Binance to Wind Down Derivatives in Europe; Malaysia Orders Closure

Binance’s regulatory woes worsened Friday as Malaysia ordered it to halt operations in the country. Separately, the cryptocurrency exchange said it’s planning to wind down futures and derivatives products across Europe, starting with Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.

• Malaysia's Securities Commission (SC) issued a public reprimand against the company and ordered it to disable the website and mobile apps in the country.
• According to the commission, Binance is "illegally operating a digital asset exchange." The country's laws demand that all such exchanges must be registered by the SC.
• Binance also needs to halt marketing activities and prevent Malaysian investors accessing its Telegram group.
• In Europe, Binance said users in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands will be unable to open new futures and derivative positions on the platform, effective immediately.
• Existing positions will have to be closed by an as-yet undetermined date.
• The decision is Binance's latest move to distance itself from products and services that have drawn the scrutiny from regulators in a slew of different markets.
• Earlier this week, Binance announced it was stopping crypto margin trading involving sterling, the euro and Australian dollar. This followed just hours after CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted the company was reducing the maximum leverage users can use to trade futures contracts from 100x to 20x.
• Binance has fallen foul of Malaysia's markets regulator in the past. Along with eToro, it was added to a list of companies not permitted to operate in the country in July last year.