The Central Bank has warned Ugandans investing in any forms of Digital Currency, saying it is taking a risk in the financial space where there is neither investor protection nor regulatory purview.
Bank of Uganda Governor Emmanuel Tumusiime Mutebile’s notice in different local dailies comes after a new software company OneCoin that owns a digital crypto-currency opened an office at the Mukwano Arcade in Kampala, promising good returns to Ugandans that want to participate.
BoU’s statement said in part, ““Bank of Uganda warns the general public that whoever wishes to invest their hard earned savings in Cryptocurrency forms such as One-coin, Bitcoin, Ripple, Peercoin, Namecoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Bytecoin, Primecoin, Blackcoin or any other forms of Digital Currency is taking a risk in the financial space where there is neither investor protection nor regulatory purview. The public is hereby warned that whoever deals with “ONE COIN DIGITAL MONEY” does so at his or her own risk.”
Such digital currencies, otherwise known as Cryptocurrency, is a digital asset designed to work as a medium of exchange using cryptography to secure the transactions and to control the creation of additional units of the currency. Bitcoin became the first decentralized cryptocurrency in 2009. BoU therefore, said such investments been promoted by the companies could be risky with possibility of loss of money by investors, while others could be outright fraudulent pyramid schemes.”
