By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 23rd, 2024
Binance has been on the receiving end of several investigations in the United States.
Binance, which is the world’s largest crypto exchange, is prepping itself to settle monetary penalties and pay heavy fines following an investigation into its business in the United States. The top executive of the company confirmed recently after publicly denying the allegations previously.
According to a February 15th report, the firm’s chief strategy officer Patrick Hillmann said that the company has been working in collaboration with the regulators to fix some compliance concerns of the past.
Hillmann claimed that Binance was toiling sincerely with the regulatory body to solve some issues of the past and make amends. He also said that the result of the probes would finally lead to fines levied on the firm, but ended his statement by mentioning that this might be for the regulators to decide.
Binance may pay serious fines as it has been on the receiving end of several investigations in the United States that also include the one that was commenced in 2018 by the Department of Justice over possible violations of anti-money laundering laws.
In March 2021, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission also examined whether the firm provided crypto derivatives to US clients without authorizing it with the agency. The Securities and Exchange Commission also opened an investigation into Binance’s US division last February, concerning trading companies related to Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao.
Hillmann also said that Binance was immensely confident about the direction the dialogue was taking but wasn’t able to estimate the size of compensation or timescale that was supposed to be filled for resolutions with the US regulators. He also claimed that the scarcity of knowledge and clarity of regulations in the US at that time made it extremely for the crypto firms.
However, when news outlets reported the company’s fight with the prosecutors over lapses in compliance in December last year, Binance publicly fought and called all the stories baseless. Binance CEO even went on to say that the newsrooms were still working for the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Friend.
The reversal in stance comes after it has become publicly apparent that things are not very well with the firm. The SEC has conveyed to Paxos, which rolls out BUSD stablecoin for Binance, that it plans to take strict action against the popular crypto exchange over such issuance.
The SEC has lately tightened its grip over the crypto industry and is seemingly targetting specific staking services and stablecoins.
Earlier this week, the New York regulatory body cracked down on Paxos, disallowing it from issuing more Binance-branded stablecoin BUSD. Another crypto exchange Kraken was also slapped with a $30 million fine and asked to stop its staking services after SEC enforcement action.