Venues / Binance

Is Binance legit and safe?

The checklist

Custody: who holds your money

Exchange balances are held by Binance. Under the current Terms of Use, custody is provided by Nest Clearing and Custody Limited, an FSRA-regulated ADGM entity, and assets may be held in jurisdictions outside the ADGM. Binance publishes a proof-of-reserves page and says its SAFU emergency fund held 15,000 BTC as of February 2026. The self-custody Binance Wallet is a separate product.

Who backs Binance

• MGX (Abu Dhabi) — $2,000,000,000 (2025-03) source

Incidents

• 2026-06-24: MiCA application withdrawn; EU services restricted. Binance withdrew its MiCA licence application with Greece's HCMC and said it would seek authorisation in another EU member state. CoinDesk reported that EU users were told Binance could no longer accept new registrations and would restrict services from July 1, 2026; Binance said assets remain accessible. source
• 2025-10-23: Founder Changpeng Zhao pardoned. US President Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had served four months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. source
• 2023-11-21: US guilty plea and $4.3B resolution. Binance pleaded guilty to Bank Secrecy Act, unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions (IEEPA) violations and agreed to a total financial penalty of $4,316,126,163 plus a three-year independent compliance monitor, coordinated with the CFTC, FinCEN and OFAC. Changpeng Zhao also pleaded guilty and resigned as CEO. source
• 2022-04: Dutch central bank fine. De Nederlandsche Bank fined Binance EUR 3.3M for offering crypto services in the Netherlands without registration. The Netherlands is on Binance's current List of Prohibited Countries. source
• 2019-05-07: 7,000 BTC stolen from hot wallet. Binance said hackers stole more than 7,000 bitcoin, worth over $40M at the time, in a large-scale security breach. It said it would cover the incident in full and no user funds would be affected. source

Real downsides

• Not available in the US, Canada or the Netherlands, closed to new UK users since 2023, and restricted for EU users since July 2026.
• Pleaded guilty in 2023 to US anti-money laundering and sanctions violations and agreed to pay about $4.3B.
• Custodial exchange with mandatory identity verification before any service.
• Withdrawal fees are set per network and can change without notice.

Can you use it where you live?

Binance's List of Prohibited Countries (updated 2026-01-05) bars anyone located in, resident of, a citizen of, or operating in the United States, plus residents of Canada, the Netherlands, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Crimea and the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Binance.US is a separate company (BAM Trading Services Inc.) with its own terms and its own list of restricted US states. The UK is not on the prohibited list, but Binance stopped onboarding new UK users in 2023 after the FCA's financial-promotion rule changes; as of August 2026 it was reported to be planning an FCA application under the new UK regime. In the EU, Binance withdrew its MiCA application in Greece in June 2026 and told EU users it would stop accepting new registrations and restrict services from July 1, 2026, while keeping assets accessible. The Terms forbid using a VPN to get around restrictions. (source)

We report what the venue's own terms say. Don't use a VPN to get around restrictions; venues can freeze accounts that do.

How to use Binance without getting scammed

• Only open www.binance.com — fake lookalike sites and "support" DMs are the most common way people lose funds on any trading venue.
• Never share a seed phrase or private key. No real support agent will ask for one.
• A referral code only changes your fee and who gets a share of it. It never needs your keys.
• Treat every new memecoin as able to go to zero. A legit venue does not make the coins on it safe.

Comparing options? See the full Binance sheet or Bybit, OKX, Kraken.