The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed a lawsuit against crypto exchange Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao in the District Court for the District of Columbia, pressing 13 charges which include unregistered offers and sales of the BNB and BUSD cryptocurrencies and alleged unlawful operations in Binance’s staking program.

The SEC believes that Binance has been running a “web of deception”; an eerie comment for a worldly-renowned exchange. The suit states that the defendants, in this case Binance, “have enriched themselves by billions of U.S. dollars while placing investors’ assets at significant risk,” alongside engaging “multiple unregistered offers and sales of crypto asset securities and other investment schemes.”

Among the allegations made against Binance is that the crypto exchange did not restrict U.S. investors from trading on Binance.com and that Binance.US engaged in wash trading initiatives via ““primary undisclosed ‘market making’ trading firm Sigma Chain” that is owned by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao.

As the news circulated, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) seems to have taken a minor hit due to the magnitude of the occasion, sending the popular cryptocurrency to three-month lows to currently value at nearly $25,750 at the time of writing.

Sources:

https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-sues-binance-in-us-district-court-for-unregistered-securities-operations

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-sec-sues-binance-founder-zhao-alleging-securities-law-violations-2023-06-05/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/business/sec-binance-charges.html

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/05/binance-sued-sec-cryptocurrency-accused-mishandling-funds

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/5/23749596/sec-binance-lawsuit-crypto-exchange-allegations

https://www.axios.com/2023/06/05/sec-sues-crypto-giant-binance-and-its-ceo

https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_temp.pl?file=8344309-0--15324.pdf&type=application/pdf

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin/