Binance Discontinues Stock Token Services

The largest exchange, Binance announced today that the purchase of stock tokens will be discontinued on the platform post-October 14^th, i.e., within the next 90 days. Investors have been advised to clear their stock token accounts before the said timeline. Binance stock tokens included big names like Tesla, Coinbase, Microsoft, and Apple.

“we will be winding down support for stock tokens on Binance.com to shift our commercial focus to other product offerings. Effective immediately, stock tokens are unavailable for purchase on Binance.com, and Binance.com will no longer support any stock tokens after 2021-10-14 19:55 (UTC).”, Binance announced in a blog post.

EEA investors to transfer to CM-Equity AG portal

Binance also announced that the investors in the European Economic Area (EEA) can transfer their stock token funds to the CM Equity AG website. CM-Equity AG is developing a portal for EEA and Switzerland investors to transfer their stock token balances onto their website and convert the same into CM-Equity AG once its new portal is established. The CM-Equity AG portal will start operating a few weeks before the Binance stock tokens service completely shuts down.

“The portal is scheduled to be open approximately two to four weeks before 2021-10-15 (UTC), and additional KYC measures will be requested by CM-Equity AG to complete the transition.”

Binance’s stock token trouble in Europe

Where on one hand, Binance stock tokens were provided by German companies; on the flip side, the German financial regulator, BaFin had alerted Binance of regulatory restrictions. BaFin warned the exchange that upon failure of complying with the state’s regulations, Binance may face regulatory consequences.

Similarly, UK’s watchdog, Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) stated that they had been working with Binance to understand stock tokens and the regulations that may apply to it, along with how it is marketed.

Binance’s regulatory trouble extended to the eighth country in the form of Hong Kong earlier today. The Securities and Futures Commission of the country said the world’s largest crypto exchange is not permitted to offer any service in the country.