Binance leaving Canada is good for Canadians, and for crypto.

You've all seen the surge of posts about Binance leaving Canada, and the instinctive reaction from most people seems to have been along the lines of this being part of the onslaught on crypto, the Canadian government having it out for crypto, etc. Just another example of the government sticking it to the little guy, right?

But have you actually read those new regulations that Binance was responding to? They're actually fairly sensible!

You can read them here.

There are rules against making false and misleading statements, crypto trading platforms are required to properly segregate customer assets (making something like the FTX implosion harder), and (most importantly for Binance), crypto exchanges cannot include monopoly money, Schrutebucks, or any token that they created and control as counting toward their capital.

The new rules make this pretty clear:

[the new rules impose restrictions] on the part of the CTP (crypto asset trading platform) relying on crypto assets, including proprietary tokens issued by the CTP or an affiliate of the CTP, in determining the capital of the CTP for excess working capital purposes and in determining the capital base of the CTP;

Binance is a shady and nebulous entity. They won't even admit where their global HQ is, or what country's jurisdiction they fall under. They have laundered $10B worth of illicit money according to Reuters (source), and are now pulling out of the Canadian market because of these new rules. That is very telling.

Good riddance! If an exchange is not willing to properly segregate their customer's assets, among other things, they are a liability and the space is better off without them.