Topic: Cz taking advantage of the Nigerian government ban on bitcoin wrongly. (Read 426 times)

I simply do not understand why governments are taking such steps like banning crypto in their countries. Recently Indian government is also drafting the bill where they want to ban private crypto.
The centralize exchanges act in this way because they do not want to keep themselves in any sort of trouble as they have enough users from other countries who will continue using the exchange.
I am sure in future Nigeria government will realize their mistake and will have to lift this ban and ultimately binance will enable NGN.

Im not following the ban neither do I have an idea exactly of what is been banned be it bitcoin or crypto trading as a whole. I don't want to know and from current development It seems binance are over acting, already they have delisted all trading pair with NGN and also disabled withdrawal and deposit service for NGN on the platform. Luno on the other hand just disabled deposit but withdrawal is still moving smoothly. I'm disappointed at the way binance are handling the issue.

Nigerians have been a very strong supporter of the platforms and has always resulted to them giving us the upper hand or using us as test samples example, Nigeria Naira becomes first Fiat currencies to be listed on Binance.

On other platforms we can trade using others digital currency like those you mentioned but it seems if this pressure continue them nigerian will be banned from using most centralized exchange like Binance because from their reaction to the news it seems they know something we don't and are taking precautions measure already.

Though CZ tried to word this tweet as innocently as possible, it still came out to be somewhat controlling, or passive-aggressive if you may knowing his stance on crypto vs fiat and being the head honcho of one of the largest exchange. But at the least, he openly gave some sensible options to the Nigerian people regarding their cryptocurrencies, and I think that is enough of a heads-up/announcement in itself. Binance and CZ would need to comply to the governments of the countries they are serving, else they will face legal consequences that may take resources out of their arsenal, which is kind of a huge setback for their operations considering that they are operating with grey areas and vague lines in terms of legality and whatnot.

Oh well, I do hope our Nigerian brothers were able to convert their fiat into crypto if they really wanted to, and withdrew immediately to their personal wallets if they really plan to hold.

Finally binance announced as expected.

No exchange is safe and secure and the more people or investors starts having that idea stuck in them, the better for them as well, Binance is a good exchange no doubt but funds security should be done outside the exchange, in a wallet only you can control. Many exchanges which were hacked never expected it and I believe they must have told their users that their funds are safe just like Binance founder but when the hack took place what happened? Many even ended up dying as they couldn't withstand what was stolen. Also, in as much as the tweet might be a statement to give some sort of assurance but yet it still looks like, it was posted the wrong way. Therefore, just like you rightly stated, if you have your NGN in Binance, selling to any coin it is paired with be it Bitcoin, USDT etc and withdrawing to your personal wallet is the way to go.

Having our bitcoin and crypto on noncustodial wallets has been the best, we have the key and we have the coins, unlike using custodial exchanges which can lead to our account frozen or blocked, because the companies providing such service are the one in control while the exchanges can be hacked. Banks can be safer to keep money, but we should know that African banks like Nigerian banks are not safer, not because our money can be stolen but because of high rate of fiat devaluation in the country. Worth of $1000 in Naira in 10 years will likely devalued to $100, if such can happen, we are not just safe, naira is just a deflationary money.

That aside, from a friend of mine while in school and also from my sister last year, without leaking the pin and the long ATM card number, their bank account were hacked, my sister is very sensitive, I believe the fault is not from her side, but a country where sim swap can happen, also bank worker can become the attackers, which likely means that the hack was from the bank, banks are not that safe as we think, neither were custodial exchanges. We are safe until we have our private keys.

The best we can have is to have our private key with us, and control our funds, what Nigeria government are now try to make difficult for us, the main fault are from the Nigerian government/CBN. Binance did not freeze our funds and we can trader it to noncustodial wallets, but Nigerian banks are the ones making our lives miserable because our bank account linked to crypto exchanges will be blocked, no freedom but authoritarian set of leaders.

I really don't think CZ sounds like "Hold your coins in Binance"! Not even a bit! It sounds more like an alarm to the Nigerian traders on what they should do next! I think we are being ultra-sensitive here! Crypto exchanges are super prone to hacking and we all have experienced such incidents. So anyone knows about cryptocurrency, would not keep their cryptos in any exchange if they just want to HODL it.

But CZ, rightly said - the p2p trading will flourish as the financial institutions will not allow crypto related activities and possibly freeze many accounts post the exit timeline if they see any crypto related transactions. So the cash transactions will increase. I really want to condemn Nigerian government as it shows their regressive mentality. I believe same is going to happen in India as well! 

The problem is not what CZ or other exchange owners think but how dumb the governments are around the globe. The Indian government tried to blanket ban the crypto from transacting with banks, P2P flourished and the Supreme Court lifted the ban. It took time but till then most of the traders and exchanges understood how to do P2P and never stopped trading.
Also, I agree with Bryant with respect to complying with the government regulators, No exchange or organization can go against them, It will be a really sad day for Nigerian traders to not able to convert their crypto easily.

https://www.coindesk.com/nigerian-central-bank-says-its-ban-on-crypto-accounts-is-nothing-new

Everyone needs to understand that exchanges can't go against the authorities. They need to comply with the government regulations, no matter how much absurd they may sound. BTC-e, one of the earliest cryptocurrency exchanges tried that against the American authorities. And everyone know what happened after that. Their domain was seized and all the coins were confiscated. One of the owners (Alexander Vinnik is now facing life imprisonment in the United States). Perhaps Changpeng Zhao doesn't want to end up like Alexander Vinnik, and that is intelligent thinking from his part.

