Following the company's US exit in 2023, Binance hasn’t yet made any official plans to re-enter the US market. However, Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng called the U.S. “a very important marketplace” but added they are taking a “wait and see” approach during an interview at the WEF in Davos that demonstrates this may not be permanent.
What the company wants now for any country it operates in is regulatory clarity. That regulation isn’t a business constraint but a fundamental requirement for success, say Binance leadership. While still holding some of their cards tightly to their chests, the company has indirectly outlined a few things that it may need in order for them to possibly begin thinking about coming back to the US.
More Regulations, Not Less
In its year-end report for 2025, a number of Binance executives made comments about the state of regulation globally. Binance Head of VIP & Institutional Catherine Chen had a positive outlook on the direction many countries are taking saying, “Regulatory clarity has improved meaningfully, particularly in key markets globally such as the US, parts of the Middle East, including Turkey, and Europe.”
Binance Chief Legal Officer Eleanor Hughes said that lack of “clear and consistent regulation” was one of the companies “four pillars” of the risk landscape that they must account for when planning future developments.
In an interview at Davos, Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng said of regulation that now is a “pivotal moment for most countries to take notice” of what the US is doing and may soon accomplish if the Clarity Act becomes law.
Clarity Act: What Exchanges Like Binance Need, or Not Enough?
One of the biggest risks that exchanges and similar businesses face when operating in the US is the government's failure to formally define what different digital assets are. These distinctions are critical when it comes to the law because they require completely different handling, disclosures, taxation, and much more. One distinction in the act is that digital assets that are defined as digital commodities will benefit from being considered covered securities. This means exemptions from a number of regulations and making them much easier to handle.
The act has drawn some criticism from experts on elements that are considered as underdeveloped or otherwise lacking in substance. For instance, many warn that the act doesn’t do enough for consumer protections like plain language disclosure mandates and what they call “weak stablecoin consumer protections.”
Binance leadership has spoken out about this risk, with Catherine Chen saying in the year-end report that the company wants “clear licensing, custody, and consumer-protection standards” in all places it does business.
In early 2025, however, the SEC paused its lawsuit against Binance as part of a broader effort to reassess its approach which was a significant win for the exchange and a signal of potential regulatory recalibration.
This is arguably one of the reasons why the Clarity Act aims to move oversight of the crypto industry from the SEC to the CFTC. The SECs mission is to oversee securities, instruments that have narrow definitions that crypto often doesn’t align with. That’s a big part of what triggers the lawsuits mentioned above. The CFTC, on the other hand, is all about regulating markets and can thus work with assets that have broader definitions and scope.
Even SEC leaders have acknowledged the challenges of the commission overseeing crypto, and the debate is far from settled. With policymakers currently locked in a would-they-won’t-they standoff over whether stablecoin issuers should be permitted to offer interest payments, regulatory uncertainty remains front and center.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce noted in a statement last year that “the Commission’s handling of crypto has been marked by legal imprecision and commercial impracticality. Consequently, many cases remain in litigation, many rules remain in the proposal stage, and many market participants remain in limbo.”
That sense of limbo is especially evident now, as the question of stablecoin yield underscores how unsettled the regulatory framework still is.
While not promising anything about the US, the messaging from Binance is clear. They want predictability so that compliance is straightforward.
No one outside Binance knows for sure what’s being planned. However, company leadership has made it clear what they want above all else: clarity and predictability wherever they do business.
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