Binance history

their opposition but not their policy, and also pointed to their donation of $10 million for humanitarian needs in Ukraine.[47]
In April 2022, Reuters reported that, in 2021, Binance shared information with Rosfinmonitoring about funds raised by jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's network.[48]
However, in March 2023, the exchange banned Russian residents from buying euros and dollars through its p2p service. European users, in turn, lost the opportunity to buy rubles.[49]
In September 2023, Binance announced it was leaving Russia and selling its business to the CommEX platform. Accounts of Russian users will be transferred to the new platform within a year.[50]
On 27 May 2022, Binance announced the registration of its legal entity in Italy, and has plans of opening offices and expanding the local team in the area. CEO Changpeng Zhao also shared information regarding Binance's registration with France's market regulator. At the time, the company was also seeking registration in more European countries, such as Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and Austria.[51] Binance registered to operate in Spain in July 2022,[52] and in Sweden in January 2023.[53][54]
On 13 June 2022 Binance announced that users would, for an unspecified period of time, be unable to withdraw their funds held in Bitcoin, as the value of cryptocurrencies suffered serious declines.[55] Two hours after that announcement, Bitcoin withdrawals were allowed to resume.[56][better source needed]
Binance has a strong brand presence in Africa. Binance sponsored the Africa Cup of Nations in 2021.[57][58] It is also taking crypto education to many countries on the continent.[59]
Binance invested US$500 million towards the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk that completed in October 2022. Following the investment, the company announced the creation of a team to work on how blockchain and cryptocurrencies could be helpful to Twitter.[60][61]
On 8 November 2022, Binance offered to buy rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX's non-US operations (FTX.com) to help cover the latter's liquidity crunch.[62][63] Binance backed out of the deal the next day citing concerns about FTX's business practices and investigations by US financial regulators.[64]
On 30 November 2022, Binance purchased Sakura Exchange. The acquisition allowed Binance to re-enter the Japanese cryptocurrency market.[65][66]
In July 2023, several senior executives resigned from the company.[67] The Wall Street Journal reported that Binance had cut its global workforce by as many as 1,000 staff.[68] CNBC reported that the number of staff cuts could total 3,000 by the end of 2023.[69] Zhao didn't deny layoffs were occurring but claimed both the reported numbers and the reasons for the senior executive departures weren't accurate. In June 2023 Binance had 790 million US dollars in outflows after the SEC announced its lawsuit and Forbes reported that the company had 120 million users globally.[70] On November 21, 2023, US authorities convicted Binance on multiple charges -- including violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and vast money laundering schemes. As part of the plea deal, Changpeng Zhao stepped down as CEO with a $50 million fine. The position is succeeded by Richard Teng and will pay $4 billion in fines.[71]

BUSD, or Binance USD, is a US Dollar pegged stablecoin issued by Binance.[80] According to Binance it is backed 1:1 by a reserve of US Dollars and was founded by them in partnership with Paxos who is the issuer of the token. Paxos holds the reserves only partially in cash deposited in their US bank accounts with the other part held in U.S. Treasuries. BUSD is natively issued on the Ethereum blockchain by Paxos. Binance creates Binance-Peg BUSD by locking the natively ERC-20 BUSD in a smart contract on the Ethereum Blockchain and issuing Binance-Peg BUSD equivalent to the amount held in reserve in the smart contract. Binance-Peg BUSD is native to BNB chain.[81][better source needed]
In January 2023, Bloomberg reported that Binance-Peg BUSD "was often undercollateralized between 2020 and 2021. On three separate occasions, the gap between reserves and supply surpassed $1 billion." A Binance spokesperson said the "process of maintaining the backing … has not always been flawless" but "has been much improved with enhanced discrepancy checks."[82]
BUSD is a widely used stablecoin being, as of 2022, the third largest stablecoin by market capitalisation[83] following Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC).[84]
According to reports, the New York Department of Financial Services issued an order to Paxos to stop minting new BUSD tokens in February 2023.[85][86]
In August 2022, India's Enforcement Directorate froze the assets of WazirX, an exchange owned by Binance, as part of a money laundering investigation.[124] Following the event, CEO Zhao claimed that they never owned WazirX or owned any equity in Zanmai Labs—the operating entity of WazirX—citing "a few issues" that prevented the completion of the acquisition. The co-founder of WazirX, Nischal Shetty, disputed Zhao's claims asserting that Binance had indeed acquired them.[125] On December 28, Financial Intelligence Unit (India) recommended blocking the URLs of nine crypto entities, including Binance on the grounds of non compliance to the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).[126]
On 12th Jan 2024, The Binance application was removed from istore and Google Play Store to prevent Indian Crypto investors from using them. [1]

Australia

On 6 April 2023, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission cancelled the Australian financial services licence held by Oztures Trading Pty Ltd trading as Binance Australia Derivatives (Binance).[127]
On 18 May 2023, Binance Australia announced that it had lost access to Australia's PayID payment system "due to a decision made by our third party payment service provider."[128] The same day, Westpac bank banned Australian customers transacting with Binance.[129][130]

Nigeria

In June 2023, Nigeria's Securities and Exchange Commission recently deemed Binance's activities in the country as “illegal.” It issued a declaration stating that Binance Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of Binance, was operating unlawfully in the country. The regulator specifically instructed Binance to cease all its activities within Nigeria.[131][132]

Belgium

On June 23, 2023, Belgium's Financial Services and Markets Authority ordered Binance to “cease, with immediate effect, offering or providing any and all” virtual currency services in the country. The regulator said Binance had been offering such services “from countries that are not members of the European Economic Area.”[133][134]

See also