Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, a cryptocurrency platform, has described the Nigerian arm of the global entity as a scam.
Zhao tweeted this on Sunday and cautioned people on the platform to be wary of whatever they read in the news.
He equally said the company had issued a cease and desist notice to the Nigerian office.
“Binance have issued cease & desist notice to the scammer entity ‘Binance Nigeria Limited’. Don’t believe everything you read in the news,” the 46-year-old said.
Meaning of Cease and Desist Notice
According to Oxford Dictionary, cease and desist notice is a formal complaint by a party against another party, in which the complaining party details the basis of their complaint and warns the offending party to stop.
Cease and desist notice denotes “a cautionary notice detailing the sender’s complaint of alleged wrongdoing by the recipient and threatening legal action if the offending activity is not stopped”.
It could also be a court order or governmental directive to stop a certain activity.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Nigeria’s security market regulator, had earlier banned Binance in the country and declared it an unsafe investment option.
The commission said Binance Nigeria Limited is neither registered nor regulated by the commission, and its operations in Nigeria are illegal.
It noted that any member of the investing public dealing with the entity is doing so at his/her own risk.
“The attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (the Commission) 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,” SEC said in a statement.
Binance is the world’s leading blockchain ecosystem and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite that includes the largest digital asset exchange.
The company had recently faced a series of setbacks, announcing plans to leave the Netherlands, Cyprus, Canada and Australia and being charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
