✦Binance: Research Notes on the Global Offering
These notes describe the global Binance platform (binance.com) as Squaby found it on October 20, 2026. They summarize what Binance publishes and what official registers and government agencies record. Squaby has not tested the platform hands-on. Availability, products and fees differ by country; regional differences are named where Squaby found them. Binance.US is a separate company and is not covered by this review. The criteria, points and sources are listed in the Squaby Score section above.
1. Background
Binance says it launched in July 2017. Binance's Terms of Use (effective July 21, 2026) name three companies in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) as the providers of the global platform: Nest Exchange Limited, Nest Clearing and Custody Limited (formerly Binance (AD) Limited) and Nest Trading Limited (formerly BCI Limited).
2. Enforcement Actions Since October 2021
United States (November 2023): on November 21, 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Binance Holdings Limited had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act and to fail to register as a money transmitting business, to failure to register as a money transmitting business, and to violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. According to the Department of Justice, Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion in penalties and to retain an independent monitor.
The resolution includes a FinCEN consent order with a civil money penalty of $3.4 billion and a five-year monitorship overseen by FinCEN, a $968,618,825 settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), and a $150 million suspended penalty that FinCEN can collect if Binance does not meet its compliance undertakings. Under the consent order, the monitorship can end early only if FinCEN decides that it is no longer needed. When Squaby checked on October 20, 2026, neither the Department of Justice nor FinCEN had announced an early end.
Squaby found seven further actions with a payment, fine or sanction on the authorities' own pages (searched on October 21, 2026):
✓Netherlands (April 2022): De Nederlandsche Bank fined Binance Holdings Ltd. EUR 3,325,000 for offering crypto services in the Netherlands without the required registration. Binance withdrew its objection in July 2022, so the fine is final.
✓Belgium (June 2023): the Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) ordered Binance to stop offering exchange and custody wallet services in Belgium with immediate effect, because they were provided from outside the European Economic Area, and informed the Brussels prosecutor. The order carried no fine; the FSMA page shows no later update.
✓United States, CFTC (December 2023): a federal court entered a consent order in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's case against three Binance companies and Changpeng Zhao. Binance had to disgorge $1.35 billion of transaction fees, pay a $1.35 billion penalty and certify its compliance controls. The CFTC described the order as concluding its enforcement action.
✓Canada (May 2024): FINTRAC imposed an administrative monetary penalty of CAD 6,002,000 on Binance Holdings Limited for failing to register as a foreign money services business and for not reporting large virtual currency transactions on 5,902 occasions. Binance has appealed to the Federal Court; Squaby found no decision.
✓India (June 2024): the Financial Intelligence Unit of India imposed a penalty of INR 18.82 crore on Binance under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and gave compliance directions. Its published summary does not say whether the penalty was paid or appealed; Squaby found no appeal.
✓Brazil (August 2024): the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission (CVM) accepted a settlement of R$ 9,600,000 from B Fintech Serviços de Tecnologia Ltda., Binance's company in Brazil, which ended a sanctioning proceeding over an offer of derivatives to Brazilian residents without registration.
✓Australia (March 2026): in a case brought by ASIC, the Federal Court ordered Oztures Trading Pty Ltd (trading as Binance Australia Derivatives) to pay a AUD 10 million penalty for misclassifying more than 85% of its Australian clients as wholesale clients between July 2022 and April 2023. Binance admitted the contraventions; about AUD 13.1 million had already been paid to the affected clients in 2023.
Two proceedings are reported in the media; Squaby found no authority page on them that it could read:
✓France: in January 2025, the Paris prosecutor said that investigating judges had taken over an inquiry into Binance, open since February 2022, into suspected aggravated money laundering, laundering linked to tax fraud and to drug trafficking, and providing digital asset services without authorization, for 2019 to 2024 (Belga, published by La Libre). No charge or judgment was reported.
✓Nigeria: the federal government's four-count tax evasion case against Binance Holdings Limited is pending in the Federal High Court in Abuja, and Binance pleaded not guilty. In July 2026 the court adjourned the case to September 24, 2026 because the parties were exploring a settlement (Premium Times). Squaby found no report of that hearing.
The Squaby Score treats the enforcement history as open: the FinCEN monitorship has not officially ended, the Canadian penalty is under appeal, and the French and Nigerian proceedings are unresolved.
The SEC's civil action against Binance Holdings Limited, two Binance.US companies and Changpeng Zhao was dismissed with prejudice in May 2025, without a fine; the SEC said it acted in its discretion and as a policy matter, so it is not counted. Squaby did not search the sites of regulators in Japan, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Kazakhstan or Israel, of India's tax authorities or of U.S. states.
3. Registrations, Licenses and Restricted Countries
Squaby confirmed Binance group companies in the registers of three regulators:
✓Abu Dhabi (ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority): Nest Exchange Limited (Recognised Investment Exchange), Nest Clearing and Custody Limited (Recognised Clearing House) and Nest Trading Limited (Financial Services Permission).
✓Dubai (Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, VARA): Binance FZE, license VL/24/04/001, issued April 15, 2024.
✓Japan (Financial Services Agency): Binance Japan Inc., registered with the Kanto Local Finance Bureau (No. 00031). It serves customers in Japan.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai count as two jurisdictions, because each has its own law and its own regulator. Binance's own list of licenses and registrations also names Kazakhstan, Bahrain, Australia, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Thailand, Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa; Squaby has not checked these entries in the local registers. The list names no European jurisdiction.
Legal entity: the Terms give the names, registered addresses and company numbers of the three ADGM companies. The company numbers are kept in the ADGM company register, which Squaby could not consult free of charge, and the address shown for Nest Trading Limited in the regulator's register differs from the one in the Terms. This criterion is therefore not assessed.
