By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Binance received a $3.5 million fine from the Dutch central bank on Monday for the illegal offering of crypto services in the Netherlands
The DNB said in a statement that the crypto investment platform had failed to register with it before starting to offer cryptocurrency services, thus violating Dutch law on money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The news illustrates the distance that even mainstream crypto platforms still have to go before they can operate as regulated entities and thus give their customers the kind of protection that has been sorely lacking in the recent failures of high-profile platforms such as Celsius Network and Voyager Digital. It's part of only one of many investigations against it by central banks and regulators around the world - including the U.S. - who think it may have violated local securities laws during its breakneck expansion in recent years.
Binance is by some estimates currently the largest provider of crypto services in the world, with a daily trading volume of around $13.7 billion.
The fine was toward the upper end of what is allowed under Dutch law, reflecting both Binance's prominence in the crypto space, and the fact that the violations continued for over a year and a half after the obligation to register was introduced.
"In addition, Binance has enjoyed a competitive advantage because it has not paid any levies to the DNB and has not had to incur other costs in connection with ongoing supervision by the DNB," the regulator said in a statement.
It noted that it trimmed the fine by 5%, taking into account the fact that Binance has now submitted a registration and its view that "Binance has been relatively transparent about its business operations throughout the process."
The application for registration is still being reviewed.