Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by volume, has had an incredible growth story since 2017, setting up exchanges across the globe and moving its headquarters to the crypto receptive market of the Republic of Malta. The amazing part of this unique storyline, however, is that it has made its achievement without ever having to create an operating beachhead in the United States. Foreign markets have been much more accommodating to the fledgling crypto market, and regulatory officials in the U.S. are known to be more stringent than many of their counterparties in other jurisdictions.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the ebullient CEO and founder of Binance, and his executive staff have obviously decided, however, that they can no longer ignore the U.S. market and hope to be the star and leader of the crypto exchange arena. The firm had turned a blind eye to receiving U.S. clients, but when regulatory scrutiny became an issue, the exchange banned U.S. customers during the summer. Months of work have now led up to the formation of “Binance US”, a separate subsidiary organized to operate in the U.S. market and comply, as necessary, with applicable rules and regulations.
The wait is over. The U.S. subsidiary will begin on-boarding customers next week. Based out of San Francisco, customer registration will commence on September 18th. Once a KYC process is concluded, clients may deposit assets to set up their account. If prospective clients were expecting a broad array of token offerings to greet them, as with the overseas versions of Binance, think again. For now, again due to regulatory constraints, Binance US will only support Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and USDT. There is no word as to when trading will start.
Previous reports had suggested as many as 30 tokens were being considered, but regulatory compliance was the primary goal. Binance has also always existed as a “crypto-to-crypto” exchange. In some parts of the world, Binance has made arrangements to convert fiat to token offerings, but there was no mention of this possibility in the United States. Customers can always buy a position on Coinbase and then transfer it to Binance.
Possible USD pairings were not announced in recent missives either, but the fact that Tether (“USDT”) is included as one of the “founding six”, a “USD” stablecoin, the need for a U.S. Dollar equivalent seems to be unnecessary. You might also have to perform a transfer from or to another exchange to buy in or cash out, so to speak.
Will Binance US succeed in its proposed format? Americans prefer convenience above all other matters when dealing with any online service. The lack of an easy way to convert USD to one of the six posted tokens may be problematic, but we suspect that the firm may have already devised a means to get around this inconvenience.
CZ has always stated publicly that he and his firm want to deal directly with regulators and comply with all local rules and regulations. Their recently announced Venus Project stressed this very intention. Going head-to-head with Coinbase and being a latecomer to the market will make the road ahead a tough one, but Binance has yet to waver as a bold leader in the Crypto-verse. It would be difficult at this stage for anyone to bet against such a formidable competitor.
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