In the ‘interest of consumer protection’, Binance and FTX make this move

Two of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance and FTX, recently announced limits on highrisk leverage trading on their platforms. Both companies cited consumer protection as the motive behind these restrictions.

The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, had announced earlier on 19 July that they were introducing a 20x leverage limit for new users. Now, as per a tweet by CEO Changpeng Zhao on Sunday, Binance Futures was preparing to apply the same limit for existing users soon.

The futures trading platform, which was launched in 2019, had initially allowed investors to open leverage positions at a maximum limit of 20 times their investment. Only two months back, Binance Futures had announced that it will support BTC/USDT contracts for up to 125x margin, meaning that an investment of $100 could turn into a bet for $12,500.

This latest move came at the heels of a similar announcement by Hong Kong-based crypto derivatives exchange FTX. In a series of tweets, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried revealed that the maximum leverage available on the platform had been significantly reduced to 20x.

The crypto billionaire cited the exchange’s efforts to “encourage responsible trading” as the reason behind this move. He elaborated on how even though leveraged trading was not a significant part of the exchange’s overall volume, it caused significant troubles with regard to volatility. Estimating that the average open margin position on FTX is leveraged by roughly 2x, he stated:

“We also don’t think it’s an important part of the crypto ecosystem, and in some cases, it’s not a healthy part of it… Again, this will hit a tiny fraction of activity on the platform, and while many users have expressed that they like having the option, very few use it. And it’s time, we think, to move on from it.”

Binance’s association with this high-risk trading is one of the main reasons behind regulators around the world issuing warnings. Since June, the exchange faced increased scrutiny from financial regulators in the US, Britain, the Cayman Islands, Hong Kong, Lithuania, Italy, Poland, and Thailand among others. Most of them have been critical of its high-leverage derivatives offerings. Amidst increasing regulatory scrutiny, Binance had also discontinued earlier this month, a new product line introduced this year, which offered stock tokens for companies like Tesla and Apple.

Another crypto exchange, Huobi global had made a similar move in mid-June limiting derivatives trading for its new and existing users.