The Nigerian bank account belonging to a major Bitcoin exchange that operates in the country, Luno, remains frozen nearly a month after being suspended due to a third party issue.

Luno made the confirmation in its latest blog post about the pending situation which has made it impossible for the exchange to process naira withdrawals since 31 March.

"This affects all customers who have a pending withdrawal listed on their account...We know that this is extremely frustrating, but please bare (sic) with (us) for a little longer until Stanbic can resolve the problem. This is being worked on as a priority," reads the message posted on 6 April.

The frozen bank account with Stanbic IBTC came to be after it was discovered that fund used in buying Bitcoin on the platform in a transaction came from a victim's account (not a Luno customer) whose identity had been stolen.

The exchange states: "Once the victim discovered the theft, they reported it to the police who obtained a court order to freeze Luno's entire bank account (not just the fraudulent amount). The police and court were unaware that Luno was a business serving thousands of customers and that blocking the account would affect thousands of people, not just this one individual payment. We believe that this was a huge mistake made by the police and court."

The mistake has since been cleared and the victim has withdrawn the case, but the account remains frozen since a court order has earlier been issued.

For the first order to be reversed, a new order to unfreeze the account has to be obtained from a higher court. The situation is at this point and bureaucracy seems to be slowing it down.

The exchange gives an estimate for re-activation of the bank account in the next three to four weeks, according to its more recent post on 20 April.

Though updates have been provided on the development since it was first identified in March, the month-long delay and the inability to get the issue resolved within the period has heightened the concern it represents.

It has been a massive disruption for its customers who have not been able to make withdrawals - though other services such as buying, selling, trading, sending and receiving Bitcoin are unaffected - and hindered the exchange's operation in Nigeria.

As the exchange hopes the issue would be resolved by mid-May, its effort to integrate a new debit card payment method through a different bank seems to have been actualised.

In its latest post, naira deposits with Nigerian debit or credit card are possible via PayU. However, despite the new arrangement, the exchange would still be unable to process withdrawals until the Stanbic IBTC account is reactivated.

In response to a request for comment, Luno's marketing analyst Liza Visser states via email that the status page of their website is up to date and "we have no new news regarding the situation."

Visser adds: "Unfortunately, this kind of situation sometimes happen in our industry. However, we have a very experienced team that is dealing with the situation as efficiently and effectively as possible."