Obinna Iwuno, the President of the Stakeholders in Blockchain Technology Association of Nigeria (SiBAN), has challenged the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) assertion that $26 billion in crypto transactions could not be traced.
The CBN had expressed concerns about the $26 billion flow through Binance Nigeria over the past year from sources that were deemed unidentified.
Iwuno clarified that Binance, a prominent cryptocurrency exchange, enforces KYC (Know Your Customer) protocols, obliging users to authenticate their identities before engaging in trading.
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During an appearance on Channels TV on Tuesday, Iwuno contended that anonymity is unattainable on centralized exchanges like Binance due to mandatory KYC procedures.
He said, “First of all we need to understand how these platforms work, here is KYC system that 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 everyone who had used binance or used binance is known.
“The other part also is the fact that these transactions on Binance are on the blockchain which is not anonymous. It means that the whole world does not have access to your private information and transactions but when law enforcement or government needs it, it can get it from binance.
“We have different cases of frauds, and scams involving the Interpol, EFCC, and different international police organization. Money floods into Binance and the identity of the owner is 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, driver’s licence, and permanent voters card.
“CBN is saying $26 billion is unidentified but they didn’t tell us how they arrived at that. I can tell you these things are traceable, you cannot perform transactions on any platform as long as they pass 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.”