Binance Singapore will close in February 2022. This was revealed by the company itself on the official Binance.sg announcement page.
Binance Singapore surrenders its licence
Binance.sg is an exchange owned by Binance specifically aimed at users in Singapore. This exchange is operated by Binance Asia Services Pte Ltd (BAS), which does not intend to go any further in its application for a license in the country.
Without this licence, the company will have to close its operations, including the Binance.sg exchange. The company’s global operations and its other exchanges, including Binance.com, will not be affected.
BAS will close all of its digital payment token (“DPT”) services by 13 February 2022.
As a result, as of Monday, all new registrations on Binance.sg are closed, all user accounts that have not passed KYC are suspended, and deposits are blocked.
Exchanges are still active, but only until 12 January 2022.
Withdrawals are of course still active, but only until 13 February 2022: users are therefore advised to withdraw all their funds from Binance.sg. In fact, all accounts will be permanently closed by that date.
However, the company advises to act as soon as possible, without waiting for the February 13 deadline, and says that BAS will not be held liable for any losses resulting from failure to withdraw assets and account closure after February 13, 2022.
The investment in HGX
Binance founder and CEO Changpeng CZ Zhao, however, has indicated that the company is not leaving Singapore definitively with this move
Clarification. Binance made a sizable investment into regulated exchange HGX last week. This investment made our own application somewhat redundant. We will continue to work through our partners to grow the crypto industry in Singapore. Onwards.https://t.co/D9oywGEavV
— CZ
Binance (@cz_binance) December 13, 2021
In fact, he revealed that last week Binance made a substantial investment in regulated exchange HGX, making Binance.sg “redundant”.
At this point, as BAS has not yet been granted a license to operate in the country in a regulated manner, they have decided to close BAS’s operations in the country, and focus on HGX.
It is worth mentioning, however, that for now, Binance only owns 18% of Hg Exchange (HGX).
Binance’s changes
CZ had also previously revealed that Binance is making a number of substantial changes to its organizational structures and product offerings, as well as to its internal processes and the way it works with regulators. The company is in the process of creating physical offices, legal entities, a proper board of directors, and adequate governance structures.
This should solve the many problems it has had in recent times with regulators.
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