Binance Focuses on UK as US Makes it ‘Very Difficult’ to do Business: CSO

The ongoing legal battle between Coinbase and the SEC has Binance questioning the regulatory environment in the US

article-image

mundissima/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Binance Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann said that the regulatory environment, or lack thereof, in the US has made it “very difficult” to do business. 

Hillmann said that the US “has been very confusing over the past six months” and referred to the ongoing legal battle between Coinbase and the SEC.

In comments made at the Financial Times’ crypto and digital assets summit, Hillmann said that Binance would do “everything” it could to be regulated in the UK following the “very difficult time” in the US.

In early May, Binance weighed in on the UK’s crypto consultation after the UK government said that it wanted to become a “competitive location for sustainable finance.”

Binance said that it supports expanding “specified investments to include crypto assets.” 

As Blockworks previously noted, the exchange was more agreeable than other crypto firms on the letter. It even agreed with the “activity based” NFT regulation, which Andreessen Horowitz did not completely comply with in its letter. 

“The introduction of formal regulatory admission practices, alongside greater market surveillance and regulation in general, will help to reduce bad actors,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao wrote on Twitter.

Loading Tweet..

In 2021, Binance subsidiary Binance Markets Limited was banned by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority after the FCA said that the subsidiary was not “permitted to undertake any regulated activity.”

But in early February, CZ tweeted that he was “happy” to see progress being made in UK regulation, which he noted is “progressive.”

In the US, Binance was sued by the CFTC back in March. The regulator alleged that the exchange attempted to evade regulation in the US.

“For years, Binance knew they were violating CFTC rules, working actively to both keep the money flowing and avoid compliance,” CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam said.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

zerebro.png

Research

Here we tackle the new crypto product ideas we expect agents to enable, reason about the value capture potential of different AI agent platform plays, and survey the current landscape of leading AI agent platform pureplays available to crypto investors today.

article-image

Despite the decades-long lead, there are spooky similarities between ETH and Intel stock

article-image

Some are calling for Solana to pump the brakes until validators are able to share the extra fees with stakers

article-image

Pantera junior partner Mason Nystrom details why projects need to raise capital

article-image

It’ll take time to “disentangle all these strands,” Peirce noted — ongoing litigation included

article-image

The victory lap the crypto industry has run since election night is bumping into some hurdles

article-image

The crypto custody firm’s goal was to “identify price points at which traders might consider the market to be overextended”