A Binance executive says the past six months in the US have been “very confusing” and the company will do “everything we possibly can” to be regulated in the UK
World's largest cryptocurrency exchange says it is ‘very difficult’ to do business in US after moves by Washington regulators Tweets: @smtuffy and @nikasgari Tweets: Sean Tuffy / @smtuffy : I'm old enough to remember when the FCA ordered the Binance to stop all regulated activities in the UK because it was a shitshow. So, GLWT https://www.ft.com/... Nikou Asgari / @nikasgari : Binance makes a bid for the UK, saying it'll do “everything we possibly can” to be regulated here - at the FT crypto summit with @ScottChipolina https://www.ft.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The company that sources once pegged at a potential $300B valuation on unfettered global growth is now publicly begging regulators for permission. The pivot follows a brutal stretch: the SEC sued Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao for allegedly mishandling billions in customer funds, and months later the exchange [[a:845270|halted UK signups after the FCA restricted a local partner's ability to approve customer communications]].
The executive's pledge at the FT crypto summit is therefore less strategy than damage control — an admission that the offshore-growth playbook is dead and regulated-market access must be earned market by market. The related coverage already shows how that bid lands: by early 2024, sources reported Binance's UK re-entry efforts were being frustrated because the FCA had raised concerns with prospective local partners.
First-order effects
- Binance commits to full compliance in the UK even as it calls doing business in the US 'very difficult' — meaning the world's largest exchange is prioritizing one major market's regulatory blessing while effectively writing off the other's.
- Prospective UK local partners now face the FCA's scrutiny directly, since Binance's access runs through them rather than its own authorization.
Second-order effects
- Rival exchanges that cleared UK or US compliance earlier can pitch themselves as the regulated alternative exactly when Binance users are looking for a home, pressuring Binance to compete on trust rather than breadth of listings.
- If the FCA signals reluctance to local partners — as later reporting suggests it did — other offshore exchanges learn that UK entry requires regulator goodwill they cannot buy or shortcut.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points toward a split global crypto market: deep-liquidity offshore venues versus smaller regulated national pools, forcing exchanges to choose between the two instead of serving both.
- Regulators like the FCA and SEC are effectively setting the terms of which exchanges survive as mainstream financial institutions, converting compliance capacity into the industry's main competitive moat.
The trend: Crypto's largest exchanges are trading their offshore-scale advantage for regulated-market legitimacy, one jurisdiction at a time, as watchdogs close the arbitrage that built the industry.