UK FCA Binance Ban Not Prohibiting British Traders

It was business as usual for Binance and the digital assets market at-large on Monday after the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) warned that Binance Markets Limited — a subsidiary of Binance — is not “permitted to undertake any regulated activity” in the country. 

In multiple statements released to the press, Binance said that the FCA ban only targeted a subsidiary, Binance Markets Limited, and the exchange is still accessible within the country. 

Stakeholders aren’t quite convinced that this matters.

“The FCA recently issued a notice to Binance that it cannot offer certain crypto-related derivative products to users in the UK. In practice though, it seems that this latest development will not have any direct effect on Binance users in the UK who will still be able to use products provided by Binance in other jurisdictions,” Elan Nahari, a contributor at Sovryn, the leading protocol for DeFi on Bitcoin, said in an emailed statement. “The limited number of companies that have received registration approval from the FCA suggests that the UK will find it difficult to attract companies on the forefront of financial innovation. ”

Kirill Suslov, CEO of trading app, TabTrader, pointed out that the regulator tends to be opposed to leveraged, high-risk trading versus digital assets trading itself. 

“Binance apparently was targeted because of its futures and margin trading,” Suslov said. “Spot trading in Binance shouldn’t be included in the ban really.”

As for the market? This didn’t seem to register. 

“On-chain signals indicate that strong hands are aggressively buying the bitcoin dip. The amount of stablecoins held in all exchange wallets has reached an all-time-high of $17 billion, suggesting that investors are getting ready to enter the crypto markets,” research firm Global Block wrote in a note. 

The price of bitcoin will likely end the US Monday trading session on a positive note up 5% to $34,300 according to CoinGecko.