The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, will stop offering cryptocurrency margin trading with the Australian dollar, euro and sterling.
Binance will suspend margin borrowing for large cryptocurrencies and their Australian dollar, euro and sterling pairs from August 10. By August 12, the platform will delist the pairs, cancelling all pending orders, and automatically settling any open trades.
The platform is also limiting the maximum leverage for trading cryptocurrency futures for new users to 20 times, the platform’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), announced in a tweet on Sunday. The exchange’s curbs on its services come as regulators across the globe have been issuing warnings against the platform.
Stock tokens
The regulatory difficulties Binance has been experiencing recently can be traced back to when it issued stock tokens in April. Starting with Tesla, these ‘tokenized stocks’ could be worth a fractional amount of the corresponding stock, kept in reserve. However, these offerings alarmed Germany’s financial regulator BaFin.
According to the regulator, these stock tokens could be considered securities, which require issuing a prospectus. Following the scrutiny that came in the wake of this initial inquiry, Binance recently announced that it would cease offering its stock tokens immediately. Current holders would have 90 days before being closed out of their positions.
Warnings issued
Although Binance’s initial issue was its stock tokens, this drew further scrutiny from financial watchdogs. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a consumer warning against Binance in June. It also no longer permitted Binance to conduct any regulated activity in the UK. This was swiftly followed by similar warnings from financial authorities in Japan, Canada, Thailand, Italy, Lithuania and Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, on the upside of things for the company, CZ alluded to a potential initial public offering (IPO) for his company. During this year’s Global DeFi Virtual Summit hosted by SCB 10X, the CEO revealed that “Binance U.S. is looking at IPO route.” However, he emphasized that there was currently no direct plan, and the company’s focus was on growth.
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