Binance abandons support for ‘stock tokens’ amid growing regulatory scrutiny

Binance Holdings Ltd announced that the company will cease its support for ‘stock tokens just 3 months after starting to offer them. 

Last Friday, Binance publicly declared in a blog post that the company is stepping away from the crypto-assets effective immediately in a bid to shift its commercial focus to other product offerings. The announcement comes as international regulators cracked down on the cryptocurrency exchange operator for appearing to violate local securities regulations.

Binance’s stock tokens allowed users to purchase a fraction of publicly-traded companies’ shares without additional commission fees. Each token was said to be fully backed by shares held by CM-equity AG, a licensed investment firm based in Germany. Available stocks included Coinbase, Tesla, and Microsoft.

Existing stock token holders will have some time to adjust as Binance will officially close all stock token positions from the 15th of October. As such, over the next 90 days, users will have the chance to either sell or hold their positions. The company also revealed that European users will be able to move their holdings over to CM-Equity AG’s new portal, roughly two to four weeks before the company stops selling the stock tokens. 

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