Why Binance is turning its back on Canada
2 min readBinance pulls the ripcord. The trading venue will close its doors in Canada indefinitely. The company announced this in one go on Friday evening tweet known. Regulatory reasons meant that continued operation was “no longer justifiable”, the message said. Canadian users are said to be receiving “detailed information” on the continued existence of their accounts in the coming days.
End of February aggravated the Canadian Securities Administration (CSA) the regulatory rules for crypto service providers. Among other things, the regulator demanded binding evidence of the separation of customer and company assets and issued a ban on margin trading. In addition, the authority prohibited trading in stablecoins, but exceptions are possible in consultation with the CSA. Binance rejects the new rules, the tweet continues. The crypto exchange does not explain which exactly.
From the company’s point of view, the farewell is of little consequence, as the trading center only conducts a fraction of its business via Canada. As the home country of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, the emotional damage is likely to hurt him the most. This is probably one of the reasons why the stock exchange wants to continue working with the authorities in order to return in the future.
Always trouble with the Americans
It is the next setback the North American crypto exchange has to take. So far, Binance has come under constant regulatory fire, especially in the USA. First, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched a sweeping attack on Paxos at the end of February, burying Binance stablecoin BUSD. A month later, the CFTC followed suit and sued the trading venue for violating applicable federal laws. The crypto exchange is said to have enabled US citizens to trade derivatives despite the ban.
Due to the regulatory broadside in the USA, Binance put the Voyager deal on hold at the end of April. The US branch of the crypto exchange actually wanted to take over the assets of the insolvent lending service. The deal had already been approved by the court. However, due to the regulatory ambiguities in the United States, Binance backed down at the last second.
