Ten months of talks, but no approved return
Binance says it has spent 10 months discussing a licensed business with the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) and Bank Negara Malaysia, seeking a formal return more than five years after the securities regulator ordered it to stop operating in the country.
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The exchange disclosed the discussions in a statement on October 31. Its website and applications have been blocked in Malaysia, and it is absent from the SC's register of five approved digital asset exchanges, updated on July 20, 2026.
A Binance spokesperson described the discussions as covering the "viability and structure" of a licensed business model. The company declined to identify the licence it wants. No approval or launch date has been announced, and the talks remain at the stage of determining how a Malaysian business could operate.
The proposed return comes amid renewed scrutiny of the exchange's peer-to-peer marketplace, where users arrange trades with one another. Malaysian lawmaker Lim Guan Eng has asked the SC to investigate whether advertisements listed under foreign currencies were being used to arrange transactions in ringgit.
Binance says it voluntarily closed a Papua New Guinea kina marketplace that had been unofficially pegged to the ringgit. It describes the latest complaint, involving an advertisement under the Romanian leu, as an isolated case.
For Malaysian customers, the practical issue is whether Binance can secure permission for a defined set of services while satisfying regulators about how its marketplace operates. The company is seeking access to a market that already has registered exchanges, rather than entry into a market without a licensing framework.
What Malaysia's official register says
The SC's registered exchange list names HATA Digital, Luno Malaysia, MX Global, SINEGY DAX and Kinetic DAX as registered operators. Binance is not among them.
The regulator calls these businesses Recognized Market Operators, or RMOs. In simple terms, they are companies registered to run a marketplace. A digital asset exchange, often shortened to DAX, is a platform where customers trade digital assets such as cryptocurrencies.
The SC states that entities without its approval must immediately stop their activities and return money and assets collected from investors. Its instruction also covers businesses that previously operated under temporary arrangements while Malaysia introduced its regulatory framework.
The register also lists exchanges not permitted to continue operations from March 1, 2019, and June 1, 2019, alongside entities that operated under a transitional period from January 15 to March 1, 2019.
The framework followed the Capital Markets and Services (Prescription of Securities) (Digital Currency and Digital Token) Order 2019, which took effect on January 15, 2019. Revised Guidelines on Recognized Markets followed on January 31, introducing requirements for digital asset exchange operators.
The register links to the 2019 Prescription Order in the Federal Gazette. The SC's Guidelines on Digital Assets, issued on October 28, 2020, under section 377 of the Capital Markets and Services Act 2007, state that digital currencies and digital tokens satisfying the Order's requirements are prescribed as securities for purposes of securities laws.
The register gives Binance's negotiations a concrete setting: Malaysia has a route for approved exchanges to operate, alongside an instruction that unapproved operators must stop. Binance has yet to explain which regulatory category would cover its proposed business or which products it hopes to make available.
How the restrictions developed
The SC ordered Binance to cease operating in Malaysia in July 2021 after finding that it was running a digital asset exchange illegally. The action extended beyond trading access to the ways the company promoted its services and reached local investors.
Binance was ordered to stop media and marketing activities and restrict Malaysian investors from accessing its Telegram group. Those measures addressed both the exchange itself and channels through which it could attract or communicate with customers.
- January 15, 2019: Malaysia's order covering digital currencies and digital tokens took effect.
- January 31, 2019: The SC issued revised Guidelines on Recognized Markets introducing requirements for digital asset exchanges.
- July 2021: The SC ordered Binance to cease Malaysian operations, marketing and related activities.
- 2024: The SC removed Binance from its Investor Alert List.
- July 20, 2026: The SC's updated register listed five approved digital asset exchanges, without Binance.
- September 2026: Lim Guan Eng wrote to the SC seeking an investigation into possible indirect ringgit trading.
- October 2026: Binance was added back to the Investor Alert List without a publicly stated reason.
- October 31, 2026: Binance disclosed its licensing discussions, and Lim's office distributed his letter.
More than five years separate the July 2021 enforcement action from the latest statement. During that period, Binance's status on the warning list changed twice, while its proposed licensed return has only now been publicly described.
Why foreign currency advertisements matter
Lim's September letter asked the SC to examine whether Binance's peer-to-peer platform was enabling ringgit transactions through advertisements carrying another currency label. His office distributed the letter on October 31 following claims of a major security incident at the exchange.
