As a reminder, KYC, or the so-called 'Know Your Customer' procedure, is a verification procedure for the identity of cryptocurrency users. It is a mandatory requirement by financial regulators for crypto platforms. In this way, they counter illegal financial transactions in the form of crime financing, money laundering and so on.


We checked the current data: Binance is the leader in trading volumes in spot trading – that is, buying cryptocurrencies at market price – and in derivatives transactions.

In the last 24 hours, the exchange’s spot trading volume was the equivalent of $16.49 billion. By comparison, the Okex platform is in second place with $6.27 billion.

Cryptocurrency exchanges’ spot trading volumes

Futures platform Binance had a figure of $54.05 billion. Okex was again in second place with 18.53 billion.

Cryptocurrency exchanges’ volumes on derivatives trading

The regular criticism of the platform is understandable in this regard. Still, it is the largest in the industry and therefore attracts a lot of attention.

Cons of cryptocurrency exchange Binance

According to Decrypt’s sources, Binance’s chief executive has been criticised by compliance director Samuel Lim and former head of anti-money laundering reporting Karen Leong. In a recent interview with Reuters, they said they had already “reminded” Zhao of the problems with the KYC procedure, but he allegedly ignored their words.

Identity verification at Binance

Binance itself has been “in the crosshairs of regulators” for quite some time now. The exchange has previously been demanded more than once to establish a centralised office, as Zhao himself had previously stated that his company was operating under a decentralised governance model. In the past few years, Binance has been criticised by financial regulators in the UK, Italy, Malaysia and many other countries.

Most interestingly, one of Zhao's messages sent to him by Leong back in 2019 recommends that the head of the exchange reduce the KYC requirements altogether and increase the withdrawal/input limits on the trading platform's accounts. Samuel Lim, on the other hand, suggested getting rid of all bridges between Binance and traditional currencies, i.e. removing the ability to fund accounts with bank cards. In this way, the exchange could reduce the attention to itself from traditional financial institutions.

Such radical decisions are unlikely to have had a positive impact on the development of the trading platform. It is now one of the most popular instruments for direct purchase of cryptocurrencies. In many ways, this attracts a huge number of new customers to Binance. In addition, direct payments from currency to crypto are available on other popular exchanges, meaning that without this feature, Binance would simply fall out of competition.

Binance CEO Changpen Zhao

Zhao refuted his colleagues’ criticism on his Twitter. Here’s his rejoinder.

Journalists are talking to people who quit Binance or partners who didn’t work with us and are now trying to tarnish our reputation. We are focused on anti-money laundering compliance, transparency and regulation. Our actions speak better than our words. Thank you for your support!

And here’s another quote from Twitter.

A suspected fraudster creates a bank account and a cryptocurrency exchange account. The bank is supposedly OK, but the exchange is bad. Binance uses the same or even more robust anti-money laundering tools. Binance cooperates with law enforcement agencies around the world on this issue. We get a lot of letters of thanks.

In other words, Chanpen denies any negative comments towards the exchange. It is unclear why former members of the company’s senior management would suddenly want to “besmirch” its reputation. However, its CEO does not see any problem with KYC at the moment.


We think Changpen Zhao's arguments do seem logical. Still, in situations like this, one should not forget the banks that have allowed their customers to open an account there. And if a person has then made a number of suspicious transactions in the crypto world, banks should also share responsibility on a par with the crypto exchange. Be that as it may, we can point out from our own experience that the identity verification requirements on Binance don't lag behind other popular cryptocurrency exchanges.


Have you had any negative experiences with cryptocurrency exchanges? Share your story in our Millionaire Crypto Chat. We’ll discuss other important points from the coin realm there as well.