SEC sues Binance and CZ for breaking US Securities Rules

Key takeaways

The US SEC has sued Binance for breaking securities rules.

The regulatory agency has also sued Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange.

SEC sues Binance and CZ

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against Binance, the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, and Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of the company.

This is according to a report by The Wall Street Journal a few minutes ago. According to the Wall Street Journal, the regulatory agency has sued Binance and its CEO for breaking US securities rules.

This latest cryptocurrency news doesn’t come as a surprise to some experts in the industry, as the regulatory agency has been going after cryptocurrency exchanges in recent months. 

Binance faces 13 charges from the SEC

The regulatory agency alleges that Binance secretly allow[ed] high-value U.S. customers” to trade on the platform in violation of U.S. securities laws which prohibits unregistered exchanges from servicing U.S. customers.

The lawsuit also alleges that CZ exercised control over customer assets, adding that he commingled them with personal and company holdings. SEC Chairman Gary Gensler stated that;

“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. 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.”

This latest development comes two weeks after the SEC sued Bittrex, one of the world’s largest and oldest cryptocurrency exchanges, and co-founder and ex-CEO William Shihara for violating securities laws. 

The regulatory agency had also come after several other crypto exchanges in recent months, including Kraken and Coinbase.

Bitcoin has lost more than 2% of its value so far today and could fall below the $26k level soon following this latest development. At press time, the price of Bitcoin stands at $26,682 per coin.