Binance: fact sheet

What is Binance and who runs it?

Binance is a centralised crypto exchange: a company that matches buyers and sellers of crypto-assets and, in most cases, holds customers’ coins for them. If you are new to how that works, start with our guide to what a crypto exchange is.

According to Binance’s own About page, Changpeng Zhao (often called “CZ”) “launched Binance in July 2017”. The same page describes him as co-founder and former CEO. It names Richard Teng as co-CEO and says Yi He “leads business, marketing, and branding strategy at Binance.” Binance also says it reached 250 million registered users by January 2025. That is the company’s own figure; we have not seen it independently checked.

Binance is a group of companies, not one company. Its Terms of Use (effective 21 July 2026) name three entities in the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) as the providers of the global service: Nest Exchange Limited, Nest Clearing and Custody Limited and Nest Trading Limited. Which Binance company you actually contract with can depend on where you live, so read the first page of the terms you are shown.

Where is Binance licensed or registered?

We list only entries we could open on an official register or regulator page, as of 2 October 2026:

Binance also publishes its own list of licences and registrations in other countries, including France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Bahrain, Australia and Japan. We have not checked each of those entries on the national register, so treat the list as the company’s claim until you have. We could not read the full European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) register file for Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) authorisations, so we make no statement either way about Binance and MiCA. Our guide on how to check if a crypto firm is authorised shows where to look.

Remember what a register entry does not mean. The FCA says of its own crypto register: “Being registered with the FCA as a cryptoasset business does not mean your customers benefit from the protections of the Financial Ombudsman Service or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).”

What can you trade on Binance?

Binance’s About page lists a wide range of services. Among them: buying crypto, a spot exchange (where you buy and sell coins for immediate delivery), margin trading, Binance Earn, ETH staking, Auto-Invest, payments, a card and over-the-counter (OTC) trading. The ADGM approval covers a recognised investment exchange for derivatives, and the title of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) November 2023 press release refers to Binance “Illegally Operating a Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange”.

What you can use depends on where you live. A product shown on the global site may be unavailable, or offered by a different Binance company, in your country. Derivatives such as futures carry extra risk, covered below.

What fees does Binance charge?

On Binance’s official fee page, as of 2 October 2026, a regular user’s spot trading fee was 0.100% as maker and 0.100% as taker, or 0.075% when paying fees in Binance’s own token BNB (“BNB 25% off”). A maker adds an order to the order book; a taker fills an existing one.

Illustrative arithmetic, not a quote: a £1,000 spot buy at 0.100% costs £1,000 × 0.001 = £1. Buying and later selling the same amount costs about £2 in trading fees, before the spread and any deposit or withdrawal charges. Fees differ by product, VIP tier and country, and change over time. Always check the official fee page for your region. Our lesson on crypto trading fees explains the costs that do not show up in the headline rate.

Does Binance publish proof of reserves?

Yes. Binance runs a proof-of-reserves page. It says it builds a Merkle tree — a structure that combines every user’s hashed account ID and balance into one fingerprint — and uses zero-knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKs) so you can check your own balance was included without seeing anyone else’s. Binance states that it “holds all user assets 1:1, including reserves.” The figures are snapshots taken at a set date and time.

Treat any proof of reserves with care. The US Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), which oversees auditors, warned in March 2023: “PoR engagements are not audits and, consequently, the related reports do not provide any meaningful assurance to investors or the public.” It added that such reports likely do not address a platform’s liabilities, or whether the assets shown were borrowed. In other words, a snapshot of Binance’s wallets tells you what it held at one moment, not what it owes. Our explainer on proof of reserves covers the method and its limits.

What did US authorities announce about Binance in 2023?

On 21 November 2023, US authorities announced coordinated resolutions with Binance. The figures below are quoted from each agency’s own press release. They should not be added together, because the Justice Department said it would credit about $1.8 billion toward the other agencies’ resolutions.

