Binance, one of the leading crypto exchanges to date, announced the launch of their U.S. branch on Wednesday, September 18th, 2019. Aimed at residents in the United States, the platform will initially allow trading with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and Tether. For now, Binance’s USD-linked stablecoin BUSD would not be included. Binance will add other cryptocurrencies to the trading pair list after they have passed the exchange’s Digital Asset Risk Assessment Framework.
The platform launch comes as a logical consequence from the official announcement of the new branch plans, made by Binance`s CEO Changpeng Zhao`s on 13th June. Just a day after the announcement, Binance updated their terms of use to stop support for U.S citizen.
According to Zhao, Binance US would be running under full regulatory compliance through their cooperation with BAM Trading Services. BAM is registered with and approved by the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The Binance.US launch comes with certain limitations to citizens of 13 States, who are not being supported at the time of platform launch. These states are New York, Texas, Washington, Alaska, Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Vermont, and North Carolina. Binance stated that although the 13 states are currently excluded, the company is working to provide access to digital assets for all U.S. citizen in the near future.
Binance’s U.S. branch CEO Catherine Coley – former Ripple head of institutional liquidity, stated that until 1st November all trading fees would be scrapped as a compliement from the company, to celebrate the launch of their platform. After that, the exchange will impose trading charges of 0.1% for personal accounts. Corporate accounts` fees will be defined in according with the trading volumes executed by the account holders.
Binance users who want to use Binance.US have to transfer their funds to Binance U.S., as the platform is separate from Binance.com, and is operated by BAM. In regards to cybercrime, the platform will go the extra mile, as security issues are being taken very seriously by Binance.