Italy’s CONSOB becomes latest agency to warn users about Binance

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is finding itself regularly in regulatory crosshairs all over the world. Over the past few weeks, different regulatory watchdogs have issued public warnings about Binance and its different affiliates. A coordinated game plan to sanction the crypto-exchange or is it a mere coincidence? Perhaps, only time will tell.

The latest to join this bandwagon is Italy’s Securities regulator, the Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (CONSOB

). As per the agency’s latest announcement, the regulatory watchdog has warned Binance about its operations within the region. An announcement made by the CONSOB said,

” …the companies of the “Binance Group” are not authorized to provide investment services and activities in Italy, not even through the website www.binance.com  whose sections called “derivatives” and “Stock Token”, relating to instruments related to crypto-assets.”

Additionally, CONSOB also went on to caution the public about the potential implications of Binance’s legal status in Italy. “In any case, it is important that investors are informed that transactions in instruments related to crypto-assets may pose risks that are not immediately perceptible due to their complexity, high volatility, as well as for security vulnerabilities,” the agency noted.

This warning comes soon after Italy’s latest tussle with the exchange in question. Last month, Binance was at the end of a class-action lawsuit from a local law firm after some traders suffered major losses while trading on the crypto-exchange’s platform.

Last month, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority issued a consumer warning against Binance’s English incorporation, Binance Markets Limited.

Overall, the latest announcement paints a global clampdown effort against the cryptocurrency giant. As covered previously, other regions such as Japan, the Cayman Islands, Poland, Thailand, and, most recently, Malta, have joined hands to scrutinize Binance over the past couple of months.

Here’s something interesting – Similar to Binance, Robinhood too suffered massive outages in the past. Ergo, Robinhood users sued Robinhood for the same. However, as has been clarified repeatedly, Binance doesn’t have a headquarters, and this might make it difficult for Binance users to sue the said exchange for anything.

Whether the latest efforts at regulatory clampdown would have any effect is also a question that cannot be answered right now.