Fisco representatives filed a complaint on Binance in the Northern California District Court for the stolen funds from Zaif seeking the return of over $9 million.

In the 2018 hack, Fisco, the Japanese exchange has lost nearly $60 million worth of crypto. This includes some units of Bitcoin (5966), Bitcoin Cash, and Mona coin is Japan’s first native cryptocurrency.

However, the hackers sent 1,451 bitcoin to an address that belongs to Binance. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The total bitcoin worth was $9.4 million at that time. Zaif is the name of exchange during the hack.

Fisco explains that Binance uses Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS is to host the exchange’s servers. It has the ability to select whichever AWS data center for its operations. Since most of the infrastructure is in California the jurisdiction was in Northern California District Court.

The laundering happened due to Binance’s allegedly lax know-your-customer (KYC), and anti-money laundering (AML) protocols. These do not measure up to the industry standards. 

Fisco said,

“Binance failed to implement security measures that were standard throughout the industry.”

Either intentionally or negligently Binance did not stop the transfers. Even though it had the chance to do it. Fisco demands Binance to pay for its loss of the laundered funds. Zaif, and its customers suffered financial losses as a result of Binance’s lack of action.

Similarly, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) found that Binance has weaker regulation. This has been singled out by them for often moving to avoid stronger regulatory oversight.

Binance has involved in a series of recent class-action lawsuits. One among them was the class-action lawsuit against the exchange was filed in the Southern District of New York. Recently, Binance has also delisted the exchange’s own native token BNB.

Crypto exchange Binance Uganda announced that it will delist its native token Binance Coin (BNB) for not meeting the trading standards. 

Binance Uganda, an East African crypto exchange that provides the most powerful fiat-to-crypto trading platform. Meanwhile, BNB is presently the 8th largest cryptocurrency with a total market capitalization of $3.4 billion, according to Coinmarketcap. 

As per the announcement, Binance Coin (BNB) doesn’t meet the high-level trading standard. This resulted in the delisting of BNB from its exchange. The said trading standard includes the trading volume and assets’ liquidity.

In the announcement, Binance said,

“Unfortunately, when this trading standard is not met, their performance is subject to review and may result in the delisting of the coin or token. Based on our most recent reviews, we have decided to delist and cease trading on all trading pairs for the following token at 10:00AM EAT 2020/09/17. Binance Coin (BNB)”

Binance Uganda will stop all BNB deposits on Sept. 10. They will continue with their withdrawal operations till Nov. 6. By September 17, The trading pair BNB/UGX will be officially removed.

Initially, the total supply of BNB was 200 million coins. Due to the continuous coin burn, the supply has been gradually decreasing. As per the recent report, BNB is considered to be undervalued, while Binance leads its way. 

Analysis has illustrated that Binance’s native token, Binance Coin (BNB) is undervalued overall while Binance, the largest spot cryptocurrency exchange in the world still leads its way.

BNB initially issued as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum platform. The initial total supply of BNB was 200 million coins, but due to the continuous coin burn, the supply is gradually decreasing.

Binance has conducted 12 token burns till now. The recent burn, the biggest burn ever recorded and has taken away about $60.5 million worth of BNB.

This burn mentions trading activity across Binance spot, margin, and futures exchanges, various portfolio projects, and ecosystem partners that use BNB.

BNB Still Undervalued

As data from Coinmarketcap, BNB is presently the 8th largest cryptocurrency. with a total market capitalization of $3.2 billion. In the mid-February BNB price surged to $26, with gains of around 100% since the beginning of the year. Then the price dropped to around $9.

On September 2, the BNB price spiked to $25 but less than the February price increase. Once again the price started to drop. In the last 24 hours, BNB is at $22.42 with a trading volume of over $622 million. The price has risen by 2.79%.

Binance Stays on Top

In Q1 of 2020, Binance offers 218 tokens and 616 trading pairs. Binance Savings products offered for 30 tokens, whereas Binance Staking supports 23 tokens. The exchange grows the Binance Angels roster to 200+ international angels.

Binance Futures offers 32 perpetual contracts, along with two Binance Quarterly Futures contracts. Binance DEX has 132 trading pairs.

Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, became the wealthiest Bitcoin Billionaire in 2020 with the estimated net worth of $2.6 billion. In a tweet, it was mentioned that Zhao tops 6 Bitcoin Billionaires in Hurun global rich list 2020.

Moreover, Binance has also gained a wide range of users which is over 2.4 million on their social media pages. It has also continued to build more features, fiat gateways, new supporting languages, etc.

Researchers have traced over $1 million worth of bitcoin sent as payments to Ryuk ransomware controllers and passed through a wallet on the Binance exchange platform.

According to an article from Forbes, the researchers said they had analyzed a sample of 63 transactions, linked to the Ryuk malware that was worth around $5.7 million in total, in which the FBI estimated that over $61 million have been stolen using Ryuk ransomware. 

