Binance

Binance is a centralized crypto exchange that offers spot trading, futures and options, peer-to-peer trading, payments, a card and earn products to users outside a short list of excluded countries. Its About page describes it as the largest digital asset exchange by trading volume and states average daily volume of $95 billion, with $34,883 billion of spot and futures transactions in 2025.

Changpeng Zhao (CZ) launched Binance in July 2017. He resigned as chief executive in November 2023 when he pleaded guilty in the US, and the company now lists him as co-founder and former CEO. Binance is led by two co-CEOs: Richard Teng, a former CEO of the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority and former Binance head of regional markets, and Yi He, a co-founder who runs marketing, customer support and products such as Earn and Binance Square. Gabriel Abed chairs the board as an independent member.

Binance does not name a global headquarters on its About or legal pages. Its Terms of Use, effective 27 October 2026, name three companies in the Abu Dhabi Global Market as the counterparties for Binance.com accounts: Nest Exchange Limited, which operates the exchange; Nest Clearing and Custody Limited, which holds client assets; and Nest Trading Limited, the broker-dealer. All three are regulated by the ADGM's Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

BNB is the token most closely tied to the exchange. Holding or paying fees in BNB lowers trading fees by 25%, and BNB balances count toward VIP fee tiers.

Binance's core is an order-book spot exchange. Around it sit separate products, each with its own fee tab on the fee page: margin, USDⓈ-margined and coin-margined futures, options, P2P trading between users, fiat on-ramps and Binance Pay. Earn products pay a yield on deposited assets, and the footer lists ETH staking, Launchpool and Auto-Invest among them.

Trading volume across spot, margin, Convert, copy trading and bots counts toward a 30-day total that sets your fee tier, alongside BNB holdings. VIP tiers start at $1 million of monthly volume and 5 BNB.

Binance.US is a separate company. The SEC's 2023 case named BAM Trading Services Inc. as the operator of Binance.US, a business distinct from Binance Holdings. This page covers Binance.com; Binance.US has its own terms, fees, asset list and state coverage.

Binance publishes its spot fee schedule openly. A regular user pays 0.100% as maker and as taker, or 0.075% when fees are paid in BNB. Fees fall through nine VIP tiers to 0.011% maker and 0.023% taker at VIP 9, which requires $4 billion of 30-day volume and 5,500 BNB. USDC pairs have their own column with standard maker fees and lower taker fees.

A measurement this site took on 14 July 2026 found an all-in cost of 0.10% on a $10,000 bitcoin buy and no measurable change at $100,000, with 142.0 BTC of depth within 0.1% of the best ask. Buying with a card through Buy Crypto, converting through Convert, or trading P2P can cost more than the order book, and the fee page lists those separately.

Binance's List of Prohibited Countries, updated 5 January 2026, bars anyone located in, resident of or a citizen of the United States from opening a Binance.com account. Residents of Canada and the Netherlands are also excluded, as are people in Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Crimea and the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Binance says it may add locations without notice. Using a VPN to get around this breaches the Terms of Use, which allow Binance to restrict an account.

The European Union is now a restricted market. ESMA's interim register of MiCA crypto-asset service providers, updated 22 October 2026, lists no Binance entity. According to CoinDesk, Binance withdrew its application in Greece and told EU users in June 2026 that it would stop new registrations and restrict services from 1 July 2026, while saying their assets remained accessible; it has said it expects to obtain a licence in another member state. EU residents should check what their account can still do before relying on it.

Outside the ADGM, Binance's licences page lists local entities or registrations in Dubai (VARA), Bahrain, Kazakhstan (AIFC), Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia (Tokocrypto), Thailand (Gulf Binance), India (FIU reporting entity), Mexico, El Salvador, Argentina, Brazil and South Africa. Several of these, including Japan and Thailand, are separate local platforms rather than Binance.com.

Every account needs identity verification. Binance's plea documents note that it allowed trading without identity data for years and began requiring it from all users in August 2021.

Binance publishes a proof of reserves that it runs itself. The 1 October 2026 snapshot shows reserve ratios of 100.35% for BTC, 100.00% for ETH, 103.88% for USDT, 100.47% for BNB, 100.00% for SOL, 108.26% for USDC and 100.77% for XRP. Users can check from their account that their balance was included, and a zk-SNARK proof shows that no account was counted with a negative balance. The page names no independent accountant, covers only listed assets, and says excess assets in reserve addresses do not indicate Binance's own assets. Our guide on spotting a weak proof of reserves explains what such reports can and cannot show.

