US regulator sues world’s largest crypto exchange Binance

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has sued the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance for market manipulation, trading unregistered derivatives and refusing to cooperate with the authorities.

The US regulator believes that the company has been deliberately evading compliance with the laws of the country for a long time. According to the CFTC, Binance offered derivative trading services to US residents, ignoring the need to register at the CFTC according to the country’s legislation.

The CFTC also noted that the exchange abets the use of VPN services to access the platform in those countries where Binance does not have a license to operate, as well as circumvention of control measures in order to increase corporate profits.

In addition, the lawsuit indicates that the company uses its own accounts to trade crypto assets and manipulate their price. According to the CFTC, Binance management created an opaque corporate structure and ignored the commodity exchange laws applicable to it.

According to CFTC chairman Rostin Behnam, Binance has avoided compliance for many years, so the lawsuit filed against the exchange should be a warning to all companies working with digital assets.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao denied the charges. He stated that Binance is not trying to manipulate the market and make a profit by any means. According to him, the accusations have become an incorrect and incomplete statement of facts.

Zhao also noted that Binance’s compliance department has more than 750 employees, so all accusations of a lack of compliance with requirements are causeless. In addition, the exchange always meets the requests of law enforcement agencies and regulators.

According to analysts at Nansen, within a day after a lawsuit from the CFTC was filed, exchange users withdrew more than $400 million. In total, as a result of the regulator’s charges, more than $1 billion was withdrawn from the platform.

Earlier, the US authorities banned the issue of new BUSD tokens.