Binance has temporarily removed maker fees across all Kenyan-shilling trading pairs on its peer-to-peer marketplace, extending a series of localized promotions aimed at increasing crypto trading activity across African fiat markets.
The KES campaign was announced on September 24 but began three days earlier on September 21. It will continue through October 31, giving verified Binance users zero maker fees when trading eligible KES pairs on Binance P2P.
The distinction matters: Binance is specifically waiving maker fees rather than announcing universally fee-free P2P trading. Makers are users who post advertisements that create available liquidity in the marketplace, while takers transact against those advertisements. Separate costs can also be imposed by payment providers used to complete the fiat side of a transaction.
Still, removing the cost of posting and completing maker-side KES trades gives active merchants a direct incentive to provide more Kenyan-shilling liquidity at a time when Binance is intensifying its regional P2P strategy.
Binance Targets the Merchants Supplying KES Liquidity
Unlike Binance’s centralized spot market, P2P transactions match users directly with other users or merchants. Sellers post advertisements specifying prices, available quantities and accepted payment methods, while Binance holds the cryptocurrency involved in a transaction in escrow until the fiat payment is confirmed.
That structure makes merchants particularly important. More active advertisers can create greater choice for buyers and sellers, increase available order sizes and potentially improve competition between quoted exchange rates.
Binance normally operates a variable P2P fee model in which maker and taker charges can range from zero to 0.35% depending on the fiat market and trading pair. Verified merchants can also qualify for fee discounts based on factors including monthly volume and completion rates.
Under the latest campaign, verified users trading KES pairs receive a zero maker fee regardless of that broader fee structure for the duration of the promotion.
The move comes as Binance increasingly uses targeted incentives to shape activity around specific markets and products. Earlier in September, for example, the exchange launched a 200,000 RLUSD reward campaign designed to attract balances into Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin.
That strategy is not unique to Binance. Crypto exchanges have increasingly shifted toward promotions tied to specific user behaviors, including trading volume, deposits, referrals and the adoption of newly launched products rather than relying only on conventional signup bonuses.
KES Is Part of a Wider Binance P2P Push Across Africa
The Kenyan campaign becomes more significant when viewed alongside Binance’s other recent African promotions.
On September 15, Binance launched a broader P2P campaign covering KES alongside GHS, ZAR, XAF, XOF, UGX and MZN. Running through October 6, that promotion gives eligible users chances to earn prizes for completing P2P purchase tasks.
New users can receive a spin after completing their first qualifying purchase of at least 50 USDT equivalent, while an existing or new user can earn a daily spin by completing a first daily P2P purchase worth at least 500 USDT equivalent.
Kenyan users can therefore participate in the wider activity campaign while the separate KES promotion reduces maker fees through the end of October.
Binance also targeted African P2P liquidity in August through its Block Zone, a marketplace designed for larger transactions. During that campaign, the exchange eliminated both maker and taker fees for qualifying Block Zone trades in GHS, KES, XOF, XAF and UGX. The service offers higher transaction limits and specialized visibility for large-value orders.
In June, Binance separately waived maker and taker fees on selected UGX and AOA pairs.
The sequence suggests the exchange is testing fee subsidies market by market rather than applying one global promotion. That resembles the increasingly localized acquisition strategies being used elsewhere in crypto. Bitget, for example, has used separate promotions for fiat users and new derivatives traders to target specific stages of the customer funnel.
Kenya Gives Binance a Large Retail-Oriented Crypto Market to Target
Kenya is an especially logical market for a P2P campaign because crypto activity in Sub-Saharan Africa remains unusually retail-driven.
Chainalysis estimated that Sub-Saharan Africa received more than $205 billion in on-chain value between July 2024 and June 2025, an increase of roughly 52% from the previous 12-month period. Kenya ranked among the region’s five largest crypto markets by value received alongside Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia and Ghana.
