Topic: Binance.US again in trouble | SEC continues to harass offshore presence (Read 158 times)

so crypto world will mostly stay along side of Binance instead of trust the judgement of USA courts because that makes no sense. I mean SEC could say whatever they want, it doesn't matter, Binance could just close off binance.us and move on and they would still be huge, they were in billions of dollars worth of valuation before, and they can go back to that anytime they want to.

In the news today, we have Binance.US on target again. U.S. since the boom of crypto exchange from 2017 up trend has targeted the binance. Since US's decisions could be alarming to the existence of Binance and is due to the fact that Binance has almost fifth users from the US alone.

Grey already has a bad past with the way they conduct business. When someone is flagged under a financial domain then they must not be trusted again ever. It’s also but obvious that such large entity with billions of dollars getting transacted just like that can have fishy business easily. You never know where the money is going and coming from unless and until your business books are perfectly clear.

They are definitely trying to hide a lot of things.

Am I the only one who thinks that trying to hire Gary Gensler is a red flag? Isn't the platform trying to hide something, or trying to evade something, or at least trying to whitewash its image in front of legislators?

Here is another quote for their attempt to circumvent US scrutiny:

They are definitely trying to hide a lot of things.

CZ experimenting to hire Gensler seems funny. i would really see this like he was bribing Gensler lol is tempting because the guy is corrupt to the bones.

Despite announcing that it would stop accepting U.S. customers on its global platform, Binance officials discussed how to keep them. In a Telegram chat in June 2019, an employee noted that over 18% of page views on Binance.com were from U.S. users. Samuel Lim, then Binance’s compliance chief, suggested ways to retain the largest U.S. clients, including encouraging them to use a VPN to appear to be located in another country

Binance has responded by stating that it is committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations, and that it is working to establish a stronger presence in the U.S. market. However, it remains to be seen how the situation will ultimately play out. The idea of segregating Binance.com and Binance.US into separate domains is not uncommon among cryptocurrency exchanges. Many exchanges have set up separate entities to cater to specific markets or regulatory jurisdictions. However, as you mentioned, such a move could potentially allow Binance to evade regulatory scrutiny in the U.S.

Well, I know for sure that no body throws stones on a mango tree that does not have fruits, just in a few years of launching, Binance became so big, and we all know that US authorities, some how, aren't always in a good standing with crypto companies, most especially those that seem to be doing very well, I believe all this is simply because Binance allowed US users to use the exchange, and maybe they have not meet up with all the regulatory requirements as demanded by the US authorities.
They(Binance) have to either try to meet up with the regulatory requirement of the US authorities or give up allowing US users to access the exchange, this is the only way i think this constant harassments would stop.

CZ is smart enough to know importance of the USA. market and he tried to connect to Gary Gensler and wanted to hire that man for Binance. He failed to do so but he is also smart enough to quickly realize the long term impacts from a trade war between the USA. and China which started years ago.

Binance exploded onto the crypto scene in 2017 and grew into the world’s biggest digital-currency exchange. It quickly ran into a problem.

It largely operated from hubs in China and then Japan, yet a fifth of its customers were in the U.S., where authorities signaled a coming crackdown on unregulated offshore crypto players. Any lawsuit from U.S. regulators would be like “nuclear fall out” for Binance’s business and its officers, a Binance executive warned colleagues in a 2019 private chat.

Worried about the threat of prosecution, Binance set out on a plan to neutralize U.S. authorities, according to messages and documents from 2018 to 2020 reviewed by The Wall Street Journal as well as interviews with former employees.

The strategy centered on building a bare-bones American platform, Binance.US, that would license Binance’s technology and brand but otherwise appear to be wholly independent of Binance.com. It would shield from U.S. regulators’ scrutiny the larger Binance.com exchange, which would exclude U.S. users.

But Binance and Binance.US have been much more intertwined than the companies have disclosed, mixing staff and finances and sharing an affiliated entity that bought and sold cryptocurrencies, according to the interviews and the messages and documents reviewed by the Journal. Binance developers in China maintained the software code supporting Binance.US users’ digital wallets, potentially giving Binance access to U.S. customer data.

If U.S. regulators conclude that these links mean Binance has control over a U.S. company, they could claim the power to police Binance’s entire business, which, to many investors, has been a black box since the start. This would also put Binance’s billionaire founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and his finances under closer scrutiny. Recently, a Texas financial regulator said in a court filing that Binance.US didn’t get a license to operate in the state because it wouldn’t provide financial information from its largest shareholder, Mr. Zhao.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department have been probing the relationship of Binance, which lists no headquarters, to Binance.US at least since 2020, according to subpoenas and people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department and the SEC declined to comment.

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of senators asked Binance to answer a series of questions, alleging it had “hidden basic financial information from its customers and the public.” Binance has also been in the crosshairs of some other countries, where it has been accused of operating without a license.

Binance is by far the largest cryptocurrency platform standing after the collapse last year of others such as FTX left the digital-currency world reeling. The swift collapse of FTX changed the calculus for U.S. regulators, who now are engaged in an intensive effort to rein in the $1 trillion crypto sector. Binance’s ability to navigate the industry turmoil and deal with regulators in the U.S. is a test case for the future of crypto.

Ninj0r [a Binance software developer]: Why did trading start? It’s not time yet!!! Who started trading? We had the trading timers set? Who started trading?

Other messages followed, including another urgent one from Ninj0r: someone started TRADING EARLY. Who did it? At 8:56:09.822 someone manually started trading. Who? Why?

Eventually, the company founder and chief executive answered.

Changpeng Zhao: a guy here in Shanghai, mistake operation.

Developers in Shanghai maintained key software functions at Binance.US at least through the summer of 2021, the Journal has reported. The Shanghai developers’ contracts were with Binance, not with the U.S. platform, according to a person familiar with the agreements.

The spokeswomen for Binance and Binance.US said the companies’ relationship is governed by licensing agreements, including for Binance’s technology. The Binance.US spokeswoman said that U.S. customer data is stored in the U.S. and that it and Binance never commingled user data.

The SEC has also been examining the relationship between Binance.US and two trading firms with ties to Mr. Zhao, Merit Peak Ltd. and Sigma Chain AG, the Journal has reported.