The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance has been ordered to cease operations in Nigeria by the country’s markets regulator, who claimed a local subsidiary that solicited Nigerian investors via a website was unlawful.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated in a statement dated June 9 that “Binance Nigeria Limited is hereby directed to immediately stop soliciting Nigerian investors in any form whatsoever.” It claimed that because the business was unregistered and unregulated, it was unlawful.
A comment from Binance could not be obtained right away.
This week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reportedly violated its rules by suing Binance and Coinbase.
The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a set of regulations for digital assets last year, indicating that Africa’s most populous nation was looking for a compromise between an outright ban on crypto assets and their unrestricted use.
That came when the central bank of Nigeria prohibited banks and other financial organizations from dealing in or supporting transactions involving digital currency in 2021.
Nigeria’s young, tech-savvy population has avidly embraced cryptocurrencies, forgoing the financial sector prohibition by adopting peer-to-peer trading made available by cryptocurrency exchanges, for example.
