- Australia’s financial regulator, ASIC, has issued a public warning against crypto exchange Bitget for allegedly promoting high-risk derivatives with extreme leverage to Australian users without the required AFS license.
- ASIC emphasised that these unlicensed products expose investors to significant losses and strip them of crucial protections under Australian financial services laws.
- Bitget, despite its large global user base, is facing similar regulatory warnings from authorities in multiple countries for unauthorised crypto offerings.
Australia’s financial regulator has pulled Bitget’s ear for allegedly marketing unlicensed crypto futures products with extreme leverage to local users.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said Bitget promoted derivatives with up to 125x leverage (far beyond the 2:1 cap enforced in Australia) despite holding no Australian Financial Services (AFS) license. The products were accessible via Bitget’s mobile app and website and advertised under the banner of “crypto futures trading”.
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Bitget Facing Regulatory Heat
Bitget is one of the largest exchanges in the industry, accommodating around 100 million users worldwide. It has a massive presence in Australia as well, but though the firm is registered to provide crypto exchange services in the country, the company is not authorised to offer or promote financial instruments like derivatives.
That’s the fine letter, and the agency described those products as speculative and high-risk bets on future cryptocurrency prices, noting that they expose investors to outsized losses relative to their capital:
Australians investing in unlicensed financial products are unable to access important rights and protections available under Australian financial services laws such as internal dispute resolution processes or client money protections, should something go wrong.
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)Bitget has since added a disclaimer acknowledging that its derivatives are not licensed locally.
The exchange recently obtained regulatory approval to operate in Georgia, but it’s facing mounting regulatory heat from other countries. Authorities in Germany, Canada, France, Cyprus, Malaysia, Spain, and Japan have all issued warnings over the firm’s unauthorised crypto products.
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