Binance Re-enters South Africa’s Crypto Futures Market

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has relaunched crypto futures in South Africa, which is one of Africa’s largest economies.

The exchange announced that perpetual and delivery futures contracts settled in US dollar-pegged assets (USDⓈ-M) and cryptocurrency (COIN-M) have been made available to its users in the country starting from Monday.

Binance said it has entered a “juristic representative arrangement” with the trading services provider, FiveWest OTC Desk (Pty) Limited to offer futures contracts to South Africans.

Through this arrangement, Brickhouse Trading Limited, one of Binance’s group of companies, will offer derivatives products to South African users, Binance explained.

However, the exchange pointed out that the type of products it is offering, including product specifics, remains the same as what it was offering before its departure last year.

“Users may still connect into the Binance platform and access the same market-leading liquidity,” Binance added.

Previous Exit from South Africa

Binance's re-entry into South Africa comes almost a year after the crypto exchange ceased offering its crypto futures, options, margins and leveraged tokens to users in South Africa.

Binance pulled out of the country after the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, South Africa’s financial markets regulator, issued a notice saying the Binance Group was not authorized to offer its services in the country.

The exchange’s exit from South Africa follows Binance's similar cessation of its derivatives services in Australia, Hong Kong and many European countries as a result of hassles with local regulators.

Meanwhile, Binance was recently in talks with the Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority and Talent City, a Lagos-based technology hub, to launch a virtual free zone in Africa.

Recently, the crypto exchange held meetings in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, with officials from both entities.

Binance Futures Hits $5.90trn in Q2

According to the Binance Futures Quarterly Report: Q2 2022, the exchange surpassed $5.90 trillion in total trading volume in perpetual futures contracts during the second quarter of the year.

Finance Magnates reported that Tether-margined (USDT-M) perpetual contracts accounted for 91.97% of the trading volume in the world's largest crypto derivatives exchange during the period.

The average daily volume of USDT-M perpetual contracts stood at $43.52 billion during the quarter.