Binance Futures announced it would close all positions for its USDⓈ-margined perpetual contracts for STEPN's, Near Protocol's and Avalanche's native crypto assets' BUSD pairs.

The closure will follow an automatic settlement, which will occur on April 18 at 9 a.m. UTC, according to a statement. Additionally, Binance Futures is adjusting leverage and margin tiers for the same perpetual contracts by lowering them. The change will take place on April 14 at 3 p.m. UTC.

USDⓈ-margined futures on Binance Futures use Tether's USDT and Binance USD (BUSD) as collateral and offer isolated or cross margin types. They are settled in dollar-pegged assets, making it easy for users to calculate fiat returns (as opposed to coin-margined contracts).

The exchange has advised users to close open positions before the delisting time to avoid automatic settlement. Furthermore, users cannot open new positions on the affected contracts from April 18 at 8:30 a.m. UTC.

Binance has been delisting amid regulatory scrutiny

Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, has been somewhat aggressively delisting lately.

Two days ago, its U.S. arm announced it would remove Tron's TRX and Spell Token, which are closely associated with Justin Sun. Binance.US cited a periodic review — which includes an examination of volume, liquidity, risk profiles, fraud and unethical conduct — as its reason.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has issued a summons for Sun following last month's civil complaint.

Binance itself is the subject of somewhat-intense regulatory scrutiny. After Binance had its financial services license canceled in Australia by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the regulator cited a slew of regulatory problems facing the exchange — including the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission's filing of a civil enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The UK's Financial Conduct Authority, Japan's Financial Services Agency and the Monetary Authority of Singapore are also all looking hard at the exchange.

Binance's branded stablecoin's being under regulatory scrutiny may be the biggest factor in the latest delisting decision, however. In February, stablecoin issuer Paxos said it received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pertaining to BUSD.

"Binance has recently delisted many of its BUSD-paired perpetual contracts following regulatory scrutiny of its branded stablecoin," Steven Zheng, research director at The Block explains. "The good news is that most of Binance’s most-liquid futures trading pairs are USDT-denominated contracts so these recent moves shouldn’t impact liquidity in the ecosystem in the short term."

Headline and article updated to reflect the trading pairs are against BUSD, added more context and added a chart.