I kept my funds on Binance for a while, for convenience's sake. However, the old rule applies: not your keys, not your crypto.<p>Keeping anything on an exchange, for the time being, is just too risky. This is another example of it. Governments are still trying to figure out how to regulate crypto, ever shifting the amount of hurdles between crypto and the world of fiat.<p>I'd advise to pull funds if possible. I've recently done so with mine.<p>Of course that means my keys / wallets are now my responsibility, along with ensuring that I have appropriate backups in place etc.
Banned from setting up a UK specific exchange and not allowed to undertake regulated activities such as lending. This in no way affects the existing Binance exchange or the ability of UK users to use Binance.
I thought it was worth clarifying exactly what has happened here, since neither the BBC nor the FT articles make it particularly clear.
The entity that the FCA has acted against is Binance Markets Limited (BML) which Binance acquired earlier this year, in part because of its existing registration with the FCA which allowed it to carry out a limited range of regulated activities in the UK.<p>The FCA has now placed restrictions on BML which remove its ability to carry out those regulated activities -- however BML was not actually doing any business in the UK so the effect of this is limited.<p>The FCA also issued a consumer warning which, among other other things, reiterated that no entities in the Binance group are registered with the FCA and therefore cannot carry out regulated activity in the UK. Again, the impact of this is limited since the entity that you interact with when using the Binance.com website is not based in the UK, and the FCA does not have jurisdiction over it.<p>A possibly outcome is that Binance will be a bit more circumspect about offering derivatives trading to UK retail because they want to build a more substantial UK business in the future. We saw this with Bybit a while ago, where they do not allow UK retail to use their website (although they have an exception for sophisticated investors, who can self-certify as an eligible counterparty and continue to trade on Bybit). I wouldn't be surprised to see this.
"The ban, said an FCA spokesperson, only applies to Binance's English incorporation, Binance Markets Limited, which Binance has not registered with the FCA (despite plans to do so).<p>The spokesperson clarified that "UK consumers can continue to interact" with Binance Group, the wider, international collection of Binance companies that maintains no official headquarters. That means that Binance's customers in the UK can trade on Binance as normal—nothing changes."
I've always believed in the strength and independence of Bitcoin and cryptocoins. But maybe there's just so many evil-doers/criminals out there that the novel trust free payment network will crumble under the weight of all of the adjacent scams. I hope not, but I find myself in the truly puzzling position of rooting for the regulators sometimes.<p>I can easily partition bitcoin's good qualities from all of the bad things that people do with/for them. But I don't think most people will do that. At the same time, in some ways it's nearly indestructible. So even if it's unpopular it will at the very least continue to serve the black market.
Also booted from Ontario, Canada.<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/o80yxs/binance_banned_in_ontario/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/o80yxs/bina...</a><p><a href="https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/ba03469c86f34546bd25faf414730733#" rel="nofollow">https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/ba03469c86f3...</a>
From my understanding, this ban applies to regulated activities such as trading some specific securities, as well as options, contracts, and the likes.<p>From the FCA's website[0]:<p>> While we don’t regulate cryptoassets like Bitcoin or Ether, we do regulate certain cryptoasset derivatives (such as futures contracts, contracts for difference and options), as well as those cryptoassets we would consider ‘securities’ – find out more information. A firm must be authorised by us to advertise or sell these products in the UK<p>[0] <a href="https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/consumer-warning-binance-markets-limited-and-binance-group" rel="nofollow">https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/consumer-warning-bi...</a>
"Binance has until Wednesday evening to confirm that it has removed all advertising and financial promotions, according to the FCA’s register. The exchange must also make clear on its website, social media channels and all other communications that it is no longer permitted to operate in the U.K."<p>"Binance is being probed by several agencies in the U.S., Bloomberg News reported in recent months. And Japan’s Financial Services Agency issued a warning against Binance recently, saying it offered crypto services without registration."
After the misconduct I personally witnessed with Binance's voting system[0], I don't think I'll ever use them. Basically, there was conclusive evidence candidate cryptocurrencies allowed blatant manipulation of the voting system and Binance did nothing. I forgot which cryptocurrency or voting round this was specifically but in the candidate cryptocurrency's official discord server, individual users were placing multiple votes instead of the single vote they were allotted. The discord server was filled with this blatant abuse of the voting system, screenshots were taken as evidence, yet the creators of the candidate cryptocurrency and Binance did nothing. I suspect Binance didn't care because more votes, even in violation of their rules, meant more BNB for them. And I suspect the creators of the cryptocurrency didn't care because they wanted to be listed on Binance. I'm certain this wasn't the only instance of misconduct out there, merely the only one I saw.<p>[0]: <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/vote" rel="nofollow">https://www.binance.com/en/vote</a>
Funnily enough the reason seems to be poor money laundering measures. I always thought exchanges are the only money laundering gates where govt can have control.
Also getting pressure from Japan:<p><a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/japans-fsa-warns-against-crypto-exchange-giant-binance/" rel="nofollow">https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/japans-f...</a>
Anti money laundering is (rightly or wrongly) pretty incompatible with crypto. The question "where did these funds come from" is something no one using crypto can really answer honestly and it's the core question in AML.<p>I like crypto. I like defacto drug decriminalisation and sanctions busting. But it was never gonna make it past AML.
Its great to see Governments finally acting against Crypto.<p>The technology will float around, but the actual formal legal exchange of fiat for crypto should be banned.<p>This will indirectly disable Ransomware, since businesses will not be able to purchase the coins.<p>And by reducing the price of coins, reduce the waste (electricity, hardware, human effort) associated with 'mining' them.