Binance Withdraws Application for License in Singapore, Invests in HGX

Global crypto exchange Binance has backed out of its initial application for a Singapore license to operate, following an announcement that it will be refocusing its strategies for the country as its "blockchain innovation hub."

Binance Asia Services—the exchange’s Singaporean entity—will head this mission with the goal of developing the global blockchain ecosystem. The news follows Binance's current challenges with regulation, in which they ran into issues with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Binance said in a statement that it will “co-operate fully with MAS and other regulatory and governmental bodies,” but is withdrawing its own application for a license until all options have been exhausted.

“Singapore is a vibrant fintech hub and Southeast Asia is an important region for us. We plan to make further investments in the region with Singapore as one of the centers for technology, research and development,” shared Richard Teng, CEO of Binance Singapore.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao clarified on Twitter that despite the withdrawal of the application for a license, Binance’s presence in the country will remain unhindered, given how it has made a “sizable investment” into HGX, a regulated exchange operating in Singapore.

Clarification. Binance made a sizable investment into regulated exchange HGX last week. This investment made our own application somewhat redundant. We will continue to work through our partners to grow the crypto industry in Singapore. Onwards.https://t.co/D9oywGEavV

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) December 13, 2021

Earlier in August, Binance Asia Services was given temporary exemption from license requirements under Singapore’s Payment Services Act. This exemption has since expired in November.

“We always put our users first, so our decision to close Binance.sg was not taken lightly. Our immediate priority is to help our users in Singapore transition their holdings to other wallets or other third-party services,” Teng adds.

The exchange will continue to provide services in Singapore, but it will likely face compounded difficulties without a license. As Binance has withdrawn its application for Singaporean licenses, it may also be withdrawing from the country's Blockchain Regulatory Sandbox. The sandbox acts as an incubator for blockchain innovation and was created by MAS in November 2017. With the sandbox in place, Binance's regulatory status was placed under the MAS' review pipeline, except that being protected from within the sandbox gave no guarantees to the exchange that it will be provided with a proper license.

“We are aware of the actions taken by other regulatory authorities against Binance and will follow up as appropriate with the applicant,” an MAS spokesperson stated.

According to the MAS, a significant number of crypto and blockchain firms that operate in a similar fashion to Binance were also rejected on its list. Post the rejection, Binance was placed on the MAS' Investor Alert List, a collection of entities identified by the authority as non-compliant and unlicensed.Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

* This article was originally published here

Elon Musk Named Time Person Of The Year, But It's Not Because Of Crypto

TIME, an American news magazine and news website based in New York, has named business magnate Elon Musk as its 2021 Person of the Year.

Musk, who has been criticized for his undue influence to the crypto community, even going forth to earn a term after his name: The Musk Effect. Aside from being a regular contributor to weird, mostly-uncalled-for crypto takes on Twitter about SHIBA INU and DOGE (yup, memecoins), Musk is also the founder, CEO and CTO of SpaceX, co-founder of Tesla Motors, and chairman of SolarCity, which he co-founded with his younger brother.

“A few short years ago, Musk was roundly mocked as a crazy con artist on the verge of going broke,” TIME said of Musk. “Now this shy South African with Asperger’s syndrome, who escaped a brutal childhood and overcame personal tragedy, bends governments and industry to the force of his ambition.”

Despite his accomplishments in other innovative and cutting-edge industries, Musk has not been involved in crypto in any meaningful way. His name has frequently come up as a result of his impact on the market, but only insofar as he has been influential in shaping public opinion. Perhaps the closest Musk's experience could be related to crypto is the fact that he co-founded PayPal, a payments tech firm which has now moved into the crypto space.

“For creating solutions to an existential crisis, for embodying the possibilities and the perils of the age of tech titans, for driving society’s most daring and disruptive transformations, Elon Musk is TIME’s 2021 Person of the Year,” shared TIME magazine's editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal.

For better or for worse, Elon Musk is one of the most well-known figures in the world today, especially in the  tech sector. The Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal founder is arguably one of the most skilful innovators in history, having kickstarted the electric car industry with Tesla while simultaneously making it possible for man to take their first steps into space with his other company SpaceX.

In the crypto space and beyond, Musk has remained a controversial character, even before he became famous for his companies. His current role as executive chairman of OpenAI (a non-profit AI development company that aims to promote and develop friendly AI that benefits humanity as a whole) has come under question from Elon Musk critics who claim it contradicts his previous statements on the dangers of artificial intelligence and its constructs taking control over the world.

Musk also has close ties with Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, two people who have committed significant capital in metaverse and AI projects of their own (Zuckerberg with the now-renamed Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and Thiel with secretive startup Palantir). It has also been reported that Musk's PayPal co-founder Thiel is developing his own cryptocurrency.

