In its two short years of existence, Binance has gained a reputation for being fast and ferocious—sweeping aside peers on its rise to the top as one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume.
The business’ newly launched American counterpart, Binance US, intends to take a more careful approach. Debuting on September 23 in 37 states, plus Puerto Rico, the company says it seeks to comply with U.S. financial laws, where the legal status of digital coins remains in question.
Catherine Coley, CEO of Binance US and former Ripple executive, outlined her vision for the company on the latest episode of Balancing The Ledger, Fortune’s online show covering the intersection of finance and technology. She describes the firm as “a marketplace that’s suited for our American users, with the same technology that they can experience on Binance, but with the comfort that it’s within regulation in the U.S.”
“We want to be applying products new to the market and in a cadence that will work with the regulation in the U.S.,” Coley says. “We will be going at it at a different cadence and speed, but one that will be in line with the American regulation.”
Binance began restricting service for American customers on September 12, 90 days after warning its customers about its decision to let them go. The clampdown followed similar moves by peers such as Bitfinex and BitMEX, which both started blocking Americans in late 2017.
An uncertain regulatory environment in the U.S. has forced other cryptocurrency businesses to undergo equally uncomfortable contortions. Cryptocurrency exchanges such as Circle’s Poloniex and Bittrex started limiting U.S. customers’ access to certain cryptocurrencies last month.
To cope with U.S. law, Binance has employed an approach undertaken by another peer, Huobi, a Singaporean cryptocurrency exchange, originally founded China, that licenses its technology and brand to a U.S.-based partner. Binance has a similar deal with a partner of its own, a San Francisco-based money services business called BAM Trading Services.
Coley says that despite the constraints of the U.S. market, Binance US will be agile. “We have to be careful about each step we take, but it certainly doesn’t mean we won’t have multiple things going at once,” she says. “We launched the full exchange in three months, which is still incredible timing when you go from having a concept to actually having a functional product and the team to support it.”
The launch has not been without hiccups. Early customers reported website bugs and trouble withdrawing funds. Coley has been personally addressing the gripes.
“I’ve actually been manning the customers support for the past 72 hour hours,” she told Fortune on September 30, the day of the Fortune studio shoot and a week after Binance US’s launch. “It’s been a pure experience for me to hear firsthand what’s causing problems and then being able to fix them in real time for our users.”
Binance US faces a challenge: competing with rivals, such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini, that have operated in the U.S. for years. To entice customers, the company is offering free cryptocurrency trading until November 1 and $15 credits for friend referrals.
A coalition of U.S.-based cryptocurrencies recently teamed up to create a “crypto rating council” that will attempt to suss out which digital assets may be regarded as securities and therefore face harsher restrictions from U.S. regulators. Coley says Binance US missed the boat on that initiative but she wants in.
“We were probably a little late to the game to get invited to that, but we’re certainly knocking on their door to see if there’s an extra seat for us,” Coley says.
