On June 5th, 2023 Bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole, fell pretty fast and hard as rumors of another run-in with the SEC and the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, took to the web.
It seems that on the cusp of a much anticipated and long overdue bull run, there are a few hurdles for the bulls to either break through or leap over. I think the former would be more appropriate. The SEC has introduced a strategy that seems to have spooked the markets and the magnitude of the effects are still unknown. At time of writing, the SEC is suing Binance and its CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao(CZ).
According to the complaint, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission filed 13 charges against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, alleging they commingled billions of dollars worth of user funds and sent them to a European company controlled by Zhao.
The SEC alleged that Zhao and Binance worked to undermine their own controls to allow lucrative U.S. investors and customers to continue trading on Binance’s unregulated international exchange.
“Through thirteen charges, we allege that Zhao and Binance entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure, and calculated evasion of the law,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. "As alleged, Zhao and Binance misled investors about their risk controls and corrupted trading volumes while actively concealing who was operating the platform, the manipulative trading of its affiliated market maker, and even where and with whom investor funds and crypto assets were custodied. They attempted to evade U.S. securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so that they could keep high-value U.S. customers on their platforms. The public should beware of investing any of their hard-earned assets with or on these unlawful platforms.”
A list of charges in detail can be found in the press release. In brief the charges are as follows:
*UNREGISTERED EXCHANGE, BROKER, AND CLEARING AGENCY
*UNREGISTERED OFFER AND SALE OF CRYPTO ASSETS
*FAILURE TO RESTRICT U.S. INVESTORS FROM ACCESSING BINANCE.COM
*MISLEADING INVESTORS
According to Coindesk, in a long tweet, Binance.US called the suit "the latest example of regulation by enforcement," and said it believed the suit was "baseless."
Binance shared a statement on its blog, saying the company had "actively cooperated with the SEC's investigations and have worked hard to answer their questions and address their concerns," as well as work toward a settlement.
"To be clear: any allegations that user assets on the Binance.US platform have ever been at risk are simply wrong, and there is zero justification for the Staff’s action in light of the ample time the Staff has had to conduct their investigation. All user assets on Binance and Binance affiliate platforms, including Binance.US, are safe and secure, and we will vigorously defend against any allegations to the contrary," the statement said. (https://www.c
oindesk.com/policy/2023/06/05/sec-sues-crypto-exchange-binance-ceo-changpeng-zhao/)
We’ll see how this ends. As for myself, I’m going to do as I’ve always done, HODL…
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