The popular cryptocurrency trading site Binance removed the Naira, the currency of Nigeria, from its peer-to-peer feature on Wednesday.
The P2P market functionality enables users, buyers, and sellers to conduct transactions without the involvement of a third party.
Nigerians first learned about it in 2021 when the government of former president Muhammadu Buhari outlawed cryptocurrency trade in the nation.
SaharaReporters discovered that the elimination of their currency has prevented many Nigerian users from using the feature.
Nigerian authorities claimed that Binance’s removal of Naira from its P2P market was a result of the platform’s role in the devaluation of the currency.
Bayo Onanuga, President Bola Tinubu’s Special Advisor on Information and Strategy, said on Wednesday that Binance’s arbitrary foreign exchange rate fixing would ruin the Nigerian economy if it isn’t stopped.
The National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu’s office detained two Binance employees on Wednesday, according to a report published in the Financial Times. The detentions were a result of an inquiry into the cryptocurrency exchange’s activities in Nigeria.
By cracking down on bitcoin exchanges, their imprisonment in Nigeria was an attempt to stop naira speculation and stabilize its wild decline.