Binance restricts futures offerings in the EU

Binance customers in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy can no longer open new accounts for trading futures products.

According to the announcement, these are the first steps in Binance’s plan to gradually reduce derivative product offerings in Europe. The users from these three countries have 90 days to close their derivative positions from a date to be specified.

Binance emphasized the importance of the European market. However, the company also highlighted its efforts to align with existing crypto regulatory laws. The company also said that these are a positive sign for the industry.

The statement said:

“We understand that many regulators at the local level have their own positions on crypto. And we welcome the opportunity to enter into a constructive dialogue about local requirements. “

Binance

Binance in the sights of the authorities

Earlier this week, Binance announced that it would suspend margin borrowing for major cryptocurrencies and their Australian dollar, euro and sterling pairs from August 10, 2021. By August 12, 2021, the platform will take the pairs off the market, cancel all pending orders and automatically close all open trades.

The day before, the platform’s CEO Changpeng Zhao also announced that the platform would limit the maximum leverage for trading cryptocurrency futures to 20 for new users.

Binance got the first problems with the authorities when it launched so-called stock tokens in April. At that time, you could buy a Tesla stick that was only worth a fraction of the corresponding share. However, this offer attracted the attention of the German financial supervisory authority, BaFin. After the reviews that took place in the course of this initial investigation, Binance then recently discontinued its share token offering.

Binance then drew further investigations from financial regulators. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a consumer warning regarding Binance in June. This was quickly followed by similar acts by tax authorities in Japan, Canada, Thailand, Italy, Lithuania and Hong Kong.