Binance breaks silence on employee’s escape from custody in Nigeria
The world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, has confirmed collaborating with President Bola Tinubu’s administration to block Nigerians from dollar-naira trading on its platform.
In an announcement titled “Commitment to P2P Users in Nigeria,” Binance said it is “working hand in hand with local authorities, lawmakers, and regulators to ensure we act on non-compliance.” The company said it has set upper limits for advertisements, is filtering and removing “bad ads,” and is requiring higher deposits for merchants posting ads to crack down on market manipulation.
On Tuesday, Binance disabled the sell option for its Nigerian users, capping the buy option at $1,802 per user. It also blocked the ability for Nigerians to purchase cryptocurrencies through peer-to-peer trading. This left some crypto asset holders unable to sell Bitcoin, BNB, Ethereum and others via P2P.
The move comes as part of the Tinubu administration’s efforts to halt the freefall of the naira against the U.S. dollar. The naira hit an all-time low of 1,902 per dollar on Tuesday before Binance blocked selling. This mirrors former President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2021 ban on crypto trading.
Binance users criticized the decision, with some threatening to take their business to other platforms. Critics said the restrictions are unlikely to shore up the struggling naira.
With a large population of monthly crypto traders, restrictions on foreign currency accounts have also increased Nigerians’ use of exchanges to store money and receive overseas funds.
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