It’s difficult to assess the impact of this on Binance, which is still a leading exchange from a liquidity point of view, said Dave Weisberger, CEO and co-founder of CoinRoutes. Payment giants Visa and Mastercard have recently announced their decision to distance themselves from Binance, the biggest crypto exchange by trading volume, due to the company’s legal challenges. Binance is facing multiple charges by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), as well as potential fraud charges from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Visa has stopped issuing new co-branded cards with Binance in Europe, and Mastercard has ended its partnerships with Binance in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Bahrain. Binance has also announced on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) that the Binance Card will no longer be available to users in Latin America and the Middle East.
Despite the move by mainstream companies, it is unlikely to hurt the crypto exchange’s market share. Until that changes, people will continue to trade there, said Weisberger. Leo Mizuhara, CEO of Hashnote, a CFTC-regulated institutional digital asset management platform, also believes that the end of the partnership may not be a big deal for the industry as a whole.
Visa and Mastercard have been active in the blockchain industry recently, even during the prolonged bear market that saw several major bankruptcies. Most recently, both Visa and Mastercard said they intend to continue with their industry partners to bring payment programs into the markets.