Of the $5.7 million, hackers were able to withdraw $1 million from a Binance wallet into cash. Researchers found that hackers are still holding the remaining $4.7 million on non-exchange wallets. 

 In the Forbes article, Binance admitted,

“Unfortunately, when it comes to tracking illicit activity on-chain, attribution is not always black and white… The recipient may be completely unaware of the fraudulent source of the transaction”

Binance has numerous security systems in place, using various techniques to identify scams. The system is under continuous improvement to ensure the utmost vigilance. For such scamming activities and minimizing the risk of false-positive results.

Binance recently partnered with law enforcement in Ukraine to help identify a gang of cybercriminals who are trying to launder $42 million through the exchange.

In recent times, these ransomware hackers have been targeting hospitals and healthcare providers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Interpol. These hackers would encrypt their victims’ data before demanding cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to unlock them.  

On August 18, Elliptic added Binance Chain to its blockchain analytics and crypto asset risk monitoring platform to track any possible illegal activities committed on its blockchain.

Elliptic was the only known blockchain forensics and risk intelligence tool that can support the Binance coin (BNB) and all tokens on the Binance network.  

Binance Chief Compliance Officer Samuel Lim said,

“This partnership not only strengthens our commitment to regulatory compliance but also opens the door for wider adoption of BNB and BUSD.”

Elliptic now provides the broadest coverage of any crypto transaction screening solution with over 97% of all crypto assets monitored by trading volume.

This news follows the addition of 89 new crypto assets to Elliptic’s blockchain analytics platform, including BUSD, Zcash, and ZEN.

In the future, Elliptic will provide crypto compliance monitoring to issuers using the Binance Launchpad to launch new BEP2 tokens on the Binance blockchain. Binance Coin (BNB) also powers the Binance Decentralized Exchange (DEX) which, in turn, is powered by Binance Chain.

Since 2019, Binance has been using Elliptic’s blockchain analytics solutions and services for its global compliance operations.  The service functions in all regions where Binance operates to help them comply with global and local anti-money laundering (AML) regulatory requirements. 

Elliptic is the global leader in crypto asset risk management solutions for crypto businesses and institutions worldwide. On the other hand, Binance is the world’s leading blockchain and cryptocurrency infrastructure provider with a financial product suite.

The rise of many blockchain-based games that provide high-quality experience is seen to be the catalyst that will enable the exposure of 2.5 billion gamers worldwide to cryptocurrency.

The blockchain gaming development is still fairly organic in nature in spite of the advancement of innovation by industry leaders. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has spoken about the developing blockchain and crypto industry in a press release.

Zhao said,

“The potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies reaches far beyond the financial sector. Given the readiness of the gaming industry in its continuous evolution, especially in new technologies.”

Blockchain-based games are secure, transparent, and provide fair gameplay, which has also brought the development of non-fungible tokens (NFT) to gaming. NFTs will allow players to own their in-game items and can also trade these items with other players.

One example is The Sandbox, a blockchain gaming platform where the creators can adapt the experience of gaming. The most recent 3D blockchain-empowered cycle has just been making news with its pre-sales of LAND packages and sale of its native SAND token on the Binance Launchpad.

There are numerous other games like the Age of Rust, Neon District, Infinite fleet, and many more games which will bring the power of blockchain into the gaming scene. Many industries are prepared to expand gaming coverage to incorporate energizing developments from a gamers’ perspective.

Now-defunct Mt. Gox was one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges in the world before it succumbed to a massive hack. Nevertheless, it began as a card-trading platform and got its name from “Magic: The Gathering Online”. This shows how far blockchain technology has grown in the gaming industry.

On July 7, Binance announced its partnership with Etana Custody for a new fiat gateway that provides deposit services for 15 fiat currencies.

Through Etana, Binance users are now able to deposit 15 new fiat currencies which include UAE dirham, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Swiss franc, euro, Checz koruna, British pound, Danish krone, HK dollar, Hungarian forint, Norwegian krone, Mexican peso, New Zealand dollar, Polish złoty, and Swedish krona.

The Binance-Etana partnership will provide services across the Asian, European, North American, and Oceanian markets. Binance is also aiming to include over 180+ fiat currencies in the future.

Binance Founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said,

“At Binance, we are committed to furthering global digital assets adoption by launching multiple fiat-to-digital assets gateways. Binance’s fiat gateways cover over 170 countries & regions in the world and we are continuing to add more to make crypto more available across the globe.”

Binance users can link their accounts with Etana and wire funds directly from their fiat bank accounts. The fiat balance from Etana will be credited instantly and free-of-charge to their Binance account after initiating a fiat deposit request on the said exchange.

Etana custody fees for deposits of $1,000 or higher are waived, but a bank wire transfer fee of $35 still applies. The maximum deposit and withdrawal limit is tied to the level of the Binance account, while the minimum deposit and withdrawal limit is $150.

Furthermore, Binance has made an announcement in mid-June that it will be expanding to the UK with a regulated crypto trading platform for both institutional and retail investors.