It should be noted that this year has not been easy for Binance, as one of the world's major cryptocurrency exchanges has come under the scrutiny of regulators from various countries. Against this backdrop, the platform was forced, among other things, to introduce a mandatory identity verification procedure for new users and those who want to continue trading on the exchange.

Accordingly, as early as the end of August, users had to show their own documents if they wanted to continue interacting with digital assets through the Binance interface. At the same time, as the head of the trading platform Changpen Zhao noted, such innovations did not scare away many traders: in all, the exchange stopped using about three percent of its customers. They have accordingly opted to use those exchanges where it is possible to trade without showing their own credentials - although there have been fewer and fewer of these platforms in recent times. Read more about the platform manager's comments in a separate article.


Binance and regulation

According to an official publication by the Financial Transaction Analysis and Reporting Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), Binance Canada will operate in the country under the name Binance Canada Capital Markets. It has been allowed to legally deal in foreign exchange transactions, money transfers and virtual currencies.

The exchange was registered as a local legal entity on December 1, 2021, with the license valid for the next four years, which is until December 31, 2024. The news has already been confirmed on Twitter by exchange CEO Changpen Zhao.

Zhao’s tweet referring to the publication of the licence

According to CryptoPotato, Binance has also announced that it has received permission from the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) to operate in the country as a crypto-related service provider. The official press release said that the permission was granted following a licence application from the regulator to establish itself as a fully regulated centralised cryptocurrency exchange.

Central Bank of Bahrain

As we’ve already noted, 2021 has been a difficult year for Binance in terms of approval from government authorities. Their representatives have repeatedly insisted that the company’s decentralised corporate governance model – and it didn’t even have a head office – significantly undermined the trust of regulators.

According to recent reports, the company may have an office in Dubai. This assumption was made by members of the cryptocurrency community after Changpen Zhao posted a photo of himself along with a UAE flag emoji in the first half of December.

Changpen Zhao’s photo with the UAE flag emoji

Be that as it may, Binance has now taken a big step towards cooperation in regulating its operations. And this is great news, as the pressure on the exchange is now unlikely to be exerted with the same intensity.


Overall, it should be noted that this is not the first time a Binance executive has commented on what is happening inside the exchange. Back at the beginning of the month, he explained exactly how the platform's management chooses cryptocurrencies to add. At the time, Zhao said that what matters is the blockchain community around a particular project. And it is this factor that determines the listing issue.


Binance chief executive Changpen Zhao


We believe that getting these approvals will have a good impact both on the activity of the exchange in different countries and on the reputation of digital assets. Still, people unfamiliar with the coin niche still see them as something forbidden and uncontrollable. However, the cooperation of major representatives of the crypto industry with regulators clearly refutes this theory.


Follow developments in the digital asset market in our Millionaire Cryptochat. There, we will talk about other topics related to the world of decentralisation and blockchain.