The two crypto exchanges did not give a clear reason as to why they could not come to an agreement
The Japanese crypto trading platform TaoTao has announced — as reported by CoinDesk Japan — that its collaboration with Binance has ended as neither side could reach an agreement.
In January of this year, Binance struck up a discussion with the Z Corporation of Japan and its affiliate, local crypto trading platform, TaoTao. Z Corporation is a subsidiary of Z Holdings, which owns Yahoo Japan. The goal of the discussions was to incorporate the trading technology and operational knowledge of Binance to supplement the expansion of its domestic business.
No clear reason has been given as to why the attempt at partnership did not push through.
Binance has regularly made headlines for operating without a license. In 2018, the Financial Service Authority of Japan (FSA) warned the crypto exchange giant against operating in the country without a licence. Earlier this year, Binance announced it would be phasing out its services to customers that reside in Japan.
In September, the Japanese crypto exchange Fisco (which was previously known as Zaif), filed a lawsuit against Binance for a $60 million hack in 2018. The crypto exchange alleged that the tech giant had knowingly allowed stolen funds to be processed and laundered.
Zaif was sold by Tech bureau, its parent entity at the time, to Fisco after the incident, which compensated the users who had lost their funds in the hack.
“The thieves broke the stolen bitcoin into seven thousands of separate transactions and accounts, all valued below the 2-bitcoin threshold. In this way, the thieves converted the stolen bitcoin into other cryptocurrencies and transmitted the value from the Binance platform,” Fisco said.
Fisco is demanding that Binance pay for its loss of the laundered funds, and for other punitive damages as well.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) also appeared to single out Binance for moving from one jurisdiction to another in an attempt to avoid stricter regulatory oversight. Binance had originated from China, moved to Japan and then moved to Malta.
After reports from Maltese authorities were released in February of this year, which stated that the exchange was never licenced in this country, Binance has not given a direct answer with regards to its current jurisdiction. The FATF believes that the crypto exchange’s current location is in Africa.