The attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the Commission) in Nigeria has been drawn to the website operated by Binance Nigeria Limited, “soliciting the Nigerian public to trade crypto assets on its various web and mobile-enabled platforms.”
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.”
As the regulator with the statutory mandate of investor protection, the Commission urges Nigerians to “be wary of investing in crypto-assets, and crypto-asset related financial products and services if the service provider/its platform is not registered or regulated by the Commission.”
Nigerian investors are hereby “warned that investing in crypto-assets is extremely risky and may result in total loss of their investment.”
By this circular, Binance Nigeria Limited is “hereby directed to immediately stop soliciting Nigerian investors in any form whatsoever.”
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.”
As covered recently, long anticipated and finally here, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed 13 charges against Binance and its founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao.
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world, garnering around 60% of crypto trading. Zhao, who goes by CZ, is the most prominent crypto advocate and entrepreneur in the world.
The SEC has filed charges against Zhao, Binance, and U.S.-based affiliate, BAM Trading Services Inc.
The SEC claims that the defendants claimed that U.S. customers were restricted from transacting on Binance.com, but allegedly this was not the case. At the same time, Binance.US was said to be operated independently of Binance but the SEC says it was secretly controlled by the parent company behind the scenes.
As has been previously rumored, consumer funds were allegedly co-mingled with the SEC naming Sigma Chain as an entity controlled by Zhao that apparently utilized consumer funds. The SEC’s complaint says that Sigma Chain “engaged in manipulative trading that artificially inflated the platform’s trading volume.”
Another Zhao-controlled entity Merit Peak Limited allegedly was used to conceal the “commingling billions of dollars of investor assets.”
