In their 250th issue from July 6, 2022, Bloomberg Businessweek ran a cover story with the headline “Changpeng Zhao’s Ponzi Scheme,” which was totally false and without any basis.
This was a huge blunder that hurt Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, and the organization itself. It triggered an FUD that caused BNB to tumble. Bloomberg has now come forward to own up to this mistake and has apologized. The apology stated:
“We were wrong to write ‘Changpeng Zhao’s Ponzi Scheme. We retract and withdraw this offending statement. We have journalistic standards that should, and will, be better. To that end, we will not publish or make any allegations to the same or similar effect, in any manner whatsoever.”
Besides saying sorry, Bloomberg promised to donate a sum to the Songzi, Hubei Province Special Education Foundation instead of paying damages. Binance, on their part, responded to this on X, saying:
“We are pleased to see that the wrongful accusations have been retracted. We will continue to focus on providing the best service and innovation for our users, while working to set a strong example to ensure a healthy, sustainable industry.”
In another blow for Binance, a federal judge has ruled that most of the lawsuits filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against the exchange can go ahead.
Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia denied Binance’s request to dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit. This lawsuit alleges that Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao, broke securities laws.
The SEC’s lawsuit, filed in June 2023, accuses Binance of inflating its trading volumes, diverting customer funds, failing to block U.S. customers from its platform, and misleading investors about its market surveillance controls.
They also accuse Binance of facilitating the trading of several crypto tokens deemed unregistered securities by the SEC.
Binance had already agreed to pay $4.3 billion in November to settle with the Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission over illicit finance breaches.
However, the ruling isn’t all bad news. Judge Jackson sided with a previous judge, saying the SEC hadn’t proven that secondary sales of Binance’s tokens – those sold by other sellers on exchanges – were securities.
