Binance stops GBP deposits and withdrawals

Just one month after stopping US dollar bank transfers, Binance is now being forced to stop processing sterling deposits and withdrawals as well.

Only 1% of users affected

Crypto companies continue to fight with their banking partners.

The world’s leading crypto exchange Binance will be suspending Deposits and withdrawals in sterling in the coming week. The changes are already in effect for new users, while existing users will have until May 22 before seeing the service shut down.

“Paysafe, our trust partner that provides GBP deposit and withdrawal services via bank transfer and card to Binance users, has informed us that they will no longer be able to provide these services as of May 22, 2023,” it said. a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Last month, Binance announced that it would suspend deposits and withdrawals of US dollars through bank transfers. The exchange indicated back then that the suspension would only affect 0.01% of its monthly active users. This time, he claimed that the GBP change would affect less than 1% of his users. The company assured that it was working to restart both services as soon as possible.

Binance’s suspension of GBP and USD transfers is likely due to banking issues. According to leading Bitcoin proponent Nic Carter, the US government may be trying to crack down on the crypto industry separating it from the banking sector, a strategy Carter dubbed Operation Choke Point 2.0. Carter claims that the scheme involves putting pressure on banking institutions to avoid providing their services to crypto companies on a “safe and sound” basis.

Despite these headwinds, Binance done again $504 billion of spot trading volume in February, more than 61% of the total market share.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this article owned BTC, ETH, and various other crypto assets.