SEC declares Binance operations in Nigeria illegal and says users transacting there do so at their own risk.
Fast Facts
- Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warns that users transacting on Binance do so at their own risk.
- In recent times Binance, Coinbase, and a pool of other cryptocurrency exchanges have been in the cross-fire of the U.S. SEC.
SEC was established to protect investors’ investments, preserve fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation. The importance of such an institution cannot be overemphasized. Yet they need to be explicitly clear when dealing with centralized crypto exchanges.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong have had a couple of negative entanglements with the U.S. SEC regarding crypto regulations on its platform, up until Coinbase sued the SEC for failure to provide regulatory clarity on crypto.
“Regulators should come up with the rules, tell everybody the rules, and we follow them. The current laws are not clear, and we would like to get more clarity.”
Brian Armstrong
Binance, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume and headed by CEO Changpeng Zhao, has been in the cross-fire recently with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) gunning down on them and a pool of other exchanges.
This all started with the SEC report on Binance and its founder, which stated that 13 of its laws had been broken, including operating unregistered exchanges, broker-dealers, and clearing agencies; misrepresenting trading controls and oversight on the Binance.US platform; and the unregistered offer and sale of securities.
“Through thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,”
SEC Chair, Gary Gensler
Enter the Nigerian SEC. In its circular, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission advises users about the operations of Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. Parts of the statement read,
“Binance Nigeria Limited is neither registered nor regulated by the Commission, and its operations in Nigeria are therefore illegal. Any member of the investing public dealing with the entity is doing so at his/her own risk.”
Furthermore, the SEC announced that it would issue additional sanctions against the company and urged Binance Nigeria Limited to cease all forms of solicitation of Nigerian investors.
“The commission shall provide updates on further regulatory actions with respect to the activities of Binance Nigeria Limited and other similar platforms and shall work with other regulators in Nigeria to provide further guidance on this matter.”
This week, restrictions on Binance operations in Nigeria added to the company’s compounding problems. Hopefully, Binance scales through.
Featured image: vanguardngr
Caleb is a technical writer at AlteBlock with over 2 years of experience in covering DeFi-related content such as crypto news, exchange reviews, and guides. He is also a Civil engineering graduate who can be found on-site when not writing an article.
