As the 3rd largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance is being watched closely by regulators. There are many exchanges who tend to flaunt anti-money laundering (AML) measures and know your client (KYC) regulations, but Binance is trying to get ahead of this.
On April 11th, they announced a partnership with with blockchain analytics company CipherTrace. The goal of said partnership is to work on the company’s compliance by enhancing its ability to enforce AML measures. Samuel Lim, Binance’s head of compliance, emphasized how much of a priority it was to improve their compliance standards and that they would be continuing to invest in the space. In his words:
“We want our users to have the best trading experience, to know that they are safe that they are not trading with crooks or bad actors.”
This move will earn the approval of regulators by enhancing their perceived transparency, and with the upcoming launch of Binance’s decentralized trading platform, this will be more important than ever.
Recent Developments for Binance
April 12th also saw the announcement of Binance Labs’ awarding of 3 grants to open-source blockchain startups. Binance has been expanding their incubator’s reach to new cities over the last few months, and this is yet another strong sign of their growth.
The last quarter or two have revealed how strong Binance’s strategic planning truly is. When they were founded in 2017, they seemed just like any other exchange, but several decisions were made right off the bat that changed the fate of the company.
Rather than competing directly with every other exchange, Binance offered no fiat gateway. This meant that users needed to buy crypto and transfer it in before they could use any of Binance’s services. This may have made them a less accessible company in the beginning, but it also took away a lot of regulatory issues that other exchanges were facing.
And instead of focusing on being easily accessible, Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, built his team around quickly being able to onboard new crypto projects. By having a broader offering than the more well-known exchanges, they were able to attract an abundance of users.
Top Level Positioning
Finally, the use of Binance Coin (BNB) to make users more sticky was a stroke of brilliance. Users were incentivized to stay with the platform because they were able to speculate with the coin, as well as cover trading fees.
Then there is the aspect of timing to consider. It seems as if CZ was prescient regarding market dynamics and didn’t let the bull market distract him from the fact that the winds were going to chance. This the company avoid the pivotts and layoffs that many other firms went through. At the same time, Binance released more products like Binance LaunchPad which could capture users at a time where it would normally be quite expensive to do so.
Now Binance is readying themselves for the release of their decentralized exchange, which should be well-positioned for the next wave of bullish trading. As financial disruptors continue to change the whole market, the industry will have to incorporate companies like Binance into its infrastructure.