In terms of trading volume, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has not succeeded with stablecoins. The exchange’s own stablecoin, BUSD, was previously removed due to regulatory pressure on Paxos. So, what step did Binance take now to accept what it couldn’t change?
Binance and USDC
After its own stablecoin, BUSD, faced regulatory issues, the exchange turned to different alternatives. For example, TUSD was one of them. Later, FDUSD became another prominent option. During the TUSD period, many on-chain analysts, especially Crypto Capo (a notable crypto commentator in 2022), argued that the market was being speculated with this stablecoin. Binance, however, explained that the interest was due to the zero-fee campaign.
After BUSD started experiencing issues, PAXOS made an announcement that it would no longer mint new BUSD and would only handle redemptions. A year later (until the beginning of 2023), even redemptions stopped. This means no new tokens are being minted, and BUSD cannot be exchanged for dollars.
Amid all this chaos, we saw Binance start to remove USDC pairs following the collapse of FTX. At that time, Coinbase and Circle implied that this was almost a declaration of war against them but stated they would remain strong. As they predicted, Binance, despite some decisions, continues to keep many USDC pairs active.
Zero-Fee Campaign for USDC
Binance, which had previously run zero-fee campaigns against USDC, has now taken a different step following Circle’s MiCA success. USDC has already received legal permissions in Europe and can operate in a regulated manner in the region. To celebrate this, Binance made the following announcement and shared the campaign details:
“To celebrate USDC being the largest MiCA-compliant, regulated stablecoin in the European Economic Area, Binance will launch a zero-fee campaign for all EUR/USDC spot trading pairs during the Promotion Period.
All users will benefit from zero maker and taker fees for the EUR/USDC spot trading pair. Users can refer to this page for more details about the promotional spot trading pairs.”
