The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) Fines Binance 3.3 Million Euros Because Not Registered. The Dutch central bank (DNB) on Monday (18/7/2022) said it had fined Binance, amounting to 3.3 million eurosfor offering crypto services in the Netherlands without being registered in the country.
Fines issued against Binance Holdings Ltd. in April 2022, following a public warning issued against Binance in August 2021. The bank said in a statement Binance in June had indicated it would appeal.
DNB said Binance had violated Dutch money laundering laws and had enjoyed a competitive advantage against companies that had DNB registrations during the non-compliance period between May 2020 and December 1, 2021.
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A Binance spokesperson said in an email, the fine marks a pivot in Binance’s ongoing collaboration with DNB. The spokesman also said the company had set up a local subsidiary, Binance Nederland BV.
“With this now behind us, we can continue to pursue a more traditional operating model in the Netherlands,” the spokesperson said.
The DNB itself said it had not approved Binance’s listing but had reduced the originally intended fine by 5 percent because the company had been “relatively transparent about its operations throughout the process”.
A Binance spokesperson and a DNB spokesperson did not answer questions about where Binance Holdings Ltd. is. based.
However, according to a Dutch Chamber of Commerce filing, Binance Nederland BV was founded in October 2021 and is already owned by Binance Holdings Ltd. Ireland since 24 December 2021.
Previously, BinanceAS and its CEO were sued last week by a US investor who accused the crypto exchange of falsely marketing Terra USD as a safe asset ahead of last month’s so-called stablecoin collapse in value.
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In the lawsuit against Binance and its Chief Executive, Brian Shroder, Utah resident Jeffrey Lockhart said Binance wrongly advertised Terra USD as “safe” and backed by fiat currency, when in fact it was an unregistered security.
Lockhart said Binance’s failure to register with the US government as an exchange limited disclosure about assets traded on the platform, hurting investors.
“Binance and other exchanges are important supporters of this devastating failure to comply with securities laws,” said Tibor Nagy of law firm Dontzin Nagy & Fleissig, which represents Lockhart.
“Crypto exchanges are making huge profits by violating securities laws and causing real harm to real people,” continued Nagy.
The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) Fines Binance 3.3 Million Euros Because Not Registered. A Binance spokesperson said the exchange is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) a unit of the US Treasury and complies with all applicable regulations.
“These statements are baseless and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” the spokesperson said in a statement, adding the exchange would remove Terra USD, a decision made before the lawsuit was filed.
In a separate 2020 lawsuit, investors accused Binance of selling unlisted tokens and failing to register as an exchange or broker-dealer.
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A federal judge in Manhattan dismissed the case in March, saying investors had waited too long after their losses to sue and that US securities laws did not apply because Binance was not a domestic exchange.
Lockhart’s lawsuit, by contrast, targeted the US unit of Binance and came just weeks after the collapse of Terra USD. His lawsuit comes after a bipartisan group of US Senators several weeks ago proposed legislation that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), not the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), play a major role in regulating crypto.
The CFTC is generally seen as more cryptocurrency friendly, as the SEC has found crypto assets to be seen as securities.
Previously, Binance on Monday morning, June 13, 2022 local time had temporarily suspended bitcoin withdrawals due to stalled transactions that caused deposit guarantees.
A tweet from Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao noted the issue arose at 8 a.m. ET, where Zhao said the issue would be resolved in about 30 minutes. He later said it would take “a little longer to repair than initially thought.”
Binance said in a tweet at 11:32 am on Wall Street that bitcoin withdrawals had resumed. While the issue hits Binance, Zhao said in a tweet holders “can still withdraw Bitcoin on other networks like BEP-20. The company said the problem was caused by “on-chain transactions crashing.”
“A number of $BTC transactions stalled due to low TX fees, resulting in BTC network withdrawal deposits,” Binance said in a tweet.
The information comes as bitcoin plunged more than 10 percent on Monday, breaking below $24,000 and sinking to its lowest level since December 2020. The crypto market has been hit by macroeconomic problems, including rampant inflation.
Binance is the largest crypto exchange in the world. The company handled more than USD 14 billion in spot trading volume and nearly USD 50 billion in derivatives volume in a single day, according to data from CoinGecko.
The Dutch Central Bank (DNB) Fines Binance 3.3 Million Euros Because Not Registered. The decline in the crypto market saw the overall market value drop below $1 trillion for the first time since January 2021, according to data site CoinMarketCap. Currently, the crypto market value is at the level of USD 926 billion.
