Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced plans to hire new leadership with regulatory and compliance experience following the company’s decision to become a fully regulated financial institution, at a virtual press conference Tuesday, July 27.
Even though CZ apparently isn’t planning on stepping down from his role, and chastised the media for misinterpreting his announcement, he pointed out the active steps Binance is taking to adapt to local regulations and get licenses and approvals for headquarters around the world.
In a series of tweets, the Binance CEO explained the company’s future endeavors: “We have commenced processes for licenses & approvals where there is an existing legal framework for crypto exchanges. This includes on-going work across Asia-Pacific, EMEA, and Latin America.”
The move came amid rising attempts by authorities to bring the fast-growing crypto exchange industry to heel with a series of regulatory actions across a number of jurisdictions; the UK, Canada, Japan, and Italy are among them.
In response, Binance initiated a series of tweaks to its policies to meet regulations: On Tuesday, it reduced its withdrawal limit from 2 BTC to 0.06 BTC for accounts that have only been verified at the Basic level. Other than that, the maximum leverage for users trading futures contracts was reduced to curb the hefty losses clients were experiencing.
Binance decided to halt the trading of stock tokens – digital versions of stocks – as German authorities raised concerns that Binance had violated securities rules while setting them up.
This May, it faced a federal investigation by the US Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service, but declined to comment on the matter.
“Binance is ready to assist regulators from around the world and together find the optimal way to set a fair playing field – consumer protection is important to all of us. We want to create a sustainable ecosystem around blockchain technology,” CZ added.
