Binance Ends Services In Naira, Leaves Nigeria

Binance will discontinue all services for Nigeria’s fiat currency, the naira, amid an ongoing regulatory conflict in the country.

The crypto exchange will automatically convert naira balances to USDT from March 8 at 8:00 a.m. UTC but will cease support for NGN deposits after 14:00 UTC today.

Withdrawals will become unsupported after March 8 at 6:00 a.m. UTC.

The conversion rate for automatic conversions will be 1 USDT per 1,515.13 naira, according to the announcement.

All spot trading pairs against the naira will be delisted on March 7 at 3:00 a.m. UTC. Open spot orders for these pairs will be automatically closed.

Binance Convert, Binance P2P, the exchange’s Auto Invest feature, and Binance Pay will also cease support for the naira at various dates and times.

Economic Confidential reports that the present administration has tightened the noose around Binance operations in the country and this may have forced its exit.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Olayemi Cardoso, recently revealed that about 26 billion dollars was diverted by the previous apex bank management using Binance.