US regulators sued Binance and its chief executive Changpeng Zhao yesterday for allegedly operating a “web of deception,” piling further pressure on the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange and sending bitcoin to its lowest in almost three months.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint, filed in a federal court in Washington, DC, listed 13 charges against Binance, Zhao and the operator of its purportedly independent US exchange.
The SEC alleged that Binance artificially inflated its trading volumes and diverted customer funds, as well as failed to restrict US customers from its platform and misled investors about its market surveillance controls. The SEC also claimed that Binance and Zhao, its billionaire founder and one of the crypto industry’s highest-profile moguls, secretly controlled customers’ assets, allowing them to commingle and divert investor funds “as they please.”
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