Binance Australia users withdraw, bitcoin trades at 20% discount
Bitcoin traded at a sharp 20% discount on Binance’s Australian crypto platform on Tuesday, following the news that its fiat off-ramp services will close on June 1.
Bitcoin traded for as low as $33,345 AUD ($21,800) and trades for $37,936 AUD ($24,850) at press time. Comparatively, other major exchanges currently list Bitcoin at an average of $42,600 AUD ($28,600).
The steep discount on Binance’s Australian platform is due to Australian financial partners recently abandoning the Crypto exchange, which caused on-ramp services to close. According to the firm, local users were getting ahead of the firm’s subsequent fiat off-ramp closures by dumping their holdings, which led to the sharp decrease in bitcoin price.
“Due to the recent removal of fiat on-ramp services by our payment processor’s banking partner, some Australian users have been withdrawing their AUD holdings from the platform in advance of the off-ramp closure on 1 June,” a spokesperson for Binance told Decrypt.
“As a result, AUD pairs have experienced less liquidity which has impacted their pricing. We will be delisting remaining AUD pairs in line with the closure of fiat off-ramp services,” they said, and added, “We remain focused on securing additional fiat relationships to service our users.”
Read more: Binance commingled funds at Silvergate: Reuters
The firm’s derivatives license was revoked by Australia’s securities commission at the start of April during a “targeted review” of Binance’s businesses in the country. Binance requested the closure itself after a formal hearing took place; ASIC complied. The global crypto exchange is also under investigation by the CFTC, SEC, DoJ, and the IRS.
Meanwhile, Binance is still engaged in a fierce war with Reuters over several investigations that unearthed concerning claims of concealing liabilities, commingling funds, and sanctions evasion.
Binance Australia key partners sever ties
On May 18, the same day Binance Australia announced the closure of fiat on-ramp services, it was reported that the company’s banking partner Cuscal severed ties with the firm and that Westpac, the country’s second-largest retail bank, was no longer allowing its customers to deposit to Binance.
Cuscal was also included on a list of FTX banking partners in its ongoing bankruptcy. When pressed by Protos, the firm admitted that “Cuscal clients sometimes use an ‘off-system BSB’ service to allocate virtual account numbers to their clients to ensure that deposits can be automatically reconciled.
“This uses a Cuscal BSB and settles in aggregate to a Cuscal client’s account. Deposits to FTX may have been made via use of a Cuscal BSB,” (via Protos free newsletter The Context).
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