The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Binance, the worlds biggest cryptocurrency exchange, on Monday with mishandling client cash and lying to US authorities and investors about its operations in a broad lawsuit that may reshape the landscape of power and riches in crypto. When combined with additional tokens like XRP that have been individually targeted by the SEC, the agency has now classified roughly $115 billion in coins as unregistered securities.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission brought 13 allegations against Binance, including unregistered offers and sales of BNB tokens, the Easy Earn and BNB Vault products, and its staking program. Moreover, the SEC claims in the lawsuit that Binance failed to register its Binance.com platform as an exchange or a broker-dealer clearing agency.
Moreover, it argues that Binance and BAM Trading, Binance.US legal company, failed to register Binance.US as an exchange, broker, and clearing agency. As a “controlling person,” CZ was accused.
According to the lawsuit, tokens traded on the Binance market constituted securities. These tokens include BNB, BUSD, Solana, Cardano, Polygon, Filecoin, Cosmos, The Sandbox, Decentraland, Algorand, Axie Infinity, and COTI.
According to a Bloomberg article, the SEC‘s list of digital tokens considered unregistered securities now exceeds $115 billion in crypto after the US agency’s action against Binance.
Most tokens are subject to the SECs investor-protection regulations, and trading platforms should register with the authority, according to SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Yet tagging certain tokens is a more difficult strategy. US regulators have pushed down on digital assets this year after a crash in 2022 and a number of blowups, including the collapse of the FTX exchange.
According to Gensler, the biggest cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, is not subject to the SEC‘s securities regulations. On Ether, the second-largest digital coin, he’s been less clear.
According to CoinMarketCap, the total value of the crypto industry is at $1.1 trillion, down from a record of more than $3 trillion during a pandemic-era surge.