In attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges in Nigeria , authorities detained two senior executives of Binance and confiscated their passports.
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the two executives were headed to Nigeria after the country decided to ban a number of cryptocurrency websites. Reports indicate, however, that the office of Nigeria’s national security adviser detained both of them upon their arrival. For now, it is unclear exactly which executives were detained.
Last week, Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator ordered telecommunications companies to block websites such as Binance, Coinbase and OctaFX. Local media said the measure was aimed at curbing domestic crypto speculation.
The attack appears to be aimed at preventing cryptocurrencies from exacerbating currency instability . The effort comes as the Nigerian naira frequently falls against the US dollar.
“We have been told that if we don’t restrict Binance, it will destroy the country’s economy,” President Bola Tinubu‘s special advisor Bayo Onanuga said recently. Some claim that Binance stopped trading naira on its platform after they were stopped. Instead, they are offering bitcoins and digital tether coins.
Nigeria’s central bank governor, Olayemi Cardoso, singled out Binance during a press conference on Tuesday, speaking about funds moving through cryptocurrency exchanges. He noted that the bank is concerned about “suspicious” flows circulating through various cryptocurrency platforms.
He told reporters: “In the past year alone, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users that we cannot properly identify.”
Reports indicate that various authorities are cooperating in the investigation of cryptocurrency exchanges. These include the National Security Advisor, the police and the Nigerian Anti-Corruption Agency. They have asked for a list of all Binance users based in Nigeria.
ConsenSys says that Nigeria was the country with the highest awareness of cryptocurrencies last year. The African country even surpassed European countries and the United States. The results show that 99 percent of Nigerians were fully aware of cryptocurrencies. Seventy percent were found to be knowledgeable about the value, functions and basics of blockchain technology.
The statistics were published despite the fact that Nigeria’s central government banned the ownership of digital assets in 2021 due to concerns about investor safety. Prior to the introduction of the central bank’s digital currency(CBDC), the e-naira, the previous administration also made explicit statements about the market.
