The world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, Binance, has faced regulatory upheaval over the past week as jurisdictions clamped down on the use of unauthorized exchanges and warned citizens against accessing them. For Binance, adopting the moniker of “global exchange” has done very little to appease regulators that require specific licenses to offer financial services to their citizens. Below is a brief recap of recent regulatory actions surrounding Binance. Japan On June 25, Japan’s Financial Services Agency, or FSA, accused Binance of operating in the country without proper registration – potentially setting the stage for a protracted legal battle with regulators. …

Binance’s U.K. customers are currently unable t use the popular local payments provider, Faster Payments, to withdraw British pounds (GBP) from the exchange. On Monday, June 28, a notice on the Binance website declared that GBP withdrawals via Faster Payments had been “suspended for maintenance,” according to the Financial Times. Faster Payments is a payment provider used by major banks to process near-instant payments. It has become one of the preferred channels for moving fiat currencies to and from the Binance exchange. According to the report, U.K. users can still use traditional methods such as bank cards to move money …

Binance, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has been ordered to cease all regulated activities in the United Kingdom following a review of its operations by the nation’s Financial Conduct Authority, or FCA. “Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK,” the FCA said in an announcement, adding that no other entity in the Binance Group holds any of the necessary permits to operate in the country. In delivering the rebuke, the FCA also issued a stern warning about investing with unauthorized exchanges: “Most firms advertising and selling investments in cryptoassets are not …

On the tails of a warning from Japanese regulators on Friday, Binance has announced in a short statement yesterday that it will cease providing services to users located in Ontario. “As part of our continuing compliance efforts, Binance has updated its Terms of Use to provide that Ontario (Canada) has become a restricted jurisdiction, effective 2021-06-26 at 3:59:59 AM (UTC). Regrettably, Binance can no longer continue to service Ontario-based users. Ontario-based users are advised to take immediate measures to close out all active positions by December 31, 2021,” a statement on their website reads. Binance did not return a request …

Cointelegraph is delighted to announce a nonfungible token charity auction in partnership with the Rotary Foundation and the Binance cryptocurrency exchange. Binance will feature the celebrity-themed charity campaign on its newly launched NFT marketplace, aiming to generate donations supporting financial education for children and training for physicians coping with COVID-19 emergencies. The charity auction will include an NFT series curated and designed by Cointelegraph and its outstanding art team, with the participation of global athletes, musicians, entrepreneurs and bloggers. As part of the campaign, Cointelegraph’s team of artists will create digital portraits of celebrities willing to support Rotary’s charity efforts …

Crypto trading platform Binance may once again be heading for a standoff with financial regulators in Japan. On Friday, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) issued a warning to Binance, accusing the company of offering crypto exchange services in the country without registration. The agency also served a similar warning to crypto derivatives trading platform Bybit back in May. After China banned crypto trading back in 2017, Binance, along with many other Chinese exchanges, moved to Japan. Soon after, the FSA made Japan become the first jurisdiction to develop clear-cut crypto exchange rules, which, among other requirements, mandated compulsory national registration …

Malta’s strategy to become a global enclave for digital assets appears to be working, though lax regulatory oversight has raised concerns over money laundering and other financial crime. Roughly $71 billion, or 60 billion euros, worth of cryptocurrencies has passed through Malta since the tiny Mediterranean state first adopted its “blockchain island” strategy in 2017, the Times of Malta reported Sunday. Although Malta has upgraded its crypto-focused regulations in recent years, financial watchdogs say the nation's anti-money laundering regime may have lacked proper protocols. The Financial Action Task Force, or FATF, met in Paris last week to discuss whether Malta …

Pro-crypto travel booking agency Travala.com is releasing a decentralized property rental service. In a Wednesday announcement, Travala said it had partnered with former executives from Airbnb, Expedia, and other companies to launch Dtravel, a decentralized vacation rental platform that may serve as a competitor for sites like Airbnb and Vrbo. The platform is community governed through Dtravel’s Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO, and uses DeFi to facilitate smart contracts between hosts and guests. Dtravel claims to repair “the broken relationship between hosts and guests created by existing centralized home-sharing platforms.” The platform said that issues stemming from centralized control on …

The crypto payment solutions provider that introduced blockchain-based subscription billing to credit card-harried merchants is moving to the Binance Smart Chain. PumaPay pioneered cryptocurrency-funded payments with its PullPayment Protocol, a series of smart contracts that opens up the use of flexible billing tools like recurring subscriptions and automated account balance top-ups that actively “pull” payments from clients. By doing away with the need to ask customers to actively “push” out crypto payment every month, it gives online merchants an alternative to the high fees and restrictive rules of fiat credit card companies that were previously the only source of “set …

Several decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols running on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) have fallen victim to major exploits in recent months as the sector continues to see substantial growth in 2021. Binance’s very own smart contract blockchain platform has seen a surge in demand since its launch in September 2021, due to its low fees and high throughput. This has allowed the Binance Smart Chain to appropriate a percentage of the DeFi market as platforms looked for an alternative to Ethereum’s high gas fees. While Ethereum still commands the lion’s share of the DeFi network’s transaction volume due to the number …

Impossible Finance, a Defi protocol built on Binance Smart Chain, has completed a $7 million seed funding round backed by over 125 institutional and angel investors — with the funds going towards the development of a multi chain DeFi incubator. The seed round was led by venture capital firm True Ventures, and quantitative investment firm Alameda Research, blockchain development firm Hashed and investment firm CMS Holdings. Impossible Finance was launched on BSC on April 9, and the protocol currently offers DeFi investors token swaps, liquidity pools, and staking rewards through the Impossible Finance (IF) token The new funding will go …

This weekly roundup of news from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong attempts to curate the industry’s most important news, including influential projects, changes in the regulatory landscape, and enterprise blockchain integrations. Could green miners get a pass? Last week’s column had a look at the recent crackdown on cryptocurrency miners as China heads towards a more carbon-neutral policy. This week, the Southwest province of China was humming a slightly different tune as the Sichuan Energy Regulatory Office organized a symposium on the topic. The province has a heavy mining concentration due to low cost energy generated from a developed …