In a significant milestone for the cryptocurrency market, Bitcoin soared to a fresh all-time high, surpassing the $71,000 mark during afternoon trading in Asia. This surge represents an impressive gain of almost 70 percent since the beginning of the year.
Data released by Bloomberg on Monday, March 11, 2024, highlighted Bitcoin’s remarkable ascent, underlining its status as a leading digital asset. Nigeria, known as one of the largest peer-to-peer crypto markets globally, has been closely observing this surge.
Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics firm, reported that crypto transactions in Nigeria surged to $56.7 billion between July 2022 and June 2023, indicating the growing popularity of digital currencies in the country.
Meanwhile, recent developments in Nigeria’s crypto landscape have garnered attention, particularly with the announcement from cryptocurrency exchange Binance regarding its discontinuation of services related to the Nigerian naira.
In a statement released last Tuesday, Binance advised users to withdraw their NGN balances, trade their NGN assets, or convert NGN into crypto before the specified deadlines.
Key points highlighted in the statement include:
- Withdrawals and trading related to NGN assets will cease after specific dates.
- Remaining NGN balances in users’ accounts will be automatically converted to USDT based on the provided conversion rate.
- The conversion rate will be calculated using the average closing price of the USDT/NGN trading pair on Binance Spot over the last seven days.
- Users will receive USDT tokens in their Spot wallets following the conversion process.
These measures underscore the evolving dynamics within the cryptocurrency landscape, signaling both challenges and opportunities for market participants in Nigeria and beyond.