• Department of Justice (DOJ): Binance Holdings Limited “pleaded guilty today and has agreed to pay over $4 billion” over violations related to the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money transmitting business, and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The DOJ said: “Binance has agreed to forfeit $2,510,650,588 and to pay a criminal fine of $1,805,475,575 for a total financial penalty of $4,316,126,163.” Binance also agreed to retain an independent compliance monitor for three years.
• Changpeng Zhao: the DOJ said he “pleaded guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program, in violation of the BSA and has resigned as CEO of Binance.”
• Treasury — FinCEN and OFAC: “FinCEN’s settlement agreement assesses a civil money penalty of $3.4 billion, imposes a five-year monitorship, and requires significant compliance undertakings, including to ensure Binance’s complete exit from the United States.” The Office of Foreign Assets Control’s settlement “assesses a penalty of $968 million”.
• CFTC: “The proposed consent order requires Binance to disgorge $1.35 billion of ill-gotten gains and pay a $1.35 billion civil monetary penalty to the CFTC, and obliges Zhao to pay a $150 million civil monetary penalty to the CFTC.”

Later, the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney recorded a pardon for Changpeng Zhao dated 21 October 2025. The entry lists his sentence as “Four months’ imprisonment; $50,000,000 fine (April 30, 2024)” for “Failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program.” The pardon entry names Zhao personally.

Which countries can’t use Binance?

Two official statements are clear. The US Treasury says FinCEN’s settlement requires “Binance’s complete exit from the United States.” In the UK, the FCA’s warning (last updated in June 2023) says no Binance Group entity holds UK authorisation, registration or licence.

Beyond that, Binance’s Terms of Use say you must not be located in a jurisdiction where using the service would be illegal or that is “listed in our List of Prohibited Countries.” We could not open that list on 2 October 2026, so we do not reproduce it. Find it in the terms on Binance’s own site before you sign up, and do not use a VPN or false details to get around a restriction — that would break the terms you agree to.

What should you check before you sign up with Binance?

Use this list before you send Binance any money. Each step takes a few minutes and uses official sources, not the platform’s marketing.

1. Which company you contract with. Read the entity name on the first page of the terms you accept, and look that entity up on your own country’s register.
2. Your country’s rules. Check whether your country appears in Binance’s List of Prohibited Countries, and whether the product you want is offered where you live.
3. The real address. Type binance.com yourself. Scammers copy big brands; our page on clone firms shows how.
4. Total cost. Note the trading fee for your tier, the spread, and deposit and withdrawal fees for your currency.
5. Custody. Decide what you will leave on the exchange and what you will move to a wallet you control. See wallets and private keys.
6. Proof of reserves, read carefully. Check your own balance was included in the latest snapshot, but remember what it does not prove.
7. The past record. Read the 2023 DOJ, Treasury and CFTC releases yourself; they are linked in the sources below.

What are the risks of using Binance?

Every risk that applies to crypto platforms in general applies to Binance:

• Price risk. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) says: “If you decide to invest in crypto then you should be prepared to lose all your money, for any one of a variety of reasons, including sudden market moves, the failure of a firm, poor segregation of client funds or cyberattacks.”
• No compensation scheme. The FCA says crypto “is largely unregulated in the UK, so it is highly unlikely you will be covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme”. In the US, the SEC says of the protections that apply to brokerage accounts: “There are no such protections for accounts that you place with crypto asset entities.”
• Platform failure. The SEC noted in 2023: “Over the past year, a number of crypto asset entities have faced severe financial difficulties, sometimes resulting in suspending customers’ ability to withdraw their assets.”
• Leverage. Futures and other derivatives usually let you trade with borrowed money, which magnifies losses as well as gains. The US self-regulatory body FINRA’s day-trading risk disclosure warns that when you trade with borrowed funds you can lose more than you originally put in.
• Jurisdiction risk. Services, entities and rules differ by country and can change; a service available today may be withdrawn where you live.

Blockhorizon is an education site. This fact sheet is not a recommendation to open an account with, or avoid, any platform. We have not rated this exchange; see our rating methodology.