SEC sues Binance in US District Court for unregistered securities operations

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Binance, its American platform, and CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in the District Court for the District of Columbia on June 5.

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Our team is ready to ensure that the systems are stable, including withdrawals and deposits.

We will issue a response once we see compliance. Have not seen it yet. The media get the information before we do.

—CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 5, 2023

The American regulator held down 13 charges against Binance, including unrecorded offers and sales of BNB (BNB) and BUSD tokens, Simple Earn and BNB Vault products, and its staking program. Furthermore, the SEC alleges in the lawsuit that Binance did not register its Binance.com platform as an exchange or broker-dealer clearing agency. Furthermore, he claimed that Binance and BAM Trading failed to register Binance.US as an exchange, broker, and clearing agency. CZ was sued as a "controlling person".

According to the suit:

“Defendants have enriched themselves with billions of US dollars while placing investors' assets at significant risk. […] Defendants have engaged in multiple unregistered offerings and sales of crypto asset securities and other investment schemes."

He continued: “Defendants BAM Trading and BAM Management defrauded institutional, retail and equity investors over alleged surveillance and controls over manipulative trading on the Binance.US platform, which were in fact virtually non-existent.”

Among the allegations behind the charges are claims that Binance failed to restrict the use of Binance.com by US investors.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler saying in a sentence:

"As alleged, Zhao and Binance misled investors about their risk controls and corrupted trading volumes while actively concealing who was operating the platform, their affiliate market maker's manipulative trading, and even where and with whom the funds were being held." Investor Funds and Crypto Assets".

The SEC is demanding the permanent suspension of Binance and CZ from other activities, the return of ill-gotten gains with interest, and financial penalties.

The lawsuit claimed that the tokens traded on the Binance exchange were securities. Those tokens are BNB, BUSD, SOL, ADA, MATIC, FIL, ATOM, SAND, MANA, ALGO, AXS, and COTI.

This is a developing story, and more information will be added as it becomes available.