Binance will exit the Canadian market, the cryptocurrency exchange announced on Twitter on May 12. The exit is described as "preemptive" as the new enforcement guidance issued by Canadian regulators continues to take a toll on the country's crypto industry. As such, Binance is joining some of its smaller competitors in a massive exit from Canada prompted by the introduction on Feb. 22 by Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA ) rules that require them to file new pre-registration commitments and comply with additional restrictions. While Binance has reportedly filed a new pre-registration pledge, it has announced on Twitter that it is withdrawing from the Canadian market. “Unfortunately, today we are announcing that Binance will be joining other well-known crypto companies in actively withdrawing from the Canadian market. We would like to thank those regulators who have worked together with us to meet the needs of Canadian users,” Binance said (@ binance) on May 12, 2023 Amid this news, Bitcoin's market capitalization dropped sharply for a short time. The decline was from $509 billion to $501 billion. However, the market capitalization quickly recovered, again exceeding $510 billion.
The new CSA rules prohibit firms from "permitting Canadian clients to enter into crypto contracts to buy and sell any crypto assets that are themselves securities and/or derivatives" and define stablecoins as securities. OKX announced back in March that it was pulling out of the Canadian market. It was followed in April by decentralized exchange dYdX and later by stablecoin issuer Paxos. Binance has operated in all Canadian provinces and territories except for Ontario, from which it withdrew in March 2022 following a protracted dispute with that province's regulators.
Binance sent an email to its Canadian users instructing them to close their positions by September 30, 2023. "From October 1, 2023, Canadian customers will be placed in liquidation-only mode," the letter warns. “Unfortunately, the new guidance regarding stablecoins and investor limits set for crypto exchanges currently makes the Canadian market unacceptable for Binance,” the exchange said in a statement. “While we do not agree with the new guidance, we look forward to continuing cooperation with Canadian regulators.” All is not lost for Canadian crypto enthusiasts, however. Kraken filed a new pre-registration application in March and stated its intention to remain in Canada. doing business with Canadians."
The Ethereum network appeared to be running into another technical issue that prevented the completion of a transaction from happening for an hour on Friday. The issue raised new concerns about the stability of the network as it occurred less than 24 hours after a similar event a day earlier. As on Thursday, Ethereum network activity data sources show that validators have run into trouble, offering attestation as transactions are processed by the network. Ethereum epochs 200,750 to 200,758 saw a significant drop in the number of attestations received, according to data provider Beaconcha. “The Beacon Chain Ethereum network stopped finalizing transactions for about an hour,” said Block Research Director Steven Zheng. “It is currently unclear what the reason for the stops is, but some people think it was due to some bugs in client staking or the MEV infrastructure. "Even though transactions on Ethereum didn't stop, they didn't finalize, which meant that transactions were more likely to be canceled than if everything was working as intended."
