The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, continued serving crypto traders in Iran despite U.S. sanctions and a company ban on doing business there, according to a recent report from Reuters. In 2018, the United States reimposed sanctions that had been suspended three years earlier as part of Iran’s nuclear deal with major world powers. That same year, Binance informed traders in Iran it would no longer serve them, telling them to liquidate their accounts. However, a Reuters investigation found that the traders in Iran were still able to use their Binance accounts until as recently as September last year, only losing access after the exchange tightened its anti-money laundering checks a month earlier. Until that point, customers could trade by registering with just an email address. “There were some alternatives, but none of them were as good as Binance. It didn’t need identity verification, so we all used it,” a crypto trader in Tehran told the publication. Binance Runs a Risk of Secondary Sanctions Binance, whose holding company is based in the Cayman Islands, claims that it does not have a single headquarters. Its main Binance.com exchange, however, does not accept customers in the United States. Instead, U.S. clients are directed to a separate exchange called Binance.US. This essentially means that Binance is protected from direct U.S. sanctions that ban U.S. firms from doing business in Iran. While traders in Iran use...
