“Withdraw Your Funds”: Binance Announces Discontinuation of Naira Services, Shares Money to Traders

• Binance cryptocurrency platform said it is stopping all naira-related services in Nigeria
• It told traders to withdraw their NGN, trade or convert their Nigerian Naira into crypto
• This came after the platform the House of rep threatened to arrest its executives following a N10 billion

Legit.ng journalist Zainab Iwayemi has over three years of experience covering the Economy, Technology, and Capital Market.

Cryptocurrency exchange, Binance has announced that it is discontinuing all its Nigerian naira services.

In light of this, Binance, in a statement, encouraged users to withdraw (Nigerian naira) NGN, trade their NGN assets or convert NGN into crypto before the discontinuation of these NGN services.

According to the exchange, any remaining NGN balances in users’ Binance accounts will be automatically converted to USDT based on the conversion rate at the closing period from March 8.

Read also

SEC introduces new guideline for cryptocurrency operations, others as Nigerians lose N500bn

Major highlight of the report

After today, Tuesday, March 5, Binance stated that it will no longer support deposits of NGN.

For withdrawals, however, the deadline will be extended until Friday, March 8, after which 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.

It further emphasised 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.

On-spot trade and others

• Binance will delist all existing NGN spot trading pairs (i.e., BTC/NGN and USDT/NGN) at 2024-03-07 03:00 (UTC).
• All open spot orders concerning the affected trading pairs will automatically be closed when trading ceases in the relevant trading pair.
• Binance Convert will delist NGN and all corresponding pairs at 2024-03-07 02:00 (UTC).
• Binance P2P delisted all NGN trading pairs on 2024-02-28 at 15:00 (UTC).
• Binance Auto-Invest will delist NGN after 2024-03-06 03:00 (UTC). Users may choose to remove the plan(s) beforehand. Otherwise, the next recurring cycle of the token(s) will fail.
• Binance will remove NGN from the list of supported payment options on Binance Pay at 2024-03-06 03:00 (UTC).

Read also

Naira records another gain against US Dollar at official foreign exchange market

Earlier event

This occurred after the House of Representatives committee on financial crimes recently resolved to recommend invoking its powers to subpoena and arrest executives of Binance following a $10 billion fine.

This followed the failure of company executives to appear in an investigation hearing by the committee on Monday, February 4.

The chairman of the committee, Hon Ginger Obinna Onwusibe, said the company executives were to appear before them to answer questions on a petition bordering on the financing of terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial crimes.

In his view, Olumide Adesina, a financial analyst said that the crypto ban will only alienate the populace further, the core issues are fixing issues affecting inflows into Nigeria.

He added,

"Labeling Binance negatively will do little to solve the issue, the fiscal side needs to make real adjustments and time is not their ally."

Read also

Naira appreciates by N150, official exchange rate now higher than black market

Dollar crashes against naira on Binance

Legit.ng reported that the US dollar has crashed against the Nigerian currency, the naira, at the crypto peer-to-peer platform, Binance.

Data from the platform showed that the dollar crashed at around 8 am on Wednesday, February 28, 2024, trading as low as N1,415 per dollar from the N1,606 per dollar it sold in the last 24 hours.

Some traders on the platform reportedly quoted above N1,500 per dollar as trading intensified.

Source: Legit.ng