Binance Executives Were Arrested In Nigeria For Allegedly Destabilizing Its Currency (qz.com) 31
Two top executives from the crypto exchange Binance have been arrested in Nigeria for allegedly destabilizing the national currency. Quartz reports: According to a Wall Street Journal report, Tigran Gambaryan, head of financial-crime compliance at Binance who previously worked at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and Nadeem Anjarwalla, a British-Kenyan national and Binance's regional manager for Africa, have been held against their will for the past two weeks in the country. As per reports, Nigerian government officials invited Binance executives to discuss an ongoing dispute about the world's largest crypto exchange allegedly driving down the value of their national currency. Gambaryan and Anjarwalla arrived in Nigeria on February 25th; after their meeting with government officials, both were taken to their hotels. Later, they were instructed to pack their belongings and move to a guesthouse run by Nigeria's National Security Agency, as stated by their families, per reports.
The Nigerian government has accused Binance of exacerbating the country's foreign exchange challenges through rate manipulation for profit. The authorities have also accused the crypto exchange of illegal operations and have restricted access to the company's website. There are also reports that Nigeria sought a $10 billion penalty from Binance for processing around $26 billion in untraceable funds in the country. [...] The reason why and how Nigeria's economic crisis is linked with Binance is yet to be found out. Binance is hoping to resolve the matter soon, according to CoinDesk. The report notes that Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in recent years due to inflation and the devaluation of their currency, the naira.
The Nigerian government has accused Binance of exacerbating the country's foreign exchange challenges through rate manipulation for profit. The authorities have also accused the crypto exchange of illegal operations and have restricted access to the company's website. There are also reports that Nigeria sought a $10 billion penalty from Binance for processing around $26 billion in untraceable funds in the country. [...] The reason why and how Nigeria's economic crisis is linked with Binance is yet to be found out. Binance is hoping to resolve the matter soon, according to CoinDesk. The report notes that Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in recent years due to inflation and the devaluation of their currency, the naira.
The Illuminati. (Score:1)
Better scammers (Score:2, Insightful)
The Nigerians are just mad that the crypto bros are better scammers. This is just one street gang taking out another one.
Re:Better scammers (Score:4, Funny)
The Nigerians are just mad that the crypto bros are better scammers.
I heard about this Nigerian Prince who has about $50k in crypto, but is having trouble converting it to cash. If you loan him $10k so he can bribe people to get his money out, he'll pay you back *plus* $20k. Sounds like a deal...
Did a Nigerian prince (Score:2)
Get scammed?
Incredible (Score:4, Funny)
CRYPTO people, involved in a SCAM?
Re: (Score:1)
"This has value because I burnt lots of resources for it". Is that really progress from "This has value because it's merely rare".
And it maxes out at 7 transactions per second globally!
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It uses up resources to create arbitrary value so it's the opposite of a wealth engine.
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BTC is at 72k, likely will be over $100,000 in April when its reward halves (which means the currency's price may double).
The present pump in value is being driven by buying pressure from people who believe Bitcoin will continue go up after the halving. It's entirely possible they're buying tickets for a train that will never come and the only people who'll actually profit from this latest rally are the ones who had the luck or foresight to buy in prior to the pump and are now selling to the current round of suckers.
Based on Bitcoin's history, every time people start ranting about how amazing it is that it shot up so quickly,
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failed governments which did not take advantage of the #1 wealth engine in all of Mankind
Stop the bullshit, Changpeng.
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Better. Crypto people involved in a scam in Nigeria.
You can't make that up.
Why do people think they're allowed to steal? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well in most of the world no one is going to let a lack of legislated language stand in the way of justice. These 2 men committed crimes against Nigerians so Nigeria locked them up. Their linkedin metrics won't matter. Their legal teams impressive letterhead won't matter. When y
Re: Why do people think they're allowed to steal? (Score:1)
symptomatic of economic exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't blame people for fleeing to relative financial safety. Yes, safety. Safety is relative.
Look at the value slippage that has been going on with the Naira.
What would you do if your local currency was down 250% (vs USD) over the last year?
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Have they arrested the central bankers
The bankers are probably not the ones who caused this, though. In Nigeria the central bank is presumably not independent from the politicians. It's probably too much to expect from politicians to arrest themselves, sadly.
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What would you do if your local currency was down 250% (vs USD) over the last year?
Um, exactly what they've done? Blame outsiders and don't take any internal responsibility for your country's issues?
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How to does currency go down 250%? Once it has gone down 100% it's valueless, if it keeps going down it would have negative value. As in you would have to pay someone to take your money.
the bigger picture (Score:1)
Re: the bigger picture (Score:2)
Africa is a big place.
There are several African countries with solid democracies and well-cared for people. Botswana. Ghana. Etc.
Naira on its way out (Score:3)
Cryptocurrency is pretty widely used in Nigeria (35% have traded in cryptocurrencies).
Why do people use Bitcoin instead of the local Naira currency? Because the Naira is being massively devalued.
What happens when you devalued your currency? Your people start selling it for things like USD.
What do countries do when this becomes a problem? They put a ban of currency exchange and the free flow of capital.
What do your people do when this happens? They buy cryptocurrency to get around capital controls.
Nigeria's naira is in a death spiral. Unless there's some sort of major economic change (finding a massive oilfield or something), their currency is on the way out.
If a nation like Nigeria doesnt want their entire economy to switch to cryptocurrency, they better get their monetary policy shit together.
Small nations are best off mining crypto to prop up their national currency at this point. But for Nigeria, its economy is probably too large for something like that.
What *EXACTLY* are they accused of? (Score:3)
"Destabilizing the national currency" is awfully vague and non-specific an accusation on which to arrest people and base a criminal case. What are the actual, specific and enumerated charges? What *exactly* did they allegedly do to destabilize that currency? Has mens rea been established? Did they intentionally set out to destabilize the currency in the furtherance of some kind of scam? (And if they did, Nigeria hardly hasty place to cast stones on the online-scams topic.) Or did they simply engage in economic activity that did not favor Nigeria, and some crook of a politician has less in his numbered bank account?
The lack of actual charges and specifications is suspicious as hell here. And it stinks of injustice, overreach, and corruption.
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They are accused of "we don't like you."
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It's kinda obvious - the crypto-guys know that the country's national currency is in trouble, so they see an opportunity to push their own coin as an alternative. The Nigerian currency devalues at an even faster rate as a side effect. The Nigerian government already banned currency exchange, now these US-based finance guys come in and provide a workaround that make currency exchange unnecessary. The government can't control crypto exchange, so it has to go after the people promoting it. Crypto currencies ar
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.. and the people telling the police which foreigners to arrest are the politicians responsible for the mess. Nobody's blaming people for buying crypto, they're blaming these guys for its popularity/for promoting it.
IQ? (Score:2)
Who in their right mind does business in Nigeria?
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Crypto bros and other crooks, one would presume.