The night before I flew back home to the UAE I made sure AED pairs were functional on binance. Just a few weeks back I had seen the pairs actively trading and the volume was alright. I remember in 2019 when Binance was hacked, there was a lot of information compromised. A lot of people from the UAE had their personal information at stake too.
But seeing AED on Binance again was a fresh breath of air. There is a lot of buzz surrounding crypto in UAE. There is a guy literally parading my residential area asking people to sell their BTC to him.
The night I reached UAE, I didn't touch Binance or anything crypto. I wanted to blow off the steam from traveling so much. The next day I logged onto my Binance account since I wanted to trade some positions and withdraw AED.
Guess what? There wasn't any AED on Binance. What timing! I looked through the notifications, news, latest and other sections for some sort of heads up. I checked my email and there was nothing sent ahead of time. I guessed I didn't get an email since I didn't trade with AED, but a small notice on any of the other sections shouldn't be too much to ask for, right?
I waited for 3 days, hoping it was some sort of technical problem or a short and temporary suspension. Nothing popped up. Then I decided to contact Binance support. I hate it.
I think one of the things I still hate about binance is how hard it is to actually get support. There is no direct way of communicating with anyone. Telegram is shady, discord is even more. Their twitter support account hardly ever replies. They don't easily show their email and it takes a lot of time to find the address.
All they have is a chat system on the website which only has predetermined topics and no live chat. The only way you can get a live operative is to click through random predetermined options on the chat system and answer "no" or "unsatisfactory" to their prompt. Then, and only then could I get a live operative to talk to me.
Turned out AED was suspended with no information on when or wether it would be on again.
Good thing, there still exists p2p. I recommend sifting through the p2p accounts depending on your preferred choice of fiat payment and amount. I won't say it is as bustling as with any other major fiat currency, but it is pretty decent.
Look for someone with a good amount of trades, and a % over 90, plus a good rate on AED/USDT - that should make it safe, quick, and overall satisfactory.
In total, I did 3 p2p trades. I cashed out USDT for AED with 3 different p2p accounts. In total, a very good and quick experience. Except for the first guy. Who apparently knew the first transactions from a specific bank account to another would take more than 30 minutes due to verification processes, and still put an appeal.
Other than that everything was really quick and very comfortable. The rates weren't bad too. I think I traded at 3.8 per USDT when the rate was 3.67 on the international market.
Yes, it would be much better if AED was still listed and deposit/withdraw was still open, but as long as p2p exists it isn't all that shabby.
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