Nigerian trade association asks government to ban Binance, here’s why

• The association felt Binance was aggravating the pressure on the national currency.
• Nigerian currency recently weakened to 917 naira per dollar.

The Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), a leading Nigerian trade association, has urged the government of Nigeria to ban the crypto exchange Binance [BNB], as per a local news report.

ABCON is a self-regulatory organization that represents all the licensed currency exchanges in Nigeria.

The association has made the call as it believes Binance is aggravating the pressure on the national currency, Naira. The central bank of Nigeria has authorized ABCON to develop policies to regulate the Naira/USD exchange rate.

As per a recent Bloomberg report, Nigerian currency weakened to 917 naira per dollar.

ABCON President Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe told the news group that Binance has increasingly established itself as a central hub of both Nigeria’s official and parallel markets for USD. He added,

“If you know about Binance, you will know that Binance trading is becoming the anchorage of both the investors and exporters’ window and the parallel market, which is unfortunate.”

Gwadabe underscored the competition the country’s currency exchanges are facing from Binance. He emphasized the need to restrict Binance trading in the country. The country can do it only if it has enough liquidity. He added,

“As I speak, Binance is the most liquid market; they do 1.2 million transactions per second. So it’s a very liquid market but that is not a scary status, we can break it through our local content and peculiarities.”

At press time, Binance’s USDT/Naira trading pair volume stood at 682,000 USDT for the last 24 hours.

For Binance, no respite in Nigeria either…

In addition to countries such as the USA, Binance was facing intense regulatory scrutiny in Nigeria also.

Last month, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of Nigeria issued a circular, asking individuals to stop dealing with Binance. It declared that the exchange was not registered with the SEC. The regulator said that it deemed the operations of Binance in the country to be illegal.

In June, the SEC flagged the website operated by “Binance Limited Nigeria.” It also warned Nigerian investors that investing in crypto assets is extremely risky and may result in total loss of their investment. The order followed the lawsuit filed by the American regulator against the exchange for alleged securities violations.

Binance soon issued a cease-and-desist notice to the alleged impostor.

Binance have issued cease & desist notice to the scammer entity "Binance Nigeria Limited".

Don't believe everything you read in the news. ?‍♂️

— CZ ? Binance (@cz_binance) June 18, 2023

Around the same time, Nigeria signed the 2023 Finance Act into law. The law introduced a 10% capital gains tax on profits made in the disposal of crypto assets, beginning 1 May. However, there is still no unambiguous regulatory clarity over the status of crypto assets in the country.

Chainalysis put Nigeria on the 11th position in its 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index.