By George Ward
The largest crypto exchange, Binance, has announced its entry into Sweden following the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority’s (SFA) nod to begin offering crypto services. Sweden has now become the latest European nation to grant the crypto exchange permission to offer its crypto-related services.
A Foray Into Sweden
Reports indicate that the FSA has officially approved Binance Nordics AB’s application as a financial institution dealing with virtual currencies. Accordingly, the latest registration sees Sweden becoming the seventh European country to register the crypto exchange giant.
According to Binance chief of Europe and the MENA region, Richard Teng, the latest approval shows the firm’s dedication to collaborating with regulators to ensure global crypto trading standards. Teng added that Binance is pleased with the Swedish FSA for its assistance throughout the process of its application and the subsequent approval.
Binance has bagged full licenses in 15 jurisdictions and offers service users from more than 140 countries. Speaking at the Crypto Finance Conference on Wednesday, Binance Chief Changpeng Zhao stressed that the company aims to maintain its scaling drive as it seeks to boost its staff strength from 15% to 30%.
Last year amid the crypto winter, Binance’s workforce grew from 3,000 to 8,000, as revealed by Zhao. Binance’s workforce number sharply contrasts its peers, who have reduced their employees as a cut-saving measure as the crypto market bloodbath bites harder.
Several crypto exchanges like Coinbase and others have significantly reduced their personnel counts in recent months, and experts believe this pattern may continue in 2023. Binance’s expansion is not without its challenges, as the exchange has faced strong resistance from authorities in different jurisdictions like the United States, Canada, the UK, and Japan.
These governments have previously clamped down on Binance’s operations and cautioned investors over the risks associated with investments in digital assets.
Binance’s Acquisition Drive
Through its subsidiaries in other countries, the crypto exchange giant seeks to acquire other troubled firms to expand its operations and growth. On January 10, a US Judge gave Binance.US the greenlight to acquire assets worth over $1 billion from the now-bankrupt Voyager Digital.
Before Voyager’s bankruptcy proceedings in July last year, FTX, led by the now embattled former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, intended to purchase some of Voyager’s assets. Last November, Binance reentered the Japanese market by acquiring Sakura Exchange BitCoin, a regulated crypto exchange registered in the country.
In December, the exchange managed to take over the Indonesia-based crypto exchange, Tokocrypto. At the moment, Binance is the leading crypto exchange by market cap, with a whopping $7 billion trading volume processed over the last 24 hours.
As a result, Binance has hired more employees despite the industry’s market downtrend. Binance’s CEO has previously stated that the exchange intends to establish a compliance team to keep up with its growing user base and aid its expansion in Germany.
Meanwhile, the exchange seeks to continue its dominance in Europe despite regulatory uncertainties in some countries.