Binance Review,  Month 31: An Open-Platform Future

During Binance’s Month 31, we introduced Binance Cloud, plus a whole array of updates, features, and developments during one of the busiest months for the entire Binance ecosystem.

The Big Story: Introducing Binance Cloud. Now, Everyone Can Exchange.

This month, Binance presented an entirely new vision for its future. We believe the future of Binance is a decentralized open platform. And the most significant move yet for realizing that goal is our recent launch of Binance Cloud, a new infrastructure solution that allows you to build your own exchange using Binance’s industry-leading technology. This is an all-in-one solution for your exchange-building needs, from multilingual support to a user-friendly dashboard for managing your products and funds, with even more features lined up in the future.

The first major digital asset exchange fully powered by Binance Cloud will launch in early March 2020. Want to be part of Binance Cloud? Contact us at cloud@binance.com.

We’ve been pursuing the mission to allow everyone to exchange crypto ever since we launched in 2017. This has been evident when we created Binance DEX on our native blockchain Binance Chain last year, as well as the several major developments we have recently unveiled on the fiat-to-crypto and crypto derivatives fronts.

One important part of our open platform vision is our P2P (peer-to-peer) platform, an open marketplace facilitating direct trades between users and merchants. Binance P2P crypto trading now supports the Chinese Yuan, Vietnamese Dong, and Russian Ruble, featuring crypto and BUSD pairs with the three currencies. We envision more trading pairs and supported currencies for our P2P effort, and we want you to be part of it. Join our Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Merchant Program, available worldwide, so that we can create a truly global P2P crypto marketplace.

Another initiative in the open platform concept is the recently-launched Binance Broker Program. Through this, other exchanges, platforms, and institutions can bring Binance’s liquidity and market depth to their users through an API that provides order-matching services, account management, settlement systems, and more. Apply now to become a Binance Broker. 

And recently, we’ve allowed brokers on our Binance Broker Program to bring futures trading to their users, powered by Binance Futures. Our fast-rising futures platform has expanded to 23 product offerings, all perpetual contracts, in just five months since it launched. In fact, the past month saw the launch of 14 new perpetual contracts, which is more than the previous months combined. 

For more of the latest developments, read the Binance Futures monthly review.

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Exchange Updates

* New futures listings: XLM/USDT, ADA/USDT, XMR/USDT, DASH/USDT, ZEC/USDT, XTZ/USDT, ATOM/USDT, BNB/USDT, ONT/USDT, IOTA/USDT, BAT/USDT, VET/USDT, NEO/USDT, QTUM/USDT. (All contracts up to 50x leverage except XLM/USDT, ADA/USDT, and XMR/USDT, which are up to 75x leverage.)

* New spot listings: TokenClub (TCT), WazirX (WRX), and LTO Network (LTO),  plus FTX’s leveraged tokens EOSBULL, EOSBEAR, XRPBULL, and XRPBEAR

* New trading pairs: TCT/BNB, TCT/BTC, TCT/USDT, WRX/BNB, WRX/BTC, WRX/USDT, LTO/BNB, LTO/BTC, LTO/USDT, EOSBULL/USDT, EOSBULL/BUSD, EOSBEAR/USDT, EOSBEAR/BUSD, XRPBULL/USDT, XRPBULL/BUSD, XRPBEAR/USDT, XRPBULL/BUSD, BTS/USDT, BTS/BUSD, BNT/USDT, BNT/BUSD, ICX/BUSD, LSK/USDT, ATOM/BUSD, DASH/BUSD, NEO/BUSD, WAVES/BUSD, XTZ/BUSD, BAT/BUSD, ENJ/BUSD, NANO/BUSD, ONT/BUSD, RVN/BUSD, STRAT/BUSD, STRAT/BNB, STRAT/USDT, AION/BUSD, AION/USDT.

* Total cryptocurrencies listed (as of February 19): 197 (+7 from last month)

* Total spot trading pairs listed: 626 (+38 new pairs, -10 pairs from recent removals) 

* New margin trading pairs: BCH/BUSD, EOS/BUSD, XRP/BUSD, LTC/BUSD, BNB/BUSD, ETH/BUSD, 

Tech and Business Updates

Binance Exchange

* Lowered withdrawal fees, by popular demand. Ask, and you shall receive. We listened to our Binancians, and we lowered the withdrawal fees for BTC, ETH, and other ERC20 tokens. Check our Withdrawal Fee Schedule for the complete details.

* Community Coin Vote Round 6: We have selected MovieBloc (MBL) and V-ID (VIDT) as the two candidates for the vote. Voting is ongoing as of press time.

* Binance launches Deposits Airdrop page. Get incentives for when you deposit a newly-listed token ahead of the start of trading. This has been used for the token launches of LTO and TCT.