Restricted countries: Binance's List of Prohibited Countries (updated January 5, 2026) excludes the United States (including U.S. residents and citizens), Canada and the Netherlands, as well as Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Crimea and the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The Terms add that services may be wholly or partially restricted in other countries, and some products, such as futures, are not shown to visitors from every country. Check what applies where you live before registering.
4. Security and Custody
✓Proof of Reserves: Binance's Proof of Reserves page showed a snapshot dated October 1, 2026. Users can check that their own balance is included through a Merkle tree, and Binance states that it uses zk-SNARKs to prove the totals. No independent attestation was named. A proof of reserves is a point-in-time snapshot, not a full financial audit.
✓Custody: the Terms of Use (clause 8.4) say that Nest Clearing and Custody Limited keeps customer digital assets separate from its own in its internal ledger and may hold them on-chain in omnibus wallets on trust. Binance does not publish what share of customer assets it keeps in offline (cold) wallets.
✓Account security: Binance offers authenticator-app two-factor authentication, passkeys and a withdrawal address whitelist.
✓SAFU fund: Binance's SAFU FAQ (updated February 2, 2026) says the Secure Asset Fund for Users held crypto assets worth about US$1 billion as of February 2026 and is managed by Nest Clearing and Custody Limited. Binance says it rebalances the fund to US$1 billion if its value falls below US$800 million. Binance retains full discretion over which losses and claims are eligible for payment from the fund, and claims must be made within 90 days. SAFU is a company-funded reserve, not government deposit insurance.
✓Incidents: Squaby searched Binance's announcements and the web and found no publicly reported security incident with a loss of Binance customer funds between October 20, 2021 and October 20, 2026. In October 2022, an exploit of BSC Token Hub, the cross-chain bridge of the BNB Chain blockchain, created extra BNB; BNB Chain said that user funds were safe. That attack targeted the blockchain's bridge, not exchange customer accounts. Outside this five-year window, in May 2019, more than 7,000 BTC were stolen from a Binance hot wallet, and Binance said it covered the losses from SAFU.
5. Fees
✓Spot trading: the fee page lists 0.100% maker and 0.100% taker for regular users. VIP tiers 1 to 9 have lower rates, and paying fees in BNB gives a 25% discount.
✓Fee overview: trading, crypto and fiat fees are published together, on one fee page with separate tabs.
✓Crypto deposits and withdrawals: crypto deposits are listed as free, and withdrawal fees are listed per asset and network.
✓Fiat: fiat methods and their fees differ by country. On the version of the fiat fee page that Squaby saw, SWIFT bank deposits in EUR and USD had no fee, while card, Apple Pay and Google Pay deposits were listed at 3.3% (EUR) and 3.6% (USD).
✓Convert: Binance says Convert charges no additional fee beyond the quoted price and that the quote can differ from the Spot price, but it does not say what is added to the market price.
6. Markets, Products and Tools
✓Assets: Binance's public market list showed 512 distinct base assets in spot markets that were open for trading on October 20, 2026.
✓Products: spot and margin trading, futures (for example USDⓈ-margined perpetual contracts) and Earn products. Futures were not shown in the menu for every country. Margin and futures carry a high risk of loss.
✓Orders and API: Binance documents a public REST API on GitHub, with weight-based rate limits and order types including limit, stop-limit and OCO.
✓Listing policy: Binance publishes the factors it considers when it delists an asset. Squaby found no published criteria for listing new spot assets.
7. Apps, Languages and Support
✓Apps: Binance's download page lists iOS and Android versions and offers the Android APK directly. App store listings differ by country: the U.S. App Store shows only Binance.US, and the Google Play listing is not available in every country.
✓Languages: the language selector offered 17 interface languages.
✓Beginners: Binance Convert and a "Lite mode" in the app sit next to the advanced trading view, and Binance Academy offers a beginner track.
✓Support: Binance states that its chat support is available 24/7. It offers no phone support and warns that anyone calling by phone and claiming to be Binance is a scammer. Squaby found no ticket or email channel. The help center is searchable in several languages. There is no public status page; maintenance is announced in Binance's announcements.
✓Complaints: Binance acknowledges a complaint in writing within two business days and aims to give a final response within 30 business days (up to 60 in some cases). For events on or after January 5, 2026, a complaint can be escalated to the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority.
8. Fiat Deposits and Withdrawals
✓Currencies: 13 fiat currencies across bank deposits and withdrawals (AZN, CHF, CZK, DKK, EUR, GBP, HUF, ILS, KWD, PLN, RON, SEK and USD). Peer-to-peer trading supports more local currencies but is not counted, because Binance itself does not take those payments. EUR bank withdrawals are listed for customers outside the European Economic Area.
✓Methods: SWIFT bank transfer, SEPA Instant, Instant Bank Transfer, Visa and Mastercard cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and m10 (for AZN). Bank transfer deposits are processed by BPay Global B.S.C. (c), a payment service provider licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain.
✓Instant deposits: Instant Bank Transfer deposits are available only to eligible institutional and selected VIP users.
✓Withdrawals: fiat withdrawals to a bank account are offered and may take up to 5 business days.
✓Limits: deposit and withdrawal limits per verification level are shown only after login.
Summary
Binance's documented strengths in Squaby's criteria are its security disclosures, a base spot fee of 0.100%, a wide range of assets and products, and broad fiat support. It loses points in regulation, because the U.S. monitorship has not officially ended and the legal-entity details could not be confirmed in a free register, and in customer support, which is chat-only and has no public status page. Availability differs by country: check Binance's List of Prohibited Countries and the products offered where you live before registering.
