The world's largest crypto exchange has been shown the door in Malaysia.
The Securities Commission today publicly reprimanded Binance for illegally operating a Digital Asset Exchange — a year after placing it on the SC's Investor Alert List in July 2020. The reprimand names four entities — Binance Holdings Limited (Cayman Islands), Binance Digital Limited (UK), Binance UAB (Lithuania) and Binance Asia Services Pte Ltd (Singapore) — and, notably, CEO Zhao Changpeng (CZ) personally, who is made responsible for ensuring compliance.
The orders
Effective from 26 July 2021, Binance must:
- disable binance.com and its mobile apps in Malaysia within 14 business days;
- immediately cease all media and marketing activity aimed at Malaysians; and
- restrict Malaysian access to its Telegram group.
The SC has advised Malaysian investors to stop trading on Binance and "withdraw all their investments immediately." Operating an unregistered DAX is an offence under the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007.
What it signals
The SC waited a year after the alert-list warning before acting — but when it acted, it went after the group structure and the CEO by name. The message to offshore platforms serving Malaysians without registration could not be clearer: the perimeter is real. For the four registered local DAX operators, it is also, frankly, a level-playing-field moment.