The SEC said Monday that the affiliate that was set up in 2019 - Binance.US - was “part of an elaborate scheme to evade U.S. regulators, however, have alleged that Binance was in the states all along. But the exchange was quick to grab market share overseas, and, in 2019, declared that it was setting its sights on the U.S. “We intend to defend our platform vigorously.”įounded in 2017, Binance broke onto the scene relatively late compared to other crypto businesses like Coinbase and Kraken. “While we take the SEC’s allegations seriously, they should not be the subject of an SEC enforcement action, let alone on an emergency basis,” the company wrote in the post.

The company said it was “disheartened” by the SEC’s decision to bring the case to court after the two sides had been engaged in talks about a settlement.

At one point in the complaint, the SEC alleges that customer money was “at Binance’s and Zhao’s mercy.”īinance denied the SEC’s allegations in a blog post, including the claim that customer assets at Binance.US were at risk. But the Binance case represents Gensler’s biggest salvo to date, with the agency taking a broad swing against the exchange and its high-profile CEO. Since the fall of FTX seven months ago, the SEC has orchestrated a sweeping crackdown on the $1 trillion crypto market.

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