A few days ago, news broke that Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, is phasing out its crypto debit card in several countries. Payments giants Mastercard and Visa are distancing themselves from the crypto giant, which is currently under scrutiny from regulators around the world. Will Binance’s Huge Market Share Come Under Fire Or Will The Negative Impact Be Minor?
The end of the Binance debit card has arrived
In the previous article that appeared on Crypto Insiders, it was mentioned that the Binance Card, or the crypto exchange’s crypto debit card, will no longer be available for users in Latin America and the Middle East.
Specifically, it includes Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Bahrain. The payment cards were issued in cooperation with Mastercard. From an earlier one News On X, formerly known as Twitter, debit cards appear to be active until September 21st.
Visa has also reportedly stopped issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe.
Given all the legal challenges Binance is facing, the switch from mainstream companies like Visa and Mastercard is not surprising, said Dave Weisberger, CEO and co-founder of CoinRoutes.
Binance is currently facing a number of lawsuits from the USA Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The charges are based on fraud and market manipulation and alleged violations of federal securities laws.
Added to this are the earlier allegations made by the American Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Those charges were brought in May for what she calls “deliberate circumvention” of US law.
The US Department of Justice or the Ministry of Justice (DOJ) is also investigating the crypto exchange and is currently considering filing a fraud lawsuit.
Impact on crypto market share
However, given their global presence, the terminated partnerships should not impact the trading platform’s market share. Weisberger said the following:
It’s difficult to gauge the impact on Binance, which continues to be a leading exchange from a liquidity perspective. Until that changes, trading will continue there.”
Leo Mizuhara, CEO of Hashnote, a CFTC-regulated institutional digital asset management platform, also said that the impact on the broader industry is also minimal:
“This development is probably not a big deal in terms of industry impact, given the CFTC and DOJ issues, it was already reasonably expected that people and organizations would withdraw from Binance.”