As one of TIME's most influential people in the industry, it's highly likely that Elon Musk will continue to influence the market, even if only through the kind of indirect impact he appears to have had already. Despite Musk's industry ties, there is no particular blockchain evidence to date that shows he has made any significant investment into crypto himself. That, despite currently being the world's richest person with a net worth of over $265 billion.

TIME's recognition is a testament to his widespread influence, even if it's not always clear what that influence is meant to achieve. In the world of crypto, that remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Opinions stated herein are solely of the author’s, and do not represent or reflect CryptoDaily’s position on the matter.

 

* This article was originally published here

Crypto exchange Binance Singapore to close its doors in February

Binance Singapore, a subsidiary of global crypto exchange Binance in the city-state, has withdrawn its application for a crypto trading permit with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and will shut down its operations on February 13, 2022.

“We always put our users first, so our decision to close Binance.sg was not taken lightly. Our immediate priority is to help our users in Singapore transition their holdings to other wallets or other third-party services,” said Binance Singapore CEO Richard Teng in an emailed statement.

Up until now, Binance Singapore has been operating under a temporary exemption in Singapore, according to Forbes, after the platform has filed for a license to provide crypto services with the MAS.

Soon, Binance Singapore plans to inform its users about the steps they’ll need to take as the platform shuts down via emails.

Going forward, Binance aims to turn its Singapore operations into a blockchain innovation hub focused on initiatives such as incubation programs, blockchain education, and investments.

Notably, just last week, Binance Singapore acquired an 18% stake in Hg Exchange, a local private securities exchange that was granted a Recognized Market Operator license by the MAS earlier this year.

UK plans still on the table

Meanwhile, Binance has doubled down on its plans to offer its products in the U.K. Last week, Changpeng Zhao, the exchange’s founder and CEO, revealed that Binance aims to become a registered service provider in the U.K. in six to 18 months.

“We’re fully re-engaged there. We’re making a number of very substantial changes in organizational structures, product offerings, our internal processes, and the way we work with regulators,” Zhao explained. “We want to continue to establish a presence in the U.K. and serve U.K. users in a fully licensed and fully compliant manner.”

To this end, the exchange has already onboarded a “number of ex-regulatory staff from the U.K. and a couple of hundred compliance people” to address the warning Binance received from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in June.

As CryptoSlate reported, the FCA’s notice was one of the first warnings that Binance received from regulators across the world, which prompted Zhao to take a more proactive approach to the platform’s compliance strategy.

The post Crypto exchange Binance Singapore to close its doors in February appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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Community criticism forces OpenSea to shelve plan of going public

Earlier this week, the newly appointed CFO of the leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea, Brian Roberts, hinted that the crypto startup could be looking to raise new funds through an initial public offering (IPO).

However, this revelation received a lot of backlash from the crypto community who felt betrayed by the thoughts of the NFT marketplace going public when its success had been tied to the engagement of the community.

OpenSea debunks IPO rumors

Brian Roberts, in a series of tweets, has revealed that OpenSea had no immediate plans to go public. According to the CFO, “there is a big gap between thinking about what an IPO might eventually look like & actively planning one.”

There was inaccurate reporting about @OpenSea's plans. Let me set the record straight: there is a big gap between thinking about what an IPO might eventually look like & actively planning one. We are not planning an IPO, and if we ever did, we would look to involve the community.

— Brian Roberts (broberts.eth) (@BKRoberts) December 8, 2021

He continued that even if the NFT marketplace ever considered going public, it was going to “look to involve the community.” The former Lyft CFO, however, failed to clarify how the platform plans to incorporate the community into this plan.

You would recall that shortly after the IPO revelation on Monday, members of the crypto community expressed their displeasure with the move believing that the NFT marketplace was looking to abandon them and focus on institutional investors.

Would we see an OpenSea airdrop?

With this new statement from the company, many crypto enthusiasts believe that the leading NFT site could still perform an airdrop and also incorporate a governance model to its functionalities. OpenSea did not release any official statement on this.

If OpenSea were to gift users with an airdrop, it means it wouldn’t be able to go public and this would place it on the same path of projects like Ethereum Name Service (ENS), UniSwap and dYdX who have, at different times in the past, rewarded users with an airdrop.

However, for a company that generates as much revenue as OpenSea, it might be easier to seek funding through the traditional means like Coinbase did earlier in the year. This way, it easily would be able to bypass any securities law violations that might have been brought against it.

It is worth noting that the crypto startup has a $1.5 billion valuation after it raised around $100 million in July this year.

The post Community criticism forces OpenSea to shelve plan of going public appeared first on CryptoSlate.

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