FG slams $10bn fine on Binance
The Federal Government has slammed a $10 billion fine on the widely-used cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance,according to the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga, who disclosed this in an interview with the BBC on Friday.
Onanuga noted that Binance is not registered in Nigeria and has no presence in the country.
According to him, people used the platform to arbitrarily fix dollar-naira rates,adding that the practice negatively impacted the value of the local currency.
He further noted 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.
