Cryptocurrency giant Binance has said it is working with the Nigerian government to stamp out activities non-compliant with the country’s regulations on its platform.
“As industry leaders, we are working hand in hand with local authorities, lawmakers, and regulators to ensure we act on non-compliance,” Binance said in an announcement published on its website late Tuesday.
Sources close to the Nigerian government in recent days have been speaking on how cryptocurrency has provided a route for people to circumvent the country’s plan to increase dollar liquidity.
“There is something they call Binance; these guys don’t do anything but speculate,” said Ayo Oyalowo, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress’s presidential campaign council, told Channels Television on Tuesday evening.
“Just today alone, they have shifted the value of naira against the dollar from N1,700 to N1,800 within one hour.”
Nigeria’s heavily dollar-reliant economy has taken massive hits in the past months after President Bola Tinubu halted the government’s backing for the naira.
The sliding value of the Nigerian currency and Tinubu’s removal of expensive fuel subsidy has plunged the country into one of its worst cost-of-living crises in recent years.
A sleuth of policies released by the Central Bank of Nigeria in recent weeks has failed to halt the down spiral of the naira, forcing inflation to jump to 29.9%, a 28-year high, in January.
Binance insisted that it is working to protect its users, fight potential fraudulent transactions and ensure its Nigerian customers obey the country’s financial regulations.
“To be clear: if users are behaving in a malicious or manipulative way, they will be removed from the platform,” it said.
Chequered history
Nigeria has had a chequered history with cryptocurrencies.
The CBN only lifted a ban on Nigerian banks facilitating trading of digital assets in December after years of clamp down.
CBN had in January 2017 said digital currencies such as bitcoin, litecoin, and others are largely used in terrorism financing and money laundering, considering the anonymity of virtual transactions.
It later directed banks to close accounts of persons or entities involved in cryptocurrency transactions within their systems in February 2021.
