Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance has had its Binance Markets Ltd (BML). products and services banned in the UK according to its FCA (Financial Conduct Authority), its native token Binance Coin (BNB) slowly gaining over the past 24 hours.
Brief Analysis
The trend of BNB over the past year follows the majority of top-rated cryptocurrencies, including the big guns Bitcoin (BTC) and Etherum (ETH). BNB starts low and slowly around $20, have a slow trickle upwards to about $40 by the start of $40. However, it is to note that although appearing slow and stable at the graph's scale, volatile trends have occurred during this time, similar to the trends experienced in the crypto market today. Interestingly, BNB begins to gain momentum at the start of February 2021, not January like the trends of many other cryptocurrencies. Mid-February BNB spikes, almost tripling in three days (16-19 February) - from about $130 to $330. BNB to smash the $500 mark and close in on the $600, which is another case of an almost triple run - about $230 to $590. However, this run is much more prolonged, going over for approximately 3 weeks rather than 3 days. BNB goes down at its peak beneath $500, then back up again to near its original position. It is after this tumble that BNB runs further upwards, reaching its ATH (All-Time Highest) almost to $700. Following the ATH is the crash of BNB from the start of May. BNB recovers for some time after its lowest point but then loses its gains to come near the low point of the crash.
Going into the last month of BNB, there is not much volatility involved with a general decline that matches the month trends for other cryptocurrencies. Beginning the graph BNB moves down, recovers decently for the highest point of the month, going down from thereon. The greatest downward movement was between June 21 and 24, going from about $340 to $230 on the 22nd of June, recovering slightly lower on the 24th.
Zooming deeper into the last day of BNB, there appears to have been a great increase over the past hours, now lost to hit its lowest point of the day. Although appearing to have lost, the graph only shows the day of UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), not the past 24 hours that does show an increase for BNB's price. The great spike started from 7 am, hitting its highest the first time near 8 and holding this position for the next 2 hours from 8. Towards 10 BNB has another spike above the highest of the first to tumble downwards to lose its bullish gain of the day. This bullish run, however, was not extreme, going up by about $10 or 2.5% from the start of the UTC day.
The statistics of BNB at the time of writing are as follows:
Price - $284.78
24h Price change - $8.16 (+2.95%)
24h Trading volume - $1,569,072,449.17 (-4.27%)
Market dominance - 3.19%
Market rank - 4th
Binance Speaking Out On FCA's Operation Restrictions
On the 26th of June, the UK's FCA made a warning to BML, a firm under Binance Group, on its activity within the UK since it does not meet the impositions of requirements set by the FCA. The FCA begins the warning with the following statements:
Binance Markets Limited is not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK. This firm is part of a wider Group (Binance Group).
Due to the imposition of requirements by the FCA, Binance Markets Limited is not currently permitted to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the FCA.
No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorisation, registration or licence to conduct a regulated activity in the UK.
Although such a ban is made by the UK's FCA for Binance, it does mention that it cannot regulate crypto assets including BTC and ETH, only crypto-asset derivatives such as futures contracts. Future contracts are a service provided within the Binance exchange, coming as Binance Futures, and such services would not be permitted by the UK's FCA since it is a crypto asset derivative.
As crypto-assets are not regulated by the UK's FCA, then they can be used by UK people without the authorities coming out for them. UK people can also use firms with crypto-asset derivatives without the UK FCA's authorisation, which would include BML, but will have no help from the UK authorities if any incident was to occur. This means that not much will change with the usage of Binance with the majority of UK users likely to continue to use its services, but come without the protection of the UK authorities.
However, Binance claims that the warning will not affect Binance's activity as it spoke out on Twitter. The reasoning behind such a claim includes the following:
BML is a separate legal entity and does not offer any products or services via the http://Binance.com website.
The Binance Group acquired BML May 2020 and has not yet launched its UK business or used its FCA regulatory permissions.
This means that nothing will happen to Binance and its UK users, though are likely not permitted under the protection of UK authorities due to the lack of regulation on crypto assets as mentioned earlier.
The Twitter response is shown below and can be visited here: https://twitter.com/binance/status/1409229415846981634.
Further Reading
be[in]crypto - Binance Responds to UK Exchange Service Restrictions - https://beincrypto.com/binance-responds-uk-exchange-service-restrictions/
FCA - Consumer warning on Binance Markets Limited and the Binance Group - https://www.fca.org.uk/news/news-stories/consumer-warning-binance-markets-limited-and-binance-group
CryptoPotato - Binance Responds to the UK FCA’s Decision to Prohibit Operation in the Country - https://cryptopotato.com/binance-markets-limited-banned-uk/
Binance - Overview of Binance Futures Products & Features - https://www.binance.com/en-NG/support/faq/00bd4e5720bf4ffebfadb4b15e465a73
