He had been in the sights of American regulators for months. The Binance group, the largest crypto-asset exchange platform in the world, is officially sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the American policeman of the financial markets. The group and its CEO Changpeng Zhao are accused of circumventing the regulations in force in the United States.
According to the document filed in federal court in Washington, Binance notably let US residents use its Binance.com platform despite the company not being registered with US authorities. In the United States, the Binance group has a separate American entity, called Binance US, officially independent under the leadership of Brian Shroder and well regulated in the United States. But US regulators suspect the global entity of illegally interacting with US citizens. According to the SEC, Binance knew that some of them were trading on the Binance.com platform while it was not registered with US authorities. The American financial products regulatory authority, the CFTC, which had assigned it at the end of March for similar reasons. The SEC also claims that contrary to what Binance has publicly argued, the US subsidiary and the funds deposited there by customers were controlled by the parent company. “Our team is on deck to ensure that our systems are stable, including with regard to withdrawals and deposits,” reacted Changpeng Zhao from his Twitter account. Regulatory pressure Knowing that the regulatory subject would be his biggest project for the coming months, the Binance group appointed Richard Teng as head of its regional markets (outside the United States) last May. The latter worked for the financial regulator in Singapore, and has a background in traditional finance. According to Bloomberg, he could take the position of CEO. Undisputed leader of the cryptocurrency universe with a market share of more than 50% among exchanges, regulatory pressure has been very strong around Binance for several months . In February, the SEC opened an investigation into Paxos, the company issuing a “stablecoin” called BUSD, used in the ecosystem of global giant Binance and beyond. Since then, the company has been under request for clarification of its links with the American entity, as well as with other companies that would belong to “CZ”. In Australia, Binance had disappointments with its payment partner who stopped its collaboration. Biance is also in trouble with regulators in Canada. In France, it has obtained the status of financial asset service provider (psan) since May 2022. In response to this information, Bitcoin immediately reacted on the cryptocurrency market, losing nearly 5%.
