‘How CBN can track $26bn binance transactions’

Obinna Iwuno, President of Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN), has refuted the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) claim that $26billion in crypto transactions could not be traced.

The CBN had raised concerns over the sum of $26 billion that flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from “unidentified sources”.

Iwuno explained that binance, a major cryptocurrency exchange, implements KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures, requiring users to verify their identities before trading.

Speaking on Channels TV on Tuesday, Iwuno argued that anonymity is impossible on centralized exchanges like binance due to mandatory KYC.

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He said, “First of all we need to understand how these platforms work, here is KYC system which every platform implements.

“On binance, before you could even have an account to trade or perform any activity on binance, you must have done your KYC. That means every single person who had used binance or using binance is known.

“The other part also is the fact that these transactions on binance are on the blockchain which are not anonymous. What it means is that the whole world does not have access to your private information and transactions but when the law enforcement or government needs it, it can get it from binance.

“We have different cases of frauds, scams involving the Interpol, EFCC and different international police organization. Money floods into binance and the identity of the owner would be revealed.

“I am not faulting the CBN position but there are tools available that can be used to trace all of these things and binance cannot claim not to have access to information and transactions that happened on its platform. That is the point I am trying to make, all of these things can be verified and are all traceable.

“Several KYC measures they used, most of these crypto platforms use the BVN for KYC and acceptable documents are passport, NIN, drivers licence and permanent voters card.

“CBN is saying $26 billion is unidentified but they didn’t told us how they arrived at that. I can tell you these things are traceable, you cannot perform transactions on any platform as long as it passes through blockchain that it cannot be traced, and if you use the centralized exchange like binance it is finished because you cannot be on those platforms without your identity known.”