Nigerian social payments platform Bunch plans to cease its crypto exchange services and instead focus on its peer-to-peer platform cashlink.
in a recent blog postBundle said the decision was made by the company’s shareholders, who believe the future lies in payment solutions that cater to the growing Web3 and blockchain community.
“We will cease operations of its exchange services as part of the shareholders’ decision to restructure the business to focus on cashlink,” the company said in the announcement.
Founded by Yele Bademosi in 2020, Bandle quickly gained popularity, attracting 50,000 monthly active users and processing $50 million in monthly volume.
However, with the rise of Cashlink and its impressive record of over 3 million transactions in less than two years, Bundle shareholders saw an opportunity to focus their business on this burgeoning market.
“As the Web3 and the blockchain community continue to grow, there is a need to focus on payment solutions that meet the needs of the ecosystem, which is the plan with Cashlink.”
As a result, users will no longer be able to sign up to the platform, deposit assets into their Bundle wallets, or trade assets (with the exception of Tether).
If users do not have Nigerian Naira or any other fiat currency in their Bundle wallets, they will also not be able to withdraw funds using Cashlink.
To avoid inconvenience, Bundle has advised all users to remove their app assets by September 12, 2023.
Users from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and other French-speaking countries can transfer their Bundle funds to any preferred exchange.
In Nigeria, users have the option to withdraw naira using Cashlink or transfer funds to their bank accounts via P2P express.
Nigeria orders Binance to cease operations
Last month, the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ordered Binancethe world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, to cease operations in the country.
The regulator declared Binance’s operations in the West African nation “illegal,” stating that the cryptocurrency exchange was not registered or regulated by the commission.
“Any member of the investing public dealing with the entity does so at their own risk,” the commission warned at the time.
Nigeria’s central bank had previously banned banks and financial institutions from facilitating transactions in digital currencies in 2021.
Yet despite the ban, residents of Africa’s most populous country still account for the largest volume of digital token transactions conducted on peer-to-peer trading platforms outside of the United States.
