Cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, has been served breakfast in Nigeria for what the country’s authorities have described as the free fall of the official currency, the Naira.
President Bola Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to, Bayo Onanuga, in an interview in the nation’s capital, Abuja, disclosed that the $10 billion fine was slammed on Binance due what he described as the platform’s illegal operations, which he insists contributed hugely to the devaluation of the Naira.
“The platform fixes the exchange rate for the country, and it is an illegal rate. The CBN is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for the country”, said Onanuga.
“Binance platform harbors people who fix the exchange rate, which quickly affects the Nigerian economy for the time when Nigeria is trying to stabilize the economy. Binance staff cooperated with the government to provide information.”
Recall that the FG reportedly directed mobile networks to prevent access to Binance platforms, forcing the cryptocurrency exchange giant to remove the Naira from its peer-to-peer, P2P, feature.
Two Binance employees were also allegedly detained by the office of the National Security Adviser, NSA, Nuhu Ribadu, in the country’s capital, Abuja, as part of an investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange’s operations in Nigeria.
The arrest of the two officials was the government’s attempt to curb naira speculation and steady its free fall by clamping down on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Philips Babatunde