Uzbekistan Fines Cryptocurrency Exchange Binance

The National Agency for Perspective Projects of the Republic of Uzbekistan has identified several violations by the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Representatives of the agency informed ForkLog of these findings.

Guided by the Regulation on the licensing of service providers in the crypto asset sector, the Agency discovered:

• provision of services to citizens of the Republic of Uzbekistan for transactions with crypto assets;
• transactions involving anonymous coins, as well as crypto assets and funds obtained through criminal means;
• that the company is not a legal entity resident in the Republic of Uzbekistan;
• absence of an electronic platform hosted on servers located within the territory of the Republic of Uzbekistan;
• non-compliance with legislation regarding crypto asset circulation, anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism financing, and the financing of weapons of mass destruction, as well as the storage and use of personal data;
• lack of information regarding the exclusion of certain individuals and companies registered in offshore zones from management and participation in the charter capital of service providers, as specified in subparagraph “z” of paragraph 9 of the Regulation;
• absence of a formed charter capital, part of which must be reserved in a separate account at a commercial bank in the Republic of Uzbekistan.

“The Agency, in accordance with the Law, has decided to impose a fine of 300 basic calculation units, which has been sent to the crypto exchange Binance and the regulator of the jurisdiction where the company is registered,” the document available to ForkLog states.

In 2022, Uzbekistan received over $310,000 in fees from licensed cryptocurrency companies (Crypto Trade NET, Crypto Market, Crypto Express, and Coinpay).

In April of the previous year, the country registered its first NFT issuer, and by August, two banks were authorized to issue crypto cards.

In the autumn, the National Agency for Perspective Projects began issuing licenses to miners and crypto depositories.