Forex: Binance crypto trading platform to pay FG $10 billion fine

The Federal Government has slammed $10 billion fine on crypto trading platform, Binance, over allegedly influencing the country’s forex crisis.

The special adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, disclosed this on Friday morning in an interview with the BBC.

According to Onanuga, Binance profited substantially from its “illegal transactions” in Nigeria while the nation suffered huge losses.

Onanuga claimed that Binance is not registered in Nigeria and has no presence in the country.

He alleged that people used the platform to arbitrarily fix dollar-naira rates; a practice he said negatively impacted the value of the local currency.

He explained further that the Binance team was already cooperating with the Nigerian government by providing useful information, and had already suspended naira-related transactions on the platform.

Onanuga said, “The platform fixes the exchange rate in Nigeria, which is illegal. The Central Bank of Nigeria is the only authority that can fix the exchange rate for Nigeria.

“Binance harbours a lot of people who fix exchange rates which impacted the country badly at a time when the government is trying to stabilize the economy.”

He added that Binance influenced the increase in foreign exchange rates through currency speculations which made the Naira value to fall by almost 70% in recent months.

Binance under investigation
Earlier on Friday, the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) confirmed that the crypto exchange platform is being investigated by the Nigerian authorities.

In its first official confirmation of the clampdown efforts on the activities of Binance and other crypto platforms, a top official of the ONSA had told Premium Times that the security adviser’s office is coordinating an interagency investigation into the operations of Binance.

Nairametrics had earlier reported the arrest and detention of two top executives Binance on Wednesday over alleged manipulations in foreign exchange trading and speculative activities.

The executives visited Nigeria in response to the country’s recent crackdown on various cryptocurrency trading platforms.

nairametrics.com