FOREX crisis: FGN slams $10 billion fine on Binance

In an interview with the BBC on Friday morning, Bayo Onanuga, President Bola Tinubu’s special adviser on information and strategy, revealed that the cryptocurrency trading platform Binance has been hit with a $10 billion fine by the federal government for allegedly influencing the nation’s forex issue.

Onanuga claims, Binance made significant profits from its “illegal transactions,” in Nigeria while the country sustained enormous losses.

According to Onanuga, Binance has neither a presence nor a registration in Nigeria. He said that users were arbitrarily fixing dollar-naira exchange rates on the platform, which had a detrimental effect on the value of the local currency.

He went on to say that the Binance team had already ceased operations and was working with the Nigerian authorities by giving helpful information.

“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.

Formerly, Mr. Onanuga had demanded that Binance, Kucoin, and other trading platforms be banned in Nigeria due to allegations that they had influenced the Naira crisis.

In order to shut down the cryptocurrency exchanges operating in Nigeria, the President’s Advisor encouraged the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to act quickly.

In addition, he encouraged Nigerians to stop the use of  the platform and noted that countries like the US, Canada, UK, Singapore had stopped the operation of the platform in their countries cause of currency disruption.