This is a bit of sad news unfortunately, we have seen a lot of that this and last year. But at least it is not another company scamming customers or something along those lines. It is "only" the announcement that Binance is pulling out of Canada.
Binance exits the Canadian market
Binance announced yesterday, May 12th, that they will be packing up and leaving Canada via twitter. They cite the new "guidance related to stablecoins and investor limits provided to crypto exchanges makes the Canada market no longer tenable".
Binance has contacted the customers that are affected by this via email, and has provided the relevant information to the users. They are being asked to close their open positions by Sept. 30, 2023, and as of October 1, they will be put into liquidation-only mode. This leaves them 3 months to get their affairs sorted and to try and find a new home for their crypto holdings. That or exit the crypto market.
As far as I know, the exit from Canada has been met with nothing but annoyance from the people using Binance. And it appears to be yet another case where the government is trying to get their will though. In this case not outright banning them or crypto. But simply by making the current situation more or less unbearable for the company, and by the looks of things Binance is not alone in making this decision. Among the other companies leaving we find OKX, Paxos, dYdX. And in last July Bittrex left as well, citing regulatory reasons for doing so.
The whole situation looks to be very much similar to how Coinbase was run out of India Last year. Where India changed its ban on crypto after their supreme court found it unconstitutional. But as it appears the tiger cannot change its stripes. And the local politicians more or less let the company know while they technically were legal, they were let's call it less than welcome. And this looks like a very similar situation to me, albeit a more refined one.
The new regulations
And what exactly is it that has changed for our fellow Canadians? The new regulations are as follows: "from permitting Canadian clients to enter into crypto contracts to buy and sell any crypto asset that is itself a security and/or a derivative," and they also include stablecoins on the list of securities.
Seeing this I guess it is true what they say tho, possession is 9/10 of the law. I guess that's why they could not make possession illegal as well. By looking at the new regulations, I guess it is technically ok to still own crypto that is listed as securities. You are just prohibited from selling them or buying more.
Binance has however left the door open to work with the regulators in the future, in what one can only hope to be a more fruitful endeavor. Who knows, maybe that will allow them to return to the Canadian market.
What are your thoughts on these new Canadian regulations, are you perhaps directly affected by them or someone you know is? Please share your thoughts or experience in the comment section below.
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