The Naira has recorded a marginal rise in value against the US dollar at the cryptocurrency peer-to-peer market platform Binance.
This follows revelations by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) that there were transactions to the tune of $26 billion on the platform. CBN governor, Olayemi Cardoso, said activities of cryptocurrency traders had been identified as one of the challenges bedeviling the foreign exchange regime and the bank was coming up with ways of addressing it.
“We are concerned that certain practices go on that indicate illicit flows going through a number of these entities and suspicious flows at best. In the case of Binance, in the last one year alone, $26 billion has passed through Binance Nigeria from sources and users who we cannot adequately identify” Cardoso said.
He added that the CBN was determined to do anything it takes to take charge of their market and not allow others to “manipulate our market in a way that ends up distortionary and sub-optimises for all Nigerians.”
The statement made by the central bank governor appears to have rattled cryptocurrency traders as the naira gained strongly against the US dollar.
The naira to dollar exchange rate on the platform as at Wednesday morning was N1,415/$1 compared to N1606/$1 the previous day. It later changed to N1,458/$1 by midday.
