Binance has announced that it will stop all transactions and trading in the Naira, Nigeria’s local currency after March 8. This is coming on the heels of a country-wide crackdown on crypto exchanges that authorities have blamed for feeding a black market for foreign exchange.
The Nigerian government has demanded almost $10 billion in compensation from Binance, which it accuses of manipulating foreign exchange rates via currency speculation and rate fixing.
The company will not support any deposits of Naira after 2 p.m. UTC on Tuesday and will no longer support withdrawals of the currency after 6 a.m. UTC on Friday, the announcement said.
Nigeria is also one of the world’s biggest crypto markets, but the Nigerian government has demanded almost $10 billion in compensation from Binance, which it accuses of manipulating foreign exchange rates via currency speculation and rate fixing, and arrested two of the firm’s senior executives last week, according to multiple media reports.
The Naira has lost almost 70% of its value over the past few months, as Africa’s largest economy faces a currency crisis and soaring inflation.
Converting to Naira will also be de-listed along with corresponding pairs at 2 a.m. On Thursday, naira Spot Trading Pairs including BTC/NGN and USDT/NGN, will be de-listed at 3 a.m.
Starting this Friday, any remaining naira balances in user accounts will be automatically exchanged for Tether, a cryptocurrency stablecoin tied to the value of the U.S. dollar. It said it would be exchanged at a rate of 1 USDT equivalent to 1,515.13 NGN after Friday at 8 a.m. UTC.
It told its users to note that the conversion rate will be based on the average closing price of the USDT/NGN trading pair on Binance Spot over the last seven days.
The statement added that the conversion process may take up to approximately 24 hours or longer. Following the conversion, USDT tokens will be credited to users’ Spot wallets, and users can verify the receipt of tokens via the Convert History page.
For users with balances of 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 post-conversion.
BRANDPOWER reports that the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, at the end of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting, told journalists that about $26 billion flowed through Binance Nigeria over the past year from ‘unknown sources’.
