Binance Leaves Nigeria Amid Crackdown, Suspends All Naira Services

Cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has announced its decision to cease all services related to the Nigerian naira, following accusations of exploiting the currency and contributing to its depreciation.

Due to the recent free fall in value of Naira, Binance is facing allegations of terrorism financing, money laundering and tax invasion, and other charges.

Nigeria, one of the largest peer-to-peer crypto markets in the world, saw crypto transactions totaling $56.7 billion between July 2022 and June 2023, according to Chainalysis.

In a statement on Tuesday, Binance urged users to withdraw their naira (NGN), trade NGN assets, or convert NGN into crypto before the discontinuation of NGN services, starting at 8:00 UTC on March 8.

The statement read, “Users are encouraged to withdraw NGN, trade their NGN assets or convert NGN into crypto prior to the discontinuation of these NGN services.

“From 2024-03-08 08:00 (UTC), any remaining NGN balances in users’ Binance accounts will be automatically converted to USDT based on the conversion rate below.

“Binance will not support deposits of NGN after 2024-03-05 14:00 (UTC). Withdrawals of NGN will not be supported after 2024-03-08 06:00 (UTC).

“After 2024-03-08 08:00 (UTC), Binance will convert any remaining NGN balances in users’ Spot and Funding wallets into USDT on behalf of users at a ratio of 1 USDT = 1,515.13 NGN.

“Please note that the conversion rate is calculated based on the average closing price of the USDT/NGN trading pair on Binance Spot in the last seven days.

“The conversion may take approximately up to 24 hours or longer. USDT tokens will be credited to users’ Spot wallets thereafter, and users can confirm receipt of the tokens via the Convert History page.

“If users hold less than 0.00000001 USDT worth of NGN in their Spot and Funding wallets, they will each receive 0.00000001 USDT in their Spot wallets after the conversion.”

This comes a week after the Federal Government arrested and detained at two senior executives of Binance over allegations of “illegal transactions” in Nigeria.

KanyiDaily recalls that Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao declared Nigeria’s subsidiary of the global cryptocurrency exchange platform as a scam.