The UK bans Binance, warns consumers on crypto investments
The financial regulatory body of the UK, Financial Conduct Authority, FCA, has recently issued a statement announcing that it has banned Binanance Markets Limited, which is a part of the Binance cryptocurrency trading platform, from getting any regulatory activity in the country.
The financial regulator has also issued a special warning to consumers about crypto investments and the risk associated with them. The move of the regulator to ban Binance Markets comes amid a wider crypto crackdown around globally.
As the Financial Conduct Authority of the United Kingdom posted, in addition to closing the business on June 30, Binance Markets should also prominently issue a notice that it is no longer permitted to do regulated activity in the United Kingdom.
The regulatory body announced that the whole company at a wider scale no longer holds any form of authorization in the country, as well as no license or registration to conduct any type of activity in the country.
In addition, by June 30, the company is also required to remove, or at least request to remove, all the advertisements or promotions it has. The company is required to provide FCA with a writing stating that it has done so.
Binance is also required to securely preserve all the records and information of all consumers from the UK so that it is able to provide the information to the FCA if requested.
Crypto trading & its popularity in the UK
Trading cryptocurrencies has become very popular over the past few years. One of the main reasons for its popularity is the online exchange that has made crypto trading easily accessible for everyone. These exchanges offer investors the ability to buy, store, and sell cryptocurrencies using one platform.
In addition, the crypto trading market is further popularized thanks to the crypto trading bots, which are capable of conducting market analysis for traders. For example, one of the companies that have created cryptocurrency trading bot for Binance is Bitsgap.
Bitsgap’s trading bot is very well-known in the market. This bot is capable of analyzing the market, providing traders with accurate information, as well as opening buy and sell orders. Such trading bots are doing everything for traders, which is making the market even easier to access.
Because of this, the popularity of the crypto trading market is increasingly growing. The same trend can be seen in the UK, specifically among a younger tech-savvy generation of the country. The move of the UK’s regulator comes after the steps taken by other countries to combat the risks associated with crypto trading.
For example, recently, a few weeks back, Chinese authorities conducted a massive crackdown on crypto miners, allegedly due to the environmental impact of bitcoin mining.
FCA’s warning
UK's regulator also issued a special warning for consumers, saying that they should make sure to stay well-informed about the risks associated with online advertisements that promise high returns on crypto investments as well as other crypto-related products.
The regulatory body said that most of the companies that are advertising as well as selling investments in cryptocurrencies are not authorized by the regulator. The regulatory body also added that by investing with such companies, traders will not have access to the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if things go wrong.
The regulatory body also added that although it does not regulated cryptocurrencies itself, it does regulate some derivatives, such as futures, for example. The regulatory body also said that companies must be locally authorized to advertise or sell such products in the country.
The regulatory agency lists all the companies that are available to offer such services on its official website. In addition, there also is a warning list published by the regulator, which includes the companies that should be avoided by traders.
The regulatory agency also calls on local traders to make sure and do proper research regarding the platforms they are using as well as the assets that they are using. The regulatory body also calls on traders to avoid companies that call them out of the blue and offer them promising returns that sound too good to be true.
China’s crypto crackdown
The United Kingdom is not the only country that has expressed its views towards crypto trading as well as mining. China has recently taken strict measures towards crypto miners in the country, shutting down a huge majority of local miners.
Up until now, China has been known as the largest crypto miner, specifically in terms of bitcoin mining. Many have thought that at least the parts of the country that were leaders in terms of crypto mining would have a more friendly approach, however, this was not the case at all.
China’s crypto crackdown had a huge impact on the performance of cryptocurrencies over the past few weeks. For the first time since January, the price of bitcoin went below $30,000 in June.
Experts are saying that the huge impact of China’s crypto crackdown on the market is hard to deny because of the huge influence that China had on the mining sector for so many years. As leading crypto miners from China are looking for new destinations for mining, some believe that a possible good destination for this could be Texas.
There are several reasons for this, one of the biggest ones being the cheaper electricity. In addition, the leaders of the country are very crypto-friendly and have many times expressed their interest in cryptocurrencies.