* Addition of 8 new crypto assets to the convert function: ETH, BNB, XRP, LTC, TRX, ADA, XLM, and XVG.

* Binance Staking supports THETA.

* Binance Lending, Rounds 12 to 14. Round 12: 30-day products for BUSDT and USDT. Round 13: 30-day products for BUSD, USDT, and ERD. Round 14: 15-day products for BUSD and USDT.

* Binance extends VIP Invitation Program. You have three more months to invite VIP traders to Binance. 

* Automated borrowing and repayment for margin, now on the Binance app. 

* Adjustments on daily interest rates for borrowing assets. Binance Margin has applied market-oriented adjustments for the daily interest rate for borrowing assets.

* Daily interest rate adjustments for borrowing stablecoins USDT, USDC, and BUSD. The rate for BUSD decreased from 0.02% to 0.015%. The rate for USDT increased from 0.025% to 0.0325%, while the rate for USDC increased from 0.02% to 0.025%.

* Optimized API order rate limits

* Support for the following blockchain activities: Mainnet swap for Harmony (ONE), deposits and withdrawals for the Kava (KAVA) mainnet token, mainnet swap for IOTX and WTC.

* Trading resumption for ETHBULL and ETHBEAR trading pairs. 

* Maintenance periods: February 9 (scheduled) and February 19 (temporary and unscheduled)

Futures

* Binance Futures Market Maker Program, now with negative maker fees! Qualifying market makers can now receive a negative maker fee for selected trading pairs.

* Binance Futures Affiliate Program. Earn up to 40% on trading fees when you refer your friends to trade on Binance Futures. Sign up now or read here for more info.

* Increase in maximum cross collateral loan limit. The limit per account is now 1 million USDT.

* New function: You can now view your futures positions and cancel open orders directly on the chart while using the Trading View mode.

* Release of API Java SDK.

Fiat-to-Crypto

* Added support for 15 fiat currencies via Simplex. Through our long-time fiat partner, direct purchase of BTC, BNB, ETH, BCH, LTC, and XRP is supported for Pound sterling, South Korean won, Russian ruble, Australian dollar, Swiss franc, Czech koruna, Danish krone, Norwegian krone, New Zealand dollar, Polish złoty, Swedish krona, Turkish lira, South African rand, Hungarian forint, and Israeli Shekel.

* Binance adds Russian ruble and Ukrainian hryvnia to instant payments. Binance will now allow users to bind their Visa cards and purchase BTC, ETH, BNB and XRP using these currencies/

* Integration of WazirX’s P2P platform. Starting February 13, Binance users are able to instantly transfer funds between their Binance and WazirX accounts. 

* Binance adds fiat gateways for 2 new currencies. Users can now buy and sell BTC, ETH, XRP, and BNB with Norwegian Kroner (NOK) and Croatia Kuna (HRK).

* Partnership with e-waller Payeer opens new fiat to crypto option in Euro and Russian ruble.

* Deposit fee changes for Nigerian naira.

Binance Ecosystem and Partnership Updates

Binance Launchpad’s first project for 2020: WazirX. The token sale for India's most trusted bitcoin exchange with the world’s first auto-matching P2P (peer-to-peer) engine was concluded with 10,000 winning tickets, held by 9,033 total winners. That puts the percentage of winning participants at 43.74%.

Binance invests in Numbers blockchain protocol. We will work closely with Numbers, which aims to create an open, transparent, and traceable data system.

Binance.US introduces staking rewards. Initially, staking rewards will be available for Algorand and Cosmos, with more Proof of Stake (PoS) coins available for listing and staking down the road. Binance.US also listed Ontology. Meanwhile, learn how to complete fiat account verification on Binance.US in this video, and get a sneak peek into a new interface planned for Binance.US.

Updates from BNB, Binance Chain, and Binance DEX

- Binance DEX adds ETH/BUSD trading pair

- Automatic wire transfer funds for BUSD. Paxos, our fiat partner, has launched automatic conversions between bank deposits and BUSD (and PAX) stablecoin deposits.

- #UseBNB on vending machines in Hong Kong. Special thanks to ivendPay for this new use case.

- #UseBNB in Singapore merchants (trial phase) via Alchemy’s payment system. 

- #UseBNB via loans backed by BNB on Bidao.

- Quick access to Binance DEX via Netbox.Global

- Learn more about BNB use cases within the Binance ecosystem in this blog.

Binance Charity secures goods for coronavirus-afflicted victims in China. Binance pledges $1.5 million in support. We have secured more than 470,000 medical supply items. About 178,000 are already delivered to nearly 100 hospitals and medical teams in Wuhan and surrounding cities. 

In addition, Binance Charity and the Binance Philippine community sent aid to Taal Volcano victims. Thanks to donations from the Binance team and community, our Angels in the Philippines have supplied relief goods to the victims of the Taal Volcano eruption in the country.

