Binance DEX to Block Traders from 29 Countries, US Included

The decentralized crypto exchange of Binance will block access to crypto traders based in 29 countries, including the United States.

The platform recently started showing a pop-up message warning its users based in the restricted countries.

The names of the blacklisted countries are the USA, Albania, Belarus, Bosnia, Burma, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Cote D’Ivoire, the Crimea region of Ukraine, Croatia, Cuba, Herzegovina, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Binance DEX will terminate all trading services in these countries on July 1.

“Please note that by 1 July 2019 (UTC 00:00) trading and accessing to the wallet interface through www.binance.org will no longer be available to users with IP addresses from the countries listed above,” the warning message stated.

A Decentralized Approach

Binance launched its decentralized exchange – Binance DEX – in April on its native blockchain. The platform does not store any clients’ funds for trading and supports an array of third-party wallets, funds from which can directly be used for trading.

Currently, the platform offers nine trading pairs, all of which are listed against Binance Coin (BNB). The platform also gained a lot of popularity in a short span of time and is riding on the reputation of Binance. Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the founder and chief executive of Binance, earlier revealed that based on user feedback, the exchange might fully shift its focus on the decentralized platform.

Binance DEX’s move of geo-blocking was not well received by the community and it is now facing some harsh criticism.

Reminder that it was never a DEX so stop calling it a DEX. It's just a word they used to pump $BNB, it was never meant to be decentralized.https://t.co/wh72aGeWqP

— WhalePanda (@WhalePanda) June 1, 2019