The SEC is taking on the biggest exchange in the world
The Securities and Futures Trading Commission formally probed by the Binance telcos, FTX and other unlawful cryptocurrencies trading platforms
The SEC said the entities engaged in an extensive web of deception, conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure and calculated evasion of the law. “The public should beware of investing any of their hard-earned assets with or on these unlawful platforms,” said Gensler.
Sam Bankman-Fried, a founder and former CEO of FTX, is in trouble with the law and faces over 100 years in prison if he is convicted.
FTX went out of business, and this has led to a dramatic increase in the market share of world’s leading virtual currency, Binance.
Most recently, in March, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, accused the company of violating the Commodity Exchange Act and several CFTC regulations.
The S.E.C. claims that the company and its CEO secretly let high-value US customers trade on its international exchange.
The S.E.C said that the company had let on that their firewall had been more impermeable than they had said.
In testimony to Congress, Gensler stated that the S.E.C should be used for companies involved in cryptocurrencies. In today’s filing, the S.E.C. says Binance failed to do that.
The defendants “chose not to register, so they could evade the critical regulatory oversight designed to protect investors and markets,” the S.E.C said, in its suit.
Industry players were not shocked by the charges. “No one who operates in the space will be surprised by any of the charges,” says Cory Klippsten, CEO at rival trading platform Swan Bitcoin.
