In an announcement to its Nigerian P2P users, Binance declared that they will immediately ban anyone on their cryptocurrency platform who is found guilty of manipulative behavior towards the dollar/Naira exchange.
As industry leaders, we are working hand in hand with the local authorities, lawmakers and regulators to ensure we act on non- compliance
Binanace in a statement.
This stands as a confirmation that the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform is in collaboration with the Nigerian Government to block Nigerians on the platform from dollar-Naira trade.
The urgency of this move by the Nigerian government comes from the record-breaking fast devaluation of the Naira.
The last two months of 2023 saw the dollar-Naira valuation at $1/₦800, and then barely two months into 2024, it is reaching a record high of $1/₦1900.
The Nigerian Binance Restrictions
On Tuesday, the crypto exchange platform took some drastic moves in light of this update. Firstly, they disabled the sell option on the fiat currency, USDT, for their Nigerian users.
Then the buy option was capped at $1802. To add to that, the exchange platform put a restriction on Nigerian users, preventing them from buying any cryptocurrency via P2P.
In other words, anyone who wants to make any crypto transaction is better off doing it on any other platform than Binance.
The information circulating the country is that this is one means the Tinubu-led Nigerian Government is trying to slow down and possibly reverse the rapid devaluation of the Naira.
However, the currency has been devaluating even before the emergence of the crypto platform. So what seems to be the problem in particular?
It turns out that currency speculators or forex traders are majorly at fault in this situation. According to the Nigerian Government, currency speculators directly affect the valuation of the currency, as there has been a trend of traders shorting the currency.
In an act to reduce and possibly reverse the situation, the Nigerian government is conducting raids and arrests of suspected currency speculators in the country.
On Monday, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission raided a popular Bureau De Change in Abuja, and suspected currency speculators were arrested.