Peer-to-peer trading, commonly called P2P, allows users to find counterparties through a platform and arrange purchases or sales. An advertisement can identify the currency and terms under which a user wants to trade. The currency label therefore helps describe the market in which the transaction is being offered.
Lim's concern focuses on the currency actually being used. An advertisement displayed in a foreign currency marketplace could still involve ringgit if the participants arrange payment or pricing that way. His request asks the regulator to investigate that possibility.
Binance acknowledged that a specific Papua New Guinea kina marketplace had been unofficially pegged to the ringgit. A peg means that one value is tied to another. Here, the company's description indicates that the marketplace's pricing was linked informally to Malaysia's currency.
Binance said it voluntarily disabled that marketplace as part of its engagement with the SC. The action is the clearest operational change the company has disclosed in connection with the Malaysian discussions.
Binance's answer to the latest complaint
Binance said the latest complaint concerned a single advertisement posted by a non-Malaysian user in its Romanian leu marketplace. It added that no other products on its platform were pegged to, or acting as substitutes for, the ringgit.
A Binance spokesperson defended the company's marketplace controls while acknowledging their limits:
No platform, business or control mechanism can fully prevent bad actors determined to circumvent the rules of a marketplace.
The spokesperson also rejected the suggestion that the advertisement reflected a continuing attempt to evade Malaysian requirements:
We take this seriously, but we do not believe an isolated case like this reflects any sustained effort to circumvent Malaysian law.
Lim is seeking regulatory examination of the transactions, while Binance is describing the scale and intent of the activity. The SC's assessment would determine how those marketplace practices fit Malaysia's requirements.
The two foreign currency marketplaces also involve different actions by Binance. The company says it closed the kina marketplace; its response on the Romanian leu advertisement centres on the conduct of an individual user. Both matter to the same practical task: keeping the platform's actual trading activity within the rules applicable to Malaysian customers.
Security claims require caution
A claim that Binance recently suffered a security breach involving as much as US$6.3 billion has circulated alongside the licensing news. The claim includes assertions that withdrawals were suspended and that the company pledged to cover all losses.
The incident's scale and details remain unverified. Descriptions of it as the largest known cryptocurrency hack therefore require caution, and a firm account of losses, affected customers or repayment arrangements is not yet available.
Lim's office cited the recent security incident when distributing his letter. His request concerning ringgit trading, however, dates to September and addresses how the P2P marketplace operates.
The security claim and the licensing talks concern different problems for customers. A withdrawal suspension would affect access to funds, while a licence would determine the services a business may lawfully offer in Malaysia. Customers need reliable information on both access to their assets and the legal status of the platform holding them.
What a licensed business would change
Binance says it remains committed to working with Malaysian regulators to bring its services to local customers in compliance with domestic requirements. Approval would create a formal route back into a country where the exchange's own website and applications have faced restrictions.
The company's reference to the structure of a licensed business matters because permission would apply to a particular operating arrangement. The business entity, services and marketplace practices would need to fit the approval granted. Binance has not described those proposed arrangements publicly.
Malaysia's register also shows that regulatory status can change over time. MX Global appears both in a historical list of exchanges prohibited from continuing operations from June 1, 2019, and in the current register of approved operators. Its present registration illustrates how a company's later position can differ from an earlier restriction.
For Binance, the next concrete development would be disclosure of the proposed licence or an announcement from the regulators about an application or decision. Until then, the public position remains that Binance is discussing a return, five exchanges appear on the SC's approved register, and the ringgit marketplace complaint awaits a publicly announced outcome.
Key Points
- Binance says it has held licensing discussions with the SC and Bank Negara Malaysia for 10 months.
- The exchange has not identified the licence it seeks, and no approval or launch date has been announced.
- The SC ordered Binance to cease Malaysian operations in July 2021.
- The SC's register, updated July 20, 2026, lists five approved exchanges and does not include Binance.
- Lim Guan Eng has requested an investigation into possible ringgit trading through foreign currency advertisements.
- Binance says it closed a kina marketplace linked informally to the ringgit and calls a Romanian leu advertisement an isolated case.
- The claim of a US$6.3 billion security breach remains unverified.
