Nigeria Binance under attack as Nigerians took on Twitter to protest the disablement and suspension of their accounts. They claimed the exchange platform blocked access to their accounts. This protest got nationwide attention with the hashtag; #BinanceStopScamming.
Founded in 2017 by Changpeng Zhao, and became popular in Nigeria in 2020 when the platform added Nigeria Naira as its first African currency for P2P trading. Binance remains the largest exchange in the world in terms of the daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies.
The platform, however, provides a crypto wallet for investors to stock their digital funds. It also possesses supporting services that allow investors to earn interest or transact using cryptocurrencies. With the unique P2P feature, the buyer and seller have been able to trade successfully since the ban on crypto by Nigerian Federal Government through the Central Bank of Nigeria.
However, the exchange platform has come under criticism, especially in the last 24 hours in Nigeria trend table over alleged disablement of investors’ account. As at the time of filing this report, the online protest, #BinanceStopScamming occupies the first position amidst the top trends on twitter Nigeria with over 27k tweets.
Tracked Tweets By Nigeria Binance Subscribers
In some of the tweets relayed with the hashtag, the protesting investors grossly insisted that Binance actions is unwarranted. And that the decision of Binance to vehemently restrict access to their accounts has dubious undergone.
One of the aggrieved investors identified as Charles21590879 in a tweet explained how Binance disabled his account with over $35,000 since last year and all efforts to make them reopen it have been futile. He further explained that the disablement of his account was with no tangible reasons.
“It is enough, I am a victim. My account got frozen for about 4 months now with over $500k, mostly comprised of alts coins. Is it a crime to be an African?”, a user identified as Brown Mi tweeted!
Another user, known as Ama Judy also lamented that she discovered the disablement of her account possessing her hard-earned crypto yesterday.
Debasic07 in his own tweet, however, decried how the disablement of his account threw him out of business. According to him; Binance investigation had no positive result on the closure of his account since last year. Debasic feels he deserve better as one who invested his life savings on the exchange.
Binance reactions to the tweets
In a reaction to the trend, Binance Africa tweeted a link for all investors whose accounts became wrongly suspended to fill. The exchange platform says it will investigate and revert back to the concerned investors. Binance Africa further that it sometimes restrict users account to protect their funds or on the request of security agencies.
According to the tweet, “If you’re a Nigerian #Binance user and you believe your account is wrongly suspended, please fill in this form and we will investigate. “
“User security is our top priority. At times, we proactively restrict accounts to protect users’ funds. Other times, we have to restrict accounts at the request of law enforcement. But never will we restrict accounts without good reason.”
“At Binance, we are committed to working with law enforcement agencies to ensure our community remains safe, and to prevent fraudulent activity throughout the industry. Binance is not scamming you.”
