Overview
Binance is the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, founded by Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in 2017, and now led by CEO Richard Teng following a 2023 leadership change. The platform covers Spot trading, Margin, USD-M and COIN-M Futures, and Binance Earn, alongside its own blockchain, BNB Chain. Because of U.S. regulatory requirements, Binance.US operates as a separate, smaller entity with its own listings and liquidity, so a workflow built against Binance.com's API will not work with a Binance.US account or vice versa.
Practical Details
Binance's REST and WebSocket API uses a weight-based rate limiting system rather than a simple request count, where different endpoints consume different amounts of a shared per-minute weight budget, and exceeding it returns HTTP 429 or 418 responses with a cooldown. API keys can be scoped to specific permissions when created, such as Enable Reading, Enable Spot & Margin Trading, or Enable Withdrawals, and it is standard practice to leave withdrawal permission off for keys used only for trading bots. In November 2023, Binance and CZ settled U.S. federal charges tied to anti-money-laundering compliance, with the company paying a $4.3 billion penalty and CZ stepping down as CEO.
Actionable Considerations
- Confirm whether an integration targets Binance.com or Binance.US, since accounts and APIs are not interchangeable.
- Scope API keys narrowly, leaving withdrawal permissions disabled for keys used only for market data or trading logic.
- Design around Binance's weight-based rate limits with backoff handling rather than a fixed requests-per-second assumption.