A division of Binance has been banned in the United Kingdom. Regulators from within the country are no longer permitting a sector of one of the world’s biggest and most popular cryptocurrency exchanges to provide services to residents of the UK as they work out regulatory guidelines for the crypto space.
Binance Markets Limited Is No Longer Working in the UK
While Binance.com is still accessible to traders in the country, they will no longer be able to garner services through Binance Markets Limited, which is the enterprise’s U.K. affiliate. The news may have had an ugly effect on bitcoin, which prior to the announcement, had been trading for over $35,000 per unit. Today, however, the currency has fallen into the low $34,000 range.
Binance will also no longer be allowed to do any advertising in the U.K. and must cease all marketing activity within its borders by the end of the month. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) stated:
Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK. Due to the imposition of requirements by the FCA, Binance Markets Limited is not currently permitted to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the FCA. (No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorization, registration or license to conduct regulated activity in the UK).
Binance Markets Limited was one of several crypto organizations to withdraw its application with the FCA after the agency unveiled that it was not meeting present regulatory standards. In a statement, a spokesperson for Binance stated that the company would do all it could to work with UK regulators to remain in compliance:
We take a collaborative approach in working with regulators and we take our compliance obligations very seriously. We are actively keeping abreast of changing policies, rules and laws in this new space.
Binance has been the object of some negative publicity over the past few weeks. Recently, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) announced that Binance had been operating within the country’s borders without regulatory permission.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has also stated that the company was under suspicion for permitting America-based trades that may have been illegal, while the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have also stated that they are engaged in their own investigations into the cryptocurrency exchange.
Calling Out the Man Behind Tesla
Not long ago, Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao called out Elon Musk for his alleged hypocrisy regarding crypto mining. Musk had stated that he was rescinding a decision to allow bitcoin-based purchases of Tesla goods and services given that he was concerned about the amount of electricity the mining process utilized.
Zhao took issue with this, given that Tesla is an electric car company. He claimed that Musk was okay with electricity use for his own company but was getting in the way of crypto’s growth and innovation.