Transfers below $10,000 also accounted for more than 8% of the region’s value during that period, compared with roughly 6% globally, highlighting the relatively large role played by individual and smaller commercial users.
Peer-to-peer infrastructure fits that market particularly well because it acts as a bridge between local payment systems and crypto without requiring every transaction to pass through a conventional exchange fiat deposit channel.
The wider economic use case also extends beyond speculative trading. Stablecoins are increasingly used for remittances, merchant payments and cross-border settlement, particularly where users need an alternative bridge between local currencies and dollar-denominated value. Similar demand is driving investment in stablecoin payment infrastructure and experiments involving cross-border stablecoin settlement in other regions.
Kenya’s regulatory environment is also changing. The country’s Virtual Asset Service Providers Act took effect in November 2025, establishing the legislative framework for crypto service providers and assigning regulatory responsibilities to the Central Bank of Kenya and Capital Markets Authority. Authorities subsequently developed detailed VASP regulations covering licensing, custody, consumer protection, financial resources, cybersecurity and anti-money-laundering controls.
Zero Fees Are Really a Liquidity Subsidy
The immediate benefit of the promotion is straightforward: a KES merchant that would otherwise incur maker charges can keep more of the economics of each completed trade.
But from Binance’s perspective, the more interesting effect is what happens to the marketplace itself.
P2P markets depend heavily on available advertisements. If only a small number of merchants are willing to quote a currency, users can encounter wider price differences, lower order limits or fewer suitable payment options. Reducing the cost of supplying those advertisements can encourage existing merchants to quote more actively and potentially attract additional liquidity providers.
In other words, Binance is subsidizing the side of the market that creates inventory.
That is different from simply handing a new customer a signup reward. If zero maker fees lead to more competitive KES advertisements, takers may benefit indirectly even if their own fee structure has not changed.
It is the same basic logic behind exchange campaigns designed to attract stablecoin balances. Bybit has, for example, used a USDC-focused promotion to encourage users to bring capital onto its platform. Whether the incentive targets stablecoin holdings or P2P merchant activity, the exchange is spending margin today in the hope of creating a deeper marketplace tomorrow.
The Real Test Comes After October 31
There is a limit to what a temporary fee waiver can prove.
Trading volume generated while an activity is subsidized does not necessarily survive after normal pricing returns. Merchants may simply shift activity toward whichever currency or platform currently offers the lowest cost.
That makes retention the important metric.
If Binance can use the September-to-October window to bring more KES advertisers onto its P2P marketplace, improve available pricing and create enough user activity for those merchants to remain after fees return, the promotion could have value far beyond the direct revenue Binance gives up during the campaign.
The strategy also creates cross-selling opportunities. A user entering through P2P does not have to remain a P2P-only customer. Once cryptocurrency is inside the Binance ecosystem, the same customer can potentially use spot markets, Earn products, derivatives and other services. This is one reason exchanges are becoming increasingly willing to subsidize the fiat-to-crypto entry point.
There is also a larger payments angle. Crypto platforms increasingly want to control more of the connection between local money and blockchain-based assets, while companies such as Telcoin are working from the opposite direction by building banking infrastructure linked directly to digital dollars.
For Binance, however, P2P remains a relatively simple way to localize that connection. The exchange does not need to build a conventional banking rail for every currency if users and merchants can exchange fiat directly while Binance supplies the marketplace, escrow and crypto liquidity infrastructure.
That makes the Kenyan promotion more interesting than its lack of a large headline prize pool suggests. Binance is not simply discounting one trading fee. It is testing whether lower merchant costs can deepen a local fiat market in one of Africa’s more important retail crypto economies.
The result will become clearer after October 31. If KES liquidity and merchant activity remain stronger once the subsidy disappears, zero maker fees will have functioned as an acquisition investment. If activity retreats with the promotion, it will show the familiar limitation of crypto incentives: lowering the price of participation is easy; turning temporary activity into a durable marketplace is much harder.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.