Binance.US, the American arm of cryptocurrency exchange giant Binance, has announced it will start trading fiat-crypto and crypto-crypto trading pairs on Tuesday.
The trading platform will list seven cryptocurrencies immediately upon the launch, including bitcoin, Binance coin (BNB), ethereum, XRP, bitcoin cash, litecoin and Tether’s USDT.
Binance.us also revealed it will soon open deposits for another five assets: cardano (ADA), basic attention token (BAT), ethereum classic (ETC), stellar’s XLM and 0x.
Last Wednesday, the new exchange started to open for registration and deposits, but did not disclose a specific date for an official launch.
In the weeks ahead, the platform will roll out additional cryptocurrencies that meet U.S. regulations and compliance standards based on its Digital Asset Risk Assessment Framework. (Binance’s recently launched dollar-linked stablecoin BUSD is notably not supported.)
Users who already have deposits with Binance.com will not see their funds automatically transferred to the U.S. platform, Binance.US CEO Catherine Coley previously told CoinDesk. Users for the new exchange will also receive a $15 referral bonus until Nov. 1.
Regulatory barriers
In June, the Malta-based Binance, initially launched in China, revealed that stateside users of its global platform Binance.com were barred from trading.
In the same month, the company said it would partner with California-based BAM Trading Services to set up Binance.US as its US platform. BAM is registered as a money services business with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) with an address listed in San Francisco, California.
While the U.S. entity would clear regulatory and compliance barriers, the new platform is still not supported by 13 states, as of Sept. 23, according to a statement from the company.
Users in those 13 states, including New York, Florida and Texas, cannot register for an account at Binance.US. Coley previously explained that the U.S. rollout is to be “gradual” with the 13 states not supported at launch.
The exchange said it would also strengthen its compliance and security practices through partnerships, most notably with software provider Chainalysis and KYC/AML tool provider IdentityMind.
Global expansion
The move is part of a larger expansion by Binance, which launched a fiat-to-crypto exchange on the island of Jersey, a British self-governing dependency in January.
Through that exchange, which caters to traders in Europe and the U.K, its users can trade bitcoin and ethereum against the British pound and the euro.
The Jersey arm listed the cryptocurrency exchange’s own British pound-backed stablecoin, Binance GBP (BGBP), offered on the fiat-to-crypto platform due to trader demand for more stablecoin options, the company said.
With its latest launch in the U.S., Binance has also been trying to push its US dollar-backed stablecoin posing as a potential rival against Libra. BUSD has been approved by the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao via CoinDesk archives
