even tax for holding a huge amount of money on a savings account. See one of the reasons why people become poorer in Nigeria more than any other country is that they're quick to underate the rate of inflation and lack of investment opportunities in Nigeria. Any amount of money held in naira is subceptible to become valueless with time unless the money is converted to other currency with a little bit of stability and held in a foreign bank account.
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The rate of inflation in Africa in general is alarming and the governments are constantly profiting from these huge inflation and the cycle seems to be endless. So there's nothing like being financially free in Nigeria because there's are hardly ways to invest and earn passive income just like the options which crypto generally provides us. The government is currently of the opinion that because of the volatility of crypto they can't endorse it as a safe and viable means of exchange but then paradoxically it's the naira that's currently volatile and the Only reason why I hold it is because I need it to spend or purchase and nothing more. Africa in general needs to recognise crypto as the next big thing.
A digital currency with no government or rules limiting it to particular prerequisite. While western government aims to control everything, the African government aims to deplete people and kill them with tax while at the same time, limiting people to little or no means to actually create wealth with little income. Apart from Nigeria, Zimbabwe is the worst country to live in, in Africa, the inflation rate is as high as 95% in this year alone. I think the Nigerian naira itself needs to be scrapped or an adoption of a new currency placed in effect or devaluation of the currency itself. Having money in Nigeria is a hoax because you spend more than you even know and spending without having the means to replenish or holding a static income is why earning on a monthly basis makes you poorer in Nigeria.
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Thanks for giving insight into what true inflation is as compared to what people tend to discuss in the crypto world.
I presume holding part of your wealth in USD in your country is not allowed or encouraged?
In reading this post, all I could think is that Hive and the assorted tokens on here cover a great deal of this. They operate outside the reach of the African governments while providing a means for people to accumulate over time.
Perhaps we need to put together a plan to try and onboard more people from Nigeria. It is a country that is slated to keep growing in population throughout the rest of this century. Thus, its importance will grow as time passes.
We know cryptocurrency offers a solution for people in the situation such as you describe. It is time we pass along the idea to everyone who is suffering in such a way.
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You're actually right, well my country and the government hasn't really been too harsh openly on the use of crypto and the reason why people don't know about blockchain and crypto that much is because they chose not to.
Being paid in some places is worse than having to blog on hive or be a trader in crypto. I just feel the knowledge alone can take people out of poverty. In Nigeria one can only store their wealth in crypto if it's to maintain value in like ten years else inflation renders the money even useless.
Thanks a whole lot for your comment. Would be great to have many more Nigerians, investing and building, the future is even more better this way.
Yeah I believe the continent of Africa holds enormous potential for crypto and that is where the growth will come from.
I am glad to see the ones on here who have arrived so far.
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Very interesting insights @josediccus and @taskmaster4450le.
I can't speak specifically for Nigeria, but coming from an inflation country (1 USD = SRD 3.35 in 2010, 1 USD = SRD 7.5 in 2016, 1 USD = SRD 14 in 2020) there are several challenge to holding part of your wealth in USD.
Then we get to the financial literacy aspect. Because people are desperate about getting wealth, and as hard work and saving don't get the same results as western countries, they move towards more risk. Really popular right now, blessing looms. And because of the low financial literacy (which is also a reason few people safe in USD), people are really prone to pyramid schemes. Not to speak of the gambling addictions.
To extend this to crypto, the lack of financial literacy hurts even more. If I tell you that the 3 most popular "crypto related organizations" in my country in the past 5 years have been:
I'm using heavy quotation marks, because we all know what those 3 organizations really are, but for the locals... that is what crypto represents, as it has been what has been heavily promoted the most. It's a shame and it makes it even harder to onboard others, because they can't differentiate between OneCoin/Dagcoin and actual Cryptocurrencies.
Full disclosure: Examples used are from Suriname, South America. But there are some similarities in cultures.
I think one of the things that hits us really hard is the enormous fee we always have to pay and how the currency itself tends to get even more valueless with time. I agree that on onboarding is a huge issue in most African countries and one thing I've realised is that this could be a force to push people to buying into Crypto and getting that knowledge they might actually need.
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Definitely.
We have to work on the ease of converting Hive to local currency, or better, have local businesses accept Hive as a payment method.
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Exactly and seeing that the government hardly cares is why are more Africans needs to hold it more, trade it and even be in a place like hive and leo. The opportunities are countless.
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I know African country inflation sucks and we always feel like we getting the short end of the stick but at least there’s a chance now that we can decouple from this system
I think that for us getting hurt by inflation pushes us quicker and deeper into crypto and it could be the chance for some crazy wealth distribution
I was just listening to a podcast before this about the 500k USD case for BTC and if that happens you won’t need much to be stupid rich
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You're right about that, it pushes us deep into Crypto and this can be a better way for the adoption of crypto to spread even faster and quicker. Inflation can be a bitch, I remember how it hurts the individual earning a static income
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Experienced similar thing and I ended up losing more than gaining anything.