Satoshi Nakamoto never intended for Bitcoin to be taken over by centralized financial businesses, because he knew that they were profit driven and a central point of failure. He wanted us to be in control of our own wealth and thus having control over our own Private keys.

Now I know most people are lazy and they look for easier and more convenient methods to store their "tokens" ..but those options come with negative consequences when they make decisions over your "coins" ..because they control your Private key. 

Exchanges (centralized services) will always protect their own interest (business) over the interest of their customers. So if a specific country makes a decision to "ban" Bitcoin, they have to "block" those people from using their business or they will be closed down by the government that controls them. (So centralized services are easy targets for governments)

To be your own Bank, you have to be in control of your own Private keys and to do that, you should never use these centralized financial organizations.   

He is doing what many businessmen will do, which is retain their customers. Unfortunately many businessmen only care about their money.
Nigeria is a country that has traded billions of dollars in cryptocurrencies, especially in Bitcoin. If many Nigerians decide to pull out of Bitcoin because of its government statement concerning Bitcoin, Changpeng Zhao will be losing money.

Moreover, you don't expect him to sound like Binance is an unsafe place for traders, that alone will make lots of people even outside Nigeria panic.

I won't be blaming him though, anyone interested in Bitcoin should be knowledgeable about safeguarding their coins. This is why forums like this exist. To learn from users experience.

I noticed that type of character from him in the past. He's sort of an opportunist in all corners. I hope it doesn't lead to his downfall.

Now concerning the ban. Does this mean Nigerian traders won't be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies using other Electronic payment methods that are independent of the banned banks like let's say Skrill?

What is the point in blaming Changpeng Zhao? Binance always try hard to be on the good books of the government authorities (I don't think that they have any other choice). And it is not just Binance. Look at the reaction from the other cryptocurrency exchanges, after SEC launched their lawsuit against the Ripple Foundation? Within a matter of few days, most of the exchanges delisted XRP from their platform. Most of them realize that they can't take a confrontational stance towards the government directives, and I have to agree with them.

If he wants to push the users to use his platform as an alternative for cold wallets or your own wallets then shouldn't they be focusing their efforts on making it more secure? I think that it is not the only assurance that will make the users entrust their coins in their exchange but that is a big step in the right direction. Improve security or making an insurance to help ease the minds of the users to trust their exchange. It may look regressive but I think there is a lot more political in play here, AFAIK Nigeria is a big player in cryptocurrency market, there were talks that it was because of a protest but I can't be sure, how come the banks only made their move, maybe they saw something that might have presented as an opportunity to justify their actions.

Proof of keys is important, thanks for reminding people it seems obvious if you have been here long enough.

However, what may be obvious to us Trezors Ledger's cold storage, proof of keys or you don't own your coins are not always clear to others.
Good call-out on CZ he's aware however since he runs an exchange it's normalized.

Just a query that how will the bank know if the transaction is taking place as a result of sale/purchase of bitcoin ? Even at the binance P2P exchange, the purchaser of the bitcoins can send fiat currency to the receiver bank account without mentioning anything about bitcoin. The bank will never know the actual reason of the transaction. Isn't ?

Exactly, I didn't read much meaning into his tweet until I saw the tweet he was replying to. There's no way our funds on binance be it crypto or fiats can be more secured than that in the banks. I hate the fiat system but I think the crypto industry still has a long way to go before we achieve perfection. Currently power is been given back to the elite which are the few (Stake holders of Binance). They get the first treatment with the difference featured the exchange offers.

I believe they get the first information of new listing before the average customer gets the memo of a listing coming because it surprise me how a coin will just do 500-1000% from now without much users benefiting from very beginning. Binance has been one of my favorite until them engaging themselves in chasing after volumes by listing hyped projects, overcrowding the exchange with worthless tokens.

There was a better way he would had passed that information without trying to decieve the masses with the gesture of his exchange been secure meanwhile it just got hacked few months back. He showed focus on offering the trading trading service not wallet service..

Thats prolly the only positive to the ban, there will be quite a lot of Nigerians who didn't understand the security risks of storing your crypto funds in an exchange wallet, but as the government has issued this ban, the awareness is rife in Nigeria that everyone should move their funds to wallets that they own the private keys. If not for anything, it has created the awareness on this security protocol in the minds of Nigerians.
Yes, the government should know by now that it's almost impossible for them to completely censor/ban Bitcoin in their country, the currency (Bitcoin) isn't controlled and manipulated by them, so Bitcoin users in Nigeria do not even have to worry, as long as you don't use centralized exchanges and connect them to your bank, you should be fine.

I think CZ is trying to calm people and told them that even if their government is (for the time being) not supporting crypto, they could keep their bitcoins safely in binance. Imagine if he said that withdraw NGN and/or convert to crypto and withdraw it too, many people will interpret it as binance is also not supporting the Nigerians on their exchange.
Rest assured, people who are in crypto know already that their holding portfolio should be in their private wallets and they should only keep their trading portfolio on exchanges.

Reading the tweet and what was quoted;
I don't think CZ emphasized anywhere that one has to hold their funds in Binance. I mean, they can convert NGN to crypto and hold it in an external noncustodial wallet.
Perhaps the purpose of the tweet was to alert Nigerian traders to convert their NGN as soon as possible as Binance may stop supporting it soon in a move to comply with the crypto ban by the Nigerian Government. Maybe the mistake he did was quote a tweet where someone was saying their money feels safe in the Binance wallet.

That being said, I think p2p exchanges will once again be away people from Nigeria will buy and sell Bitcoins. I am not sure whether there are other online money transfer services in Nigeria but Banks and other financial institutions will soon not be an option for receiving and sending money for crypto related trades.