Binance says it keeps an emergency fund, SAFU, for extreme cases such as hacks. In May 2019 attackers took about 7,000 BTC from a hot wallet, and Binance said at the time that SAFU would cover the loss in full. Its Terms of Use also state that Binance is not obliged to insure client digital assets. What exchange insurance funds actually cover is worth reading before relying on any such fund.

Custody terms changed with the October 2026 Terms of Use. Nest Clearing and Custody Limited is appointed custodian of client assets and, under the terms, holds them as trustee in line with ADGM rules, recording each client's entitlement on a ledger kept separate from its own assets. Client cash is held as client money with third-party banks or a Binance affiliate and, the terms state, is not available to the custodian's creditors if it becomes insolvent. The same clause warns that cash may be held outside the ADGM, where insolvency law may differ, and that Binance keeps any interest earned on it.

The 2023 US case was, in the Attorney General's words at the time, one of the largest corporate penalties in US history. The Justice Department said Binance prioritised growth over compliance, never filed a suspicious activity report with FinCEN, and caused more than $898 million of trades between US users and users in Iran. Binance agreed to forfeit $2.51 billion and pay a $1.81 billion fine, a total of $4.32 billion, and to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years, with separate resolutions with FinCEN, OFAC and the CFTC.

President Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao on 23 October 2025. The pardon applies to him personally, after he had served his sentence; Binance Holdings' guilty plea and monitorship terms are separate. Reports in 2026 describe talks over ending the DOJ monitorship early; no announcement that it has ended was found as of October 2026. Our article on whether Binance is safe covers account-level precautions.

The first risk is access. Binance's eligibility rules have changed repeatedly, and in 2026 alone EU users lost new-account and service access when the MiCA transition ended. If you live somewhere Binance does not hold a local licence, your account depends on a regulator elsewhere and on Binance's own reading of your country's rules, both of which can change with little notice.

The second is evidence. The proof of reserves is self-run and covers listed assets at one moment; it does not show Binance's liabilities outside those assets, and no accountant's opinion is attached on the page. The ADGM custody terms are new, so how they would operate in a failure has not been tested.

The third is concentration. Binance is very large, and an outage, a freeze ordered by a regulator or an enforcement action affects a large share of the market at once. Keeping only trading balances on the exchange and holding the rest in a wallet you control limits all three risks.

Opening an account requires an email or phone number and identity verification; Binance's terms let it refuse or restrict accounts from prohibited locations or high-risk users. Crypto can be bought with a card, through bank transfers where supported, or from other users on P2P, and each route has a separate fee shown before confirmation.

To withdraw, sell to fiat where a local rail exists or send crypto to an external wallet; the withdrawal tab of the fee page lists per-network fees and minimums. Assets in Earn products may need to be redeemed first, and locked products can have fixed terms. Send a small test amount to any new address, and check that the network you select matches the receiving wallet.

Binance's About page lists 24/7 customer support in 40 languages; support runs through the in-app and web chat, the Support Center and a complaints process linked in the site footer. Binance Verify, linked in the same footer, is Binance's tool for checking whether a contact or account claiming to be Binance is genuine.

Scammers use Binance's name for fake support numbers, fake P2P counterparties and offers to buy or sell verified accounts. An account opened in someone else's name breaks the identity checks the account depends on and can be restricted. Binance staff will not ask you to move funds to a safe wallet or share two-factor codes.

Dated milestones from Binance, the Justice Department and the SEC:

• July 2017: Changpeng Zhao launches Binance.
• May 2019: About 7,000 BTC stolen from a hot wallet; Binance says the SAFU fund covers it.
• August 2021: Binance begins requiring identity verification from all users.
• June 2023: SEC sues Binance, BAM Trading and Zhao; dismissed with prejudice in May 2025.
• 21 November 2023: Guilty plea and $4.3 billion resolution; Zhao resigns as CEO.
• 23 October 2025: Zhao pardoned.
• 1 July 2026: EU services restricted without a MiCA authorisation.
• 27 October 2026: New Terms of Use take effect, naming three ADGM entities as counterparties.