Binance’s push into the United States continues with its announcement that the US version of its service, Binance.US, will begin accepting deposits on Wednesday September 18.
The new exchange will operate in direct competition with other US-oriented exchanges, like Poloniex and Coinbase Pro.
Both such exchanges have been in the industry a long time in this region.
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Binance has primarily operated in Asia and out of Malta, serving the global community of crypto traders such that its platform has frequently been the most used by volume. Binance also has a Jersey operation, which functions as part of its Western European hub.
Binance is also one of the few exchanges that does not lie about its volume numbers – it need not.
The exchange launched with ICO funding in 2017. The Binance Coin, originally an Ethereum token, BNB, eventually reached great heights – an all-time high of .0046 BTC, which today would be around $47.
BNB now acts as the backbone for the Binance blockchain, a project not unlike Ethereum or Tron which aims to host tokenized projects, as well as the company’s own family of stablecoins.
Binance has had its share of controversy and hacks, but customers have been largely unaffected.
The model that Binance used to launch – issuing tokens that are usable on the platform for discounts and such – has been copied but with little success. Yet, Binance carries on, now launching a US exchange which will seek to attract customers from the world’s largest economy.
How will this play out?
One advantage of the move is that Binance will now have a greater footprint in the United States.
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Binance’s only problem at this point is outdoing its own past successes. To do so, the company has to count on the global growth of crypto, and hope that enough of the newcomers select it as their platform. Getting deeply embedded in the US economy is one clever way to do that.
Creating a physical presence in the US may be the next best move for Binance.
The company could, with relative ease, launch a serious initiative to get a Bitcoin ATM on every corner, or something along those lines.
This could be both profitable and give them the advantage of on-boarding a new wave of people. It’s not something a smaller exchange could consider doing on a grand scale, but it’s certainly within the reach of a giant like Binance.
Getting licensed to service US traders is an obvious step in the right direction. Certain jurisdictions in the United States, like New York, take a long time to allow new crypto businesses. But for the most part, crypto is a bit of a Wild West for participants and regulators alike.
