Nigerian court orders Binance to hand over its user data
The news comes after the embattled crypto exchange scaled back operations in Nigeria following a regulatory standoff earlier this month.
Binance has been embroiled with regulatory compliance issues with the Nigerian government in the past year, and the latest news in this ongoing saga has raised concerns about privacy.
According to a report by local media platform Peoples Gazette, the Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, to hand over data on all of its Nigerian users.
The government through its Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) appears to have taken a particular interest in Binance’s operations in the country and is now demanding $10 billion in penalties for allegedly moving $26 billion worth of untraceable funds in 2023 which Nigeria's central bank claimed had led to the weakening of the country's currency, the Naira.
This move raises questions about the privacy of over a reported 10 million Binance users in the country, although the court had demanded the company to disclose information regarding its top 100 users and all their transaction history spanning the past six months.
No doubt, it would cause a negative effect on cryptocurrency adoption in Nigeria's rapidly growing crypto market as well as set a bad precedent for other governments seeking user data from international crypto exchanges, or even any company operating in Nigeria.
The news comes after the embattled crypto exchange scaled back operations in Nigeria following a regulatory standoff earlier this month, even as the Nigerian securities exchange commission is proposing a 400% increase in registration fees for crypto firms.
