Binance.US Announces BTC Trading Now Fee-Free

Binance.US CEO Brian Shroder said zero-fee will generate positive user sentiment and said he plans to expand the list of tokens offering zero-fee trading in the future.

Crypto exchange Binance.US has removed trading fees for Bitcoin (BTC) spot market trades, following in the footsteps of Robinhood, which pioneered no-commission crypto trading in 2018.

Brian Shroder, CEO of Binance.US, said the move makes the company the first United States crypto exchange to eliminate spot trading fees for Bitcoin for all users and without trading volume requirements. He added that they would also not be earning a spread on trades.

“We see this as an opportunity to revolutionize the way fees are approached in our industry, increase accessibility to crypto, and better support our market and customers in a time of need.”

The news of increased competition on fees puts pressure on its competitors to do likewise. Shares in rival U.S. exchange Coinbase fell 9.71% on Wednesday, going down to $51.91 per share.

Coinbase currently charges trading fees of between 0% and 0.50%, Kraken charges fees between 0% to 0.26%, and FTX.US charges trading fees of between 0% and 0.20%.

The amount charged as a trading fee typically depends on the currency pair, 30-day trading volume and whether the order is a maker or taker order.

Shroder told Bloomberg on Wednesday that Binance.US would not be earning a spread from its no-fee transactions, and would instead be generating revenue from other sources including a new staking service:

“We take no spread, because we are not involved in the transaction.”

He said the zero-trading fees would generate positive user sentiment that will “bring us new users,” and said there are plans to expand the list of tokens that will offer zero-fee trading in the future. At present, users of the U.S.-licensed exchange can take advantage of fee-free trading on four Bitcoin spot market pairs — BTC/USD, BTC/Tether (USDT), BTC/USD Coin (USDC), and BTC/BinanceUSD (BUSD).

Addressing his 8,200 Twitter followers, Shroder added that the company will also be rolling out a new tiered pricing model, which will go into effect in the summer.

The tiered system will be split into three parts, Tier 0, which offers free trading on certain cryptocurrencies, including the BTC pairs recently announced Tier 1 and Tier 2, which will have trading fees determined on a “per-asset” basis. More information on this is expected in July.

Formed in 2019, Binance.US is the American affiliate of crypto-exchange giant Binance. The exchange caters only to American cryptocurrency traders and is managed independently by the main company.

Founded in 2014, Robinhood was one of the early pioneers of zero-fee stock trading, prompting many online brokerages to follow suit in the years that followed. Cryptocurrency trading began without commission trading in 2018. While it does not charge fees, it is able to earn spreads on its free trades. In trading, the spread is the difference between the bid (sell) price and the ask (buy) price of a trading pair.