One Binance customer said he lost the equivalent of more than $132,000 from the crypto exchange’s derivatives offerings before restrictions were imposed on Binance. Almost 1,700 UK investors are reportedly suing Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao for 150 million British pounds ($200 million), alleging the crypto exchange offered and sold crypto derivatives without regulatory approval. The law firm representing the investors, KP Law, said Binance’s leverage tokens, futures contracts and options offerings breached the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 and that these products continued to be offered after the Financial Conduct Authority banned such products from being offered to retail customers in January 2021. “There appeared to be no effective barrier preventing UK customers from accessing them,” the law firm said. Read more
ESMA said EU crypto clients must be served through a MiCA-authorized entity as Binance faces questions over its servicing model in the region after the MiCA deadline. European Union crypto clients should be served through a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA)-authorized legal entity after the bloc’s July 1 transitional deadline, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) told Cointelegraph, adding to questions over how global exchanges can keep servicing users in the region. Crypto asset service providers (CASPs) must hold MiCA authorization to serve clients across the EU and European Economic Area, an ESMA spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Monday. “EU clients should be serviced through a MiCA-authorized entity,” the ESMA representative said, adding that MiCA protections apply only to the legal entity that is licensed in the EU. Read more
BitMine and Joe Lubin back a new non profit called Ethlabs that aims to spur adoption. Binance shutters services in Europe after failing to secure a license. About 60% of users who placed their first World Cup bets on Polymarket had never interacted with blockchain protocols before, suggesting prediction markets are becoming an entry point into crypto. The finding is based on a 90-day Bitget Wallet study that tracked the onchain activity of 857,000 active Polymarket users. Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, told Cointelegraph that earlier crypto onboarding efforts largely focused on making blockchain technology easier to understand through simpler wallets and better user interfaces, but users were still expected to learn how crypto worked before they could participate. “Prediction markets shifted that dynamic. Users show up because they have a view on something happening in the world,” Kan said. Read more
Early exchange flow data show no clear signs of a mass migration from Binance ahead of the EU MiCA transition deadline, despite rivals' efforts to attract users. Binance recorded over $400 million in net outflows during the week beginning June 22, as the cryptocurrency exchange announced the withdrawal of its Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) license application in Greece. According to DefiLlama data viewed by Cointelegraph on Sunday, Binance's seven-day net outflows amount to 0.3% of its $133.3 billion in tracked assets. Excluding BNB, Binance's native token, the outflows equal 0.35% of the exchange's $113.8 billion in crypto assets. Read more
Crypto markets are becoming a new venue for pre-IPO price discovery ahead of SpaceX's highly anticipated debut today. Binance's SpaceX tokenized IPO campaign attracted over $557 million in USDC deposits from about 27,689 wallet addresses ahead of the company's highly anticipated public listing. Wallets contributing up to $20,000 accounted for more than 81% of participating addresses but only 18.39% of total funds, while 114 addresses contributed over $500,000 each, representing about 10.2% of the funds, according to Dune data. The deposits point to strong demand for crypto-based pre-IPO exposure ahead of SpaceX's Nasdaq debut on Friday, with the company seeking to raise $75 billion at $135 a share and an around $1.8 trillion valuation. Read more