Attention! The intention of this article is not to create FUD, but to report on what is known so far.
According to a press release published today by the SEC (United States Securities and Exchange Commission), it would have filed a total of 13 charges against Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.
These charges include:
1. Operating unregistered exchanges: Binance and BAM Trading are accused of operating unregistered domestic securities exchanges, stockbrokers, and clearing agencies.
2. Operating unregistered brokerages: As with exchanges, the SEC alleges that Binance and BAM Trading operated unregistered brokerages.
3. Operating unregistered clearing agencies: Binance and BAM Trading are also accused of operating unregistered clearing agencies.
4. Offering and selling unregistered securities: Binance and BAM Trading are accused of offering and selling unregistered Binance's own crypto assets, including an exchange token called BNB, a stablecoin called Binance USD (BUSD), certain crypto lending products, and a staking-as-a-service program.
5. Allowing US customers to continue trading on the Binance.com platform: The SEC alleges that although Binance and Zhao publicly stated that US customers were restricted from trading on Binance.com, in They actually subverted their own controls to secretly allow high-value US clients to continue trading on the platform.
6. Secret control of the Binance.US platform: The SEC alleges that although Binance and Zhao publicly claimed that Binance.US was created as an independent trading platform for US investors, they actually secretly controlled the operations of Binance.US. the Binance.US platform behind the scenes.
7. Exercising control over the platforms' clients' assets: The SEC alleges that Zhao and Binance exercise control over the platforms' clients' assets, allowing them to commingle clients' assets or divert clients' assets as they see fit. it pleases, including an entity owned and controlled by Zhao called Sigma Chain.
8. Misleading Investors About Non-Existing Trading Controls: The SEC alleges that BAM Trading and BAM Management US Holdings, Inc. ("BAM Management") misled investors about non-existent trading controls on the Binance.US platform .
9. Engagement in manipulative trading: Sigma Chain, an entity owned by Zhao, is alleged to have engaged in manipulative trading that artificially inflated the platform's trading volume.
10. Concealing the commingling of billions of dollars of investors' assets: The SEC alleges that the defendants concealed the fact that they were commingling billions of dollars of investors' assets and sending them to a third party, Merit Peak Limited, which is also owned by Zhao.
11. Zhao as the controlling person for the operation of Binance and BAM Trading of unregistered domestic securities exchanges, stockbrokers and clearing agencies.
Please note that each of these charges is presented in general terms and may contain several sub-charges within them. Furthermore, these charges are allegations and not conclusions of law. Binance and Zhao will have the opportunity to respond to these accusations in court.
For the moment we have to remain calm and wait for more information to come to light.
