Nigeria has clapped back at rumors of a whopping $10 billion fine for cryptocurrency exchange, Binance. The clarification came from the tallest office in the land, with Nigerian President’s advisor, Bayo Onanuga issuing a statement debunking the accusations initially reported by the BBC.
Onanuga alluded to misquotation, insisting that he never announced an official decision to fine Binance. In his counter-statement via People’s Gazette local news outlet, the political adviser emphasized that he only vaguely mentioned the potential of a fine, nothing was set in stone.
The controversy has arrived amidst a storm of regulatory oversight swirling around crypto-exchanges in Nigeria. The country has recently banned multiple platforms in a bid to protect the nation’s currency, the Nigerian naira. In the latest development, Binance has been forced to remove the Nigerian naira from its peer-to-peer (P2P) service, which sees traders dealing directly without the involvement of a middleman.
Nigeria’s Central Bank has flagged “suspicious flows” amounting to $26 billion through Binance’s Nigerian operation as a red flag. This led to the detention of two top-tier Binance officials in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, as part of the country’s clampdown on cryptocurrency exchanges.
Nigeria, which was one of the first countries to launch a digital representation of its national currency, has a tumultuous relationship with cryptocurrency. Capping off a two-year ban on banks handling crypto transactions, the Central Bank finally issued guidelines for regulating digital asset service providers in December 2023.