SEC thinks Binance crypto exchange guilty of violating securities circulation rules

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a lawsuit against the Binance crypto exchange and its CEO Changpeng Zhao. This is stated on the website of the regulator.

The SEC finds the defendants guilty of violating the rules for the circulation of securities in the United States on 13 counts at once. We are talking about the work of unregistered exchanges, brokerage-dealer and clearing agencies, distortion of information about the control and supervision of trading on the crypto platform, unregistered offer and sale of securities.

According to the head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, Zhao and his company were engaged in “an extensive network of deceit, conflicts of interest, non-disclosure and willful evasion of the law.”

“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 US securities laws by announcing sham controls that they disregarded behind the scenes so that they could keep high-value US customers on their platforms. The public should beware of investing any of their hard-earned assets with or on these unlawful platforms,” the agency said.

At the same time, Changpeng Zhao wrote on his social media page that he had not yet received the appeal and would respond to it when he received it.

“Our team is on standby to ensure system stability, including withdrawals and deposits,” he added.

However, Binance later responded to the claims of the regulator. The statement said that the platform has always sought to cooperate with the SEC. The company is disappointed that the regulator chose such an aggressive method of interaction and decided to act unilaterally instead of a constructive dialogue.

“We, along with the US digital asset market, oppose this excess of SEC authority and stand ready to fight it to the fullest extent of the law,” Binance said in a statement.

What do you think of this case?