Binance, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have agreed amid its ongoing lawsuit to safeguard customer assets mutually.
Key Details
- The SEC announced late on Friday that Binance has agreed to terms that will allow the exchange to remain open amid the ongoing fraud lawsuits being leveled against the company, The New York Times reports.
- The agency has previously filed to freeze the company’s assets to prevent user funds from being internally shifted, which would have resulted in the exchange being shut down in the U.S.
- Customer funds will now be accessible through special digital repositories within the U.S. exchange, limiting the ability to transfer to the global Binance exchange but allowing customers to perform ordinary transactions.
Key Details
Crypto has been staring down a widespread crackdown from the federal government in the past year, with the White House, the Department of Justice, the SEC, the Federal Reserve, and Congress having all advocated cracking down on crypto. The SEC finally made good on the threat on June 5 with a lawsuit against one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges, alleging that the company is guilty of 13 counts of securities violations. CoinBase faces similar legal threats, while the now-defunct FTX is awaiting a criminal trial for its founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Crypto investors continue to contend that U.S. regulators are being too hostile to crypto and not providing a clear legal framework to operate within. This hostility has chased several prominent crypto investors outside the U.S. to more crypto-friendly havens in the UK, The Bahamas, and Singapore—including notable investors like the Winklevoss Twins and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Notable Quotes
“Although we maintain that the SEC’s request for emergency relief was entirely unwarranted, we are pleased that the disagreement over this request was resolved on mutually acceptable terms,” says a representative for Binance.
“We ensured that U.S. customers will be able to withdraw their assets from the platform while we work to resolve the alleged underlying misconduct,” says a spokesman for the SEC.
