Binance: $3.3 million fine from Dutch central bank

The Central Bank of the Netherlands (De Nederlandsche Bank, DNB) has imposed a $3.3 million fine on the famous crypto exchange Binance for offering services to the Dutch market without the required registration. 

Binance receives hefty fine for operating without the right permissions

The bank’s official press release states that the €3,325,000 administrative penalty was imposed on Binance Holdings Ltd. as early as 25 April this year, after a warning issued on 18 August 2021, and that Binance appealed on 2 June.

The penalty was imposed because the exchange offered crypto services in the Netherlands without mandatory registration with the DNB’s appropriate lists. Indeed, companies wishing to offer crypto services in the Netherlands must register with the DNB under the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act.  

The DNB statement also states that this is a third-category sanction, with the amount ranging from €2 million to €4 million, with the base amount of two million increased due to “increased severity and culpability”.

The reasons for the severity under consideration include the fact that Binance is the largest crypto service provider in the world, with a daily trading volume of $13.7 billion, and that it has a very large number of clients in the Netherlands. Moreover, the Dutch Central Bank points out that the exchange enjoyed a competitive advantage precisely because it paid no fees to DNB, and did not even have to bear the inevitable costs related to supervision by the bank. 

Another reason is that the violations occurred over a long period of time, namely from May 2020 until at least December 2021. 

The DNB considered these violations to be very serious.

However, the bank also applied a 5% discount on the penalty amount because Binance has since submitted its application for registration, and especially because the exchange has been transparent about its business operations throughout the process. The registration is currently being evaluated by DNB.

Binance beats the competition

Meanwhile, Binance has surpassed Coinbase to become the exchange with the most BTC stored in the world. 

The flippening: Binance has surpassed Coinbase for having the most BTC of any exchange pic.twitter.com/oNt4boKdBL

— Will (@WClementeIII) July 18, 2022

Coinbase had been leading this ranking since 2014, while Binance has only existed since 2017. 

The overtaking is recent, although the decline in the Bitcoin stored by Coinbase began as early as early last year, while those of Binance have yet to stop growing. 

There are even those who argue that these figures may not be true.