Is Binance crypto’s new whipping boy? Regulators in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Thailand and the Cayman Islands have all recently issued warnings and even criminal complaints against the cryptocurrency exchange. Even Poland entered the fray as its financial regulator warned citizens to exert “special caution” when using Binance’s trading services. Some have opined that the firm has only itself to blame for this recent burst of regulatory heat, but others fear the exchange is being held as a scapegoat for the entire crypto sector — which has grown too large too fast in the eyes of …

Spain-based bank Santander’s U.K. business will no longer be allowing its customers to send payments to Binance, citing warnings from the Financial Conduct Authority. Several replies from Santander’s U.K. Twitter help account today said the bank has “decided to prevent payments” to the world’s biggest crypto exchange in an effort to prevent fraud. The bank reportedly told customers they would still be able to withdraw cash from Binance, but it would be “following the FCA’s warning to consumers” in banning payments. Many Santander account holders expressed negative feelings about the bank’s decision: “As one of your long standing account holders, …

As Binance faces scrutiny from regulators around the globe, Poland’s finance watchdog has issued a consumer warning about the cryptocurrency exchange. On Wednesday, the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (PFSA) published a statement on Binance’s growing regulatory issues around the world, stressing that the company’s operations are unregulated in Central European countries. The crypto market is “neither regulated nor subject to supervision” by the PFSA, the regulator noted, cautioning the public about the risks associated with trading on Binance, given the growing pushback to the exchange from global financial regulators, stating: “In line with the protection of financial market participants and …

Amid intensifying concerns over Binance’s global regulatory issues, the company’s CEO and founder, Changpeng Zhao, has underscored the exchange’s commitment to cooperating with regulators. In an open letter on Tuesday, Zhao emphasized that the cryptocurrency industry has massively evolved over the past four years since Binance’s launch, while there is still a lot of regulatory uncertainty around crypto. In response to the growing regulatory “hyper-focus,” the CEO shared Binance’s key principles, including its willingness to work with financial authorities in order to be a “positive contributor.” Zhao said that the crypto industry still lacks clear regulatory frameworks in several countries, …

Regulatory constraints facing Binance have forced the popular cryptocurrency exchange to temporarily halt bank transfers denominated in euros, according to an email sent to its customers on Tuesday. Specifically, euro deposits via the Single Europe Payments Area, or SEPA, have been put on hold indefinitely due to circumstances beyond the exchange’s control, Binance said in the email: “Due to events beyond our control, we are temporarily suspending EUR deposits via SEPA Bank Transfers from 8 am UTC on July 7, 2021.” Although Binance didn't specify the reason for temporarily halting SEPA transfers, the decision likely stems from the onslaught of …

A group of Italian and international investors have filed a class-action suit against major crypto exchange Binance, alleging the firm violated its own rules on futures trading. In a Tuesday announcement, Italy-based legal and consulting firm Lexia Avvocati said it would be taking legal action against Binance to recover damages from trades on the crypto exchange’s futures platform. On behalf of a group of investors, the company and the Swiss Blockchain Consortium allege Binance breached its rules on crypto derivatives trading and did not function properly at certain peak trading times. According to local news outlet Milano Finanza, the lawsuit …

Decentralized finance (DeFi) has emerged as one of the most promising real-world applications of blockchain technology, capable of reshaping the face of the global financial markets and transforming the way the average person manages their money. One DeFi focused project that has been gaining attention over the past week as the mainstream world slowly opens itself to the possibilities of DeFi is Enzyme Finance (MLN), a protocol focused on on-chain asset management that allows users to “build and scale vaults based on the investment strategies of their choice,” according to the projects website. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView …

Barclays’ decision to stop facilitating British customers’ payments to Binance has been met with criticism by the cryptocurrency exchange after a spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the bank acted with “an inaccurate understanding of events.” “We are disappointed that Barclays appears to have taken unilateral action based on what appears to be an inaccurate understanding of events,” the spokesperson said, referring to a recent edict by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) barring Binance Markets Limited from operating in the country. “The FCA notice relates to [Binance Markets Limited], which is a company incorporated in the U.K. and regulated by …

Customers have been reporting that Barclays, a British multinational universal bank, has been blocking payments to Binance cryptocurrency exchange over the last week. The financial services giant has confirmed to cardholders that Barclays debit/credit card payments to the cryptocurrency exchange will not be allowed until further notice. One of crypto investment dashboard Wealth Kode’s co-founders, who goes by Lee on Twitter, posted a text notification from Barclays Monday that read: “As you’ve made a payment to Binance this year, we wanted to let you know that we’re stopping payments made by credit/debit card to them until further notice. This is …

Binance, the leading cryptocurrency exchange by trade volume, continues to face scrutiny from regulators regarding the legality of its operations in certain countries. Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) are the latest financial regulators to announce a regulatory crackdown on Binance. Thai SEC announced Friday that the agency had filed a criminal complaint against Binance, launching a criminal procedure and an investigation for allegedly operating a digital asset business without a license. The authority said that Binance had provided crypto trading services via its website by “matching orders or arranging for the counterparties …

Leading decentralized crypto exchange by trade volume Binance has restored British pound withdrawals using the Faster Payments network. On June 28, Binance uploaded a notice revealing that withdrawals via Faster Payments, a popular United Kingdom-based inter-bank payments platform, had been suspended for maintenance. The news came the same week the U.K.’s financial regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), ordered Binance Markets Limited and the Binance Group to cease all regulated activities relating to derivatives and securities in the country. This led many to infer the sudden and seemingly opaque suspension of Faster Payments could signal further troubles ahead for the …

CoinMarketCap (CMC) has launched a token swap feature on its website through an integration with decentralized exchange Uniswap. CMC is one of the most well known crypto market data aggregators in the industry and has been owned by Binance since April 2020. The site’s Ethereum-based token pages now include a swap icon, enabling users to connect a wallet and swap between ERC-20 tokens. The platform supports wallets from MetaMask, Coinbase, Fortmatic, Portis, and WalletConnect. We're incredibly excited to see Uniswap integrated natively into @CoinMarketCap Token pages now have a "Swap" icon allowing users to connect to an Ethereum wallet and …