| by Editorial
It’s been a tough week for Binance. According to reports, the Nigerian securities regulator shut down the company’s operations in the country on June 9. This follows a lawsuit filed against Binance by the US Securities and Exchange Commission just days earlier.
The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly directed Binance Nigeria Limited to “immediately cease soliciting Nigerian investors in any form,” according to a statement seen by Bloomberg. The regulator also noted that Binance is neither registered nor regulated in the country, making the company’s operations illegal. “Any member of the investing public who interacts with the entity does so at their own risk,” the committee warned.
This setback for Binance comes just days after the company was sued by US authorities. The US SEC filed 13 charges against Binance on June 5, including allegations of unregistered offerings and sales of securities, failure to register as an exchange or broker, and mixing funds. The company claimed it had provided all information required by regulators and said it looks forward to “defending ourselves in court”.
Binance is a popular crypto exchange in Nigeria. Figures from Chainalysis show that the Middle East and North Africa region leads the world in crypto adoption, with users receiving $566 billion in cryptocurrencies between July 2021 and June 2022, a 48% increase over the previous year.
The ban follows recent regulatory developments within the local crypto ecosystem. On May 28, former President Muhammadu Buhari signed the Finance Act, imposing a 10% tax on profits from digital assets. The recently elected Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu, recently released a manifesto proposing to review the Nigerian SEC’s regulations on digital assets to make them more corporate.
The Central Bank of Nigeria does not recognize cryptocurrencies as legal tender, and commercial banks have been banned from engaging in crypto transactions in the country since February 2021.
Yet there is indeed a bitcoin market in Nigeria. Bitcoin is mainly used in peer-to-peer, but stablecoins such as Tether are also popular.
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2023-06-10 17:58:00
#Binance #fire #Nigeria #intervening
