Breaking: Binance to discontinue Naira services as legal squabble deepens

Breaking: Binance to discontinue Naira services as legal squabble deepens

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is disabling all its Naira services from March 8 amid the company’s regulatory troubles in Nigeria, the company shared in a statement on its app.

The company, which is at the center of a crypto crackdown in the West African country, will stop naira deposits after March 5, while withdrawals will end on March 8. 

“Any remaining NGN balances in users’ Binance accounts will be automatically converted to USDT,” the exchange said in a statement on Tuesday.

Binance will also delist all existing NGN spot trading pairs on March 7. The naira will be removed from the list of supported payment options on Binance Pay, the exchange’s payment solution.

The exchange’s decision comes amid Nigeria’s crackdown on the global crypto exchange. Last week, the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) arrested two of the company’s executives

after the pair flew into the country following a ban on the company’s website. Authorities have accused Binance of benefiting from “illegal transactions”  and imposed a $10 billion fine on the company, according to a presidential aide. The cyrpto exchange has denied knowledge of the fine.

Two weeks ago, Binance placed limits on peer-to-peer transactions trading the USDT/NGN pair. It was the second time in six months that the exchange placed restrictions on trading as the cryptocurrency exchange disabled the ‘sell’ feature and limited Nigerian users’ buy option to a price of ₦1802.

The company’s struggles come after the Central Bank reversed its stance on crypto companies last year. At the time, the move was viewed as a positive posture towards digital currency assets but recent moves by regulators have called that outlook into question.