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Regulators Crack Down on Crypto Exchange Binance in UK, Japan, Germany, and Ontario, Canada (wsj.com) 41

The Wall Street Journal reports: Authorities in the U.K. and Japan took aim at affiliates of Binance Holdings Ltd., the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange network, in the latest regulatory crackdown on the wildly popular trade in bitcoin and other digital assets. The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority, the country's lead financial regulator, told consumers Saturday that Binance's local unit wasn't permitted to conduct operations related to regulated financial activities...

Binance Markets Ltd., the company's U.K. arm, applied to be registered with the Financial Conduct Authority and withdrew its application on May 17. "A significantly high number of cryptoasset businesses are not meeting the required standards" under money-laundering regulations, said a spokesperson for the FCA in an email. "Of the firms we've assessed to date, over 90% have withdrawn applications following our intervention."

Japan's financial watchdog issued a statement on June 25, saying that Binance isn't registered to do business in the country...

As of April, Binance operated the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by trading volume, allowing tens of billions of dollars of trades to pass through its networks, according to data provider CryptoCompare. It was founded in 2017 and initially based in China, later moving offices to Japan and Malta. It recently said it is a decentralized organization with no headquarters... The FCA move doesn't ban customers from using Binance completely; U.K. customers can continue to use Binance's non-U.K. operations for activities the FCA doesn't directly regulate, such as buying and selling direct holdings in bitcoin.

The Financial Times called the move "one of the most significant moves any global regulator has made against Binance" and "a sign of how regulators are cracking down on the cryptocurrency industry over concerns relating to its potential role in illicit activities such as money laundering and fraud, and over often weak consumer protection." But more countries are also taking action, Reuters reports: Last month, Bloomberg reported that officials from the U.S. Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service who probe money laundering and tax offences had sought information from individuals with insight into Binance's business. In April, Germany's financial regulator BaFin warned the exchange risked being fined for offering digital tokens without an investor prospectus.
And CoinDesk adds: Binance is no longer open for business in Canada's most populous province, apparently choosing to close shop rather than meet the fate of other cryptocurrency exchanges that have had actions filed against them for allegedly failing to comply with Ontario securities laws.
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Regulators Crack Down on Crypto Exchange Binance in UK, Japan, Germany, and Ontario, Canada

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  • ...value it has now, for money laundering.
  • ...because, uh, now you kinda don't really have a choice.

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Sunday June 27, 2021 @02:28PM (#61527224)

    The established financial criminals don't like competition.

  • But, but crypto is supposed to be free of government regulation! It's DECENTRALIZED!

    This was such a pipe dream. Time to wake up.

    • Crypto-currencies are still is 100% free of government regulation. Unfortunately, governments control fiat money and as such can prevent you from exchanging crypto for fiat and vice-versa.

  • Regulation is the death of any exchange. I have some idea what they actually need to do to comply with the respective laws. One thing is that they will have to reliably identify all users. Another is full record-keeping of any and all exchanges, to be archived for 10 years. Another is yearly audits. And some more.

    • Regulation is the death of any exchange. I have some idea what they actually need to do to comply with the respective laws. One thing is that they will have to reliably identify all users. Another is full record-keeping of any and all exchanges, to be archived for 10 years. Another is yearly audits. And some more.

      Well they wanted their little tokens to be treated like a currency.
      Be careful what you wish for.

    • One thing is that they will have to reliably identify all users. Another is full record-keeping of any and all exchanges, to be archived for 10 years. Another is yearly audits. And some more.

      The identification will be required upfront, and specific proof of identity and/or proof of address will be required once the customer hits a specific transaction threshold. The archival period of the transactions will vary based on the specific implementation of PSD2 (or divergence from it after BREXIT). At the moment, it is 5 years after the end of the contractual relationship between the exchange and the customer but can be extended to 10 years by the local regulator. The game then becomes one of definit

  • Regulation is another nail in the coffin of crypto-currencies just like, scammers, ponzi schemes, energy, diminishing returns, unscalability.

    What will finish them of in the next few years are
    Quantum machines, which will render them crypto-currencies worthless in the next few years.

    The holders are starting to wise up this threat which is why they are desperately pumping them up and dumping them.

    People should expect them to halve in value in each of the next few years, until they reach the level were they are

    • by pbry4n ( 7208566 )
      I think you're overestimating the rate at which quantum computers will advance. It will probably take more than a few years for such technology to threaten existing cryptographic algorithms. By the way, those same quantum machines will render other existing cryptographic algorithms—that "traditional" network and financial systems heavily rely on—worthless as well. It's a good thing that new algorithms that can resist quantum cryptanalysis are also under development.
  • Omg, I can't understand why these regulators are restricting the work with crypto. That is really our future. I am working in the sphere that is connected with cryptocurrency and I know what I am talking about. I am fond of trading and once I found this site https://thefrisky.com/guidelin... [thefrisky.com] . Here you can read the article that related to this topic and I think that this is exactly what you've been looking for. Make sure to check it out. Good luck.
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