The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday accused Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, of mishandling customer funds and lying to American regulators and investors about its operations, in a sweeping case that has the potential to remake the landscape of power and wealth within crypto.
In the 136-page complaint, the S.E.C. said Binance had mixed billions of dollars in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company called Merit Peak Limited, which is controlled by Binance’s founder, Changpeng Zhao.
According to the complaint against Binance, the bank account of Merit Peak, the trading firm controlled by Mr. Zhao, has received more than $20 billion, including customer funds.
Binance.US was supposed to be separate from its offshore parent but “behind the scenes,” Mr. Zhao and other senior Binance leaders were “intimately involved,” the complaint said. That led one executive to remark that “the entire team feels like they’ve been duped into being a puppet,” according to the complaint.
The news brought down the Bitcoin market today:
Will screenshot some CZ-Tweets for archive purposes. In the heat of the moment, some might be deleted in the future.
Will retweeting Justin Sun (TRON, STEEM) and Charles Hoskinson (Cardano) help?
https://twitter.com/SplitCapital/status/1665743397053669377
- SplitCapital
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1665817591229579267
- cz_binance
CZ retweets account of DeFi-Procet Thorchain.
https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1666162656351342594
- cz_binance
Deutsch
Die SEC verklagt Binance, weil die Börse illegal Geld von Binance auf eine andere Firma (Merit Peak Limited) verschoben hat. Laut Anklage sollen dort 20 Millarden Dollar gelandet sein. Binance firmiert für US-Kunden unter binance.us, die Kundengelder müssen getrennt von binance.com laufen. Dies scheint die Firma aktiv umgangen zu haben. Derweil kämpft CZ auf Twitter um seine Reputation (siehe Tweets oben).
