The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, said that it will temporarily stop accepting dollar transactions on its platform come Wednesday, February 8th.
A statement by the company, seen by Nairametrics, noted that the development would only affect a small portion of its users. In the meantime, Binance said efforts are underway to rectify the challenge that has necessitated the disruption.
- “Only a small part of our users will be impacted by this and we are working diligently to reinstate the service as quickly as possible. All other cryptocurrency purchasing and selling procedures are unaffected,” said part of the statement by the company.
More details: A spokesperson for the company further noted that “in the interim, all other ways to buy and sell cryptocurrency remain unaffected, including bank transfers using one of the other fiat currencies supported by Binance (including euros), buying and selling cryptocurrency via credit card, debit card, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, as well as via our Binance P2P marketplace.”
Although only 0.01% of active users trade in US dollars, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao said on Twitter that “we appreciate that this is still a horrible user experience and the team is working on fast correcting this issue.”
In the meantime, the restriction has had no impact on Binance US which is operated separately. Also, dollar deposits and withdrawals continue to work.
What you should know: The Crypto exchange has experienced financial issues in the US. On January 21, its SWIFT transfer partner, Signature Bank, announced that as of February 1st, it would only accept trades from users with USD bank accounts over $100,000. The bank has previously declared that it was significantly decreasing deposits from cryptocurrency consumers.
Additionally, on February 1, Binance released a list of 144 nations where all USD SWIFT transfers would be halted.
At the time, Binance stated that it was looking for a new SWIFT partner and that all SWIFT transactions involving other currencies as well as trades in USD using credit or debit cards will continue to be accepted.
The digital exchange recently launched a tool to assist users in determining their tax liabilities on their cryptocurrency transactions as governments look into ways to ensure they don’t lose out on money from the sector.
The free tool can enable and assist in reporting up to 100,000 transactions, according to the specifics. Users in Canada and France would get access to it first, and then it would be made available in more places.