TravelbyBit expands hotel booking options with Expedia. Cryptocurrency holders can now choose from Expedia's inventory of more than 600,000 hotels on TravelbyBit.com. 

New content from Binance Academy: How PoolTogether Turns Saving Money Into a Game, Inside the Mind of a Professional Crypto Trader, Quantum Computers and Cryptocurrencies, Asset Allocation and Diversification Explained, Double Spending Explained, Blockchain Oracles Explained, Blockchain Scalability - Sidechains and Payment Channels, and History of Bitcoin Development (video). The Academy team also revamped our Beginner’s Guide to Cryptocurrency and collaborated with the Binance blog to address some FAQs about Bitcoin halving. This is so much learning that even your dog will want to browse.

New reports from Binance Research: An Examination of the Flaws in the Zerocoin Protocol, Global Markets Report for January 2020, and Annual Crypto-Correlations Review, plus in-depth research reports LTO Network, WazirX, MovieBloc, and V-ID.

New Binance Podcast Episode: “Will Crypto Mining Become Popular Again in 2020” with Coinmine CEO Farbood Nivi.

Binance Community

Online Activities

All online activities are completed as of press time, unless otherwise indicated.

Happy New Year 2020 NFT distributed. 30,466 NFTs were minted. Thanks to all the promo participants. Trade the NFT here.

Trust Wallet free .crypto domains. Participants of its AMA with Unstoppable Domains get free blockchain names, plus a chance to win BTC.

$100,000 WazirX Bounty Program, plus lottery promo. This is the first bounty program for a Binance Launchpad project. Earn WRX tokens by fulfilling various bounty tasks. In addition, we held our usual lottery ticket sharing contest on social media. Congratulations to the winners.

IOTX Trading Competition. $90,000 in IOTX at stake in this promo.

Extended: Zero maker fee promotion for BUSD. You now have until March 6 (previously February 7) to take advantage of zero fees for BUSD.

Ongoing: Binance Futures 50% rebate on XTZ/USDT trading fees. Until February 21.

Ongoing: 100,000 USDT in bonus futures voucher giveaway. Buy crypto on Binance P2P to get a chance to gain these vouchers. Offer lasts until February 25.

Ongoing: Zero fees on Australian dollar crypto purchases via Binance Lite. Offer lasts until March 31.

Global Activities

January 24: Benin, Nigeria (Binance Academy Masterclass)

From the Binance Team

New AMA with CZ. In his latest AMA, CZ shared some updates on the Binance ecosystem, including the progress of Futures and Fiat platforms, while also revealing a glimpse into Binance Cloud. Also, watch CZ’s recent interview on BLOCKTV, as well as the new article “Keep Calm and Work Hard: The Story of Binance’s CEO from A to CZ” by Cointelegraph, and Binance Cloud coverage by Bloomberg.

He Yi: India is the next big market for Binance. Our co-founder and chief marketing officer had an exclusive interview with Blockmanity, where she discussed future expansion plans for Binance.

New VP of global expansion operations. Matt Shroder, former head of product operations at Uber, will lead Binance’s international operations team

New director for Europe/LatAm growth, Institutional business. Josh Goodbody, who has extensive experience in J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, State Street, and Huobi, brings a seasoned background in legal and regulatory affairs, institutional business, and strategic market development.

New director for fiat in Europe/CIS. Iskander Malikov, former COO of TradingView, will establish new fiat-to-crypto channels and gateways in regions throughout Europe and CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States).

Binance Charity’s Helen Hai on Pomp’s Off the Chain podcast. The Binance Charity head spoke with Anthony Pompliano about philanthropic efforts and how we utilize blockchain technology to maximize our impact. 

Binance Futures Director Aaron Gong on the CoinGecko Podcast. He discussed the rapid progress and ongoing plans of Binance Futures.

Binance Blockchain Week Vietnam, postponed until further notice, amid the global public health emergency due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Educational pieces on futures trading from Binance Futures: Beginner’s Guide to Funding Rates, What Information Does Open Interest Convey, Binance Futures Trading Tournament Results and Insights, 3 Reasons Why Binance Futures Is The Preferred Hedging Venue For Traders, Binance Futures: The One-Stop Platform For Crypto Traders, and a comprehensive two-part report on liquidation & insurance funds (Part 1 | Part 2)

Performance Incident Report. “We always believe that transparency is the foundation of the blockchain-enabled world. While we work hard to further optimize our systems, we will continue to disclose information transparently,” said CZ about certain issues on the platform’s tech side. 

Follow Binance on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook to stay up-to-date with our latest announcements. Join our official Binance Telegram group to participate in discussions with our users, staff, and volunteers. 

Cryptocurrency investment is subject to high market risk. Binance is not responsible for any of your trading losses. The opinions and statements made above should not be considered financial advice.