Binance Considers Pulling Back From US Partners as Crypto Crackdown Escalates (bloomberg.com) 20
Crypto giant Binance is considering ending relationships with US business partners as regulators turn up the heat. From a report: The company, which operates the world's largest crypto exchange, is weighing the retreat after its relationships with a key banking partner and stablecoin issuer ran into trouble amid intense scrutiny from authorities, according to a person familiar with the issue. Binance has been probed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service.
Binance is looking at whether to sever ties with intermediary firms such as banks and services firms and is reassessing venture-capital investments in the US, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing details that had not yet been made public. It will consider de-listing tokens from any US-based projects, including Circle's stablecoin USD Coin, the person said. Binance isn't authorized to serve crypto customers in the US. Instead, there's Binance.US, a far smaller exchange that claims to be independent and said it has no plans to leave the US.
Binance is looking at whether to sever ties with intermediary firms such as banks and services firms and is reassessing venture-capital investments in the US, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing details that had not yet been made public. It will consider de-listing tokens from any US-based projects, including Circle's stablecoin USD Coin, the person said. Binance isn't authorized to serve crypto customers in the US. Instead, there's Binance.US, a far smaller exchange that claims to be independent and said it has no plans to leave the US.
Binance is just as crooked as FTX (Score:2)
Reassessing...please (Score:3)
They are coming for you too, Zhao.
You can run, but you can't hide.
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You can run, but you can't hide.
Some of the crypto people do get caught and go to jail and likely SBF will be one, for example. There are quite a number, though, that got away Scott free. Zhao has been pretty clever and Binance seems to have a much more sophisticated international structure than FTX had. The US operation has used Americans as front men, and left them with full responsibility and it looks like the theoretical power to follow the rules, even if they have been failing. I really think that Zhao might well escape with most of
This is fake news (Score:1)
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it's about being able to shutdown legal commerce they don't like.
Right. You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel good. The fact Binance, and others, have never opened themselves up to auditing like real financial institutions is all one needs to know what's going on.
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have never opened themselves up to auditing like real financial institutions is all one needs to know what's going on.
I think it's more the fact that they actually have done some audits but never audit the bits that really matter which should be the real worry. That shows that they understand the need for an audit but really really don't want it coming close to the real books. Read the final paragraphs of their proof of reserves audit [binance.com] for example and think how insane crypto people have to be to think this helps.
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The lack of control/regulation in crypto markets really is only beneficial if you have enough "fuck if I care" money to throw around. That's not Joe Everyman, because Joe can't be gambling away his rent money. What you're really doing is arguing on behalf of rich people who are trying to play a greater fool game against other rich people and any poor saps who don't know any better.
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N it's illegal commerce if it does not follow regulations. The purpose of the government is protect the citizens, whereas the goal of these crypto "investment" exchanges is to rip off the customers. "If we don't call ourselves a 'bank' then we don't need to follow banking rules!", about as dumb as "if we don't call ourselves a taxi/hotel/restaurant we don't have to follow any of those rules!"
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No, it is that FTX managed to stop a red wave and change ownership of Congress.
Remember that, whilst SBF was donating to the Democrats, FTX as a whole (there were other principals apart from SBF - something that many seem not to mention) was donating equally to both. The problem not that they were against one party. The problem is that they now stopped giving money to either of the main US parties.
Crypto is money laundering & Ponzi schemes (Score:5, Insightful)
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I doubt we're lucky enough to see cryptocurrency go away completely. The ransomware and dark web markets will always provide a value floor, and it's pretty difficult to find legal precedent for banning crypto pair exchanges that completely avoid dealing in fiat currency. I do agree that once a business starts holding fiat in escrow, they should be regulated as a bank and that's going to bring the hammer down on most US-based exchanges that let you buy/sell crypto with real money.
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The Crypto Crackdown Wont Stop. Its to protect. (Score:3)
Web3 is a long form scam designed to trick people into joining a finance system that doesn't serve their best interests or protect them from scammers, while allowing Violent people who would otherwise be banned from the actual real world finance system due to anti-violence laws, to still take part in capitalism while still using violence to meet their ends. That is, in summary, The only reason Web3 exists is to allow violent criminals to have access to the financial system they would otherwise be banned from. It's not an upgrade, and it actually has less features than the typical real world finance system that it claims to be scared of.
You ever wonder why?
Web3 calls itself distributed. But the bank system is also distributed. The cold and hard truth is the reason the people shrill web3 is either because they have a lot of e-coins and are now trapped in that system and at risk of losing funds if they don't use it, so now they need to try to get value out of them, or they're just angry that a bank has the power to force a refund if a customer complaints about being scammed, sold a defective product, etc.
The fact is most of the people who got into web3 were the kind of people that wouldn't have legally been allowed to open a merchant account with a bank anyway. Or they never tried. Or they were too young to try. Or they had criminal records.
Web3 is not secure for the customer, as you can't force a chargeback if you get scammed. So it's not really that secure. That's also a big reason not to use it, compared to using the real financial system that has universally respected and supported all over the world.
The only reason I have heard people talk about liking Web3 is that it is designed to not allow people to do chargebacks, but that is a negative, so its doesn't serve the needs of the global finance system by default, because unless a customer can reliably dispute a bad transaction on their account when they get scammed or stolen from, then the system can have no legitimacy in the eyes of lawmakers or users who expect to be protected and consider this lack of feature to be a downgrade in their security.
Why? Because the expectation is that capitalism will work and protect you from violence by doing so; As in return for accepting the violence of a capitalistic system, The upgrade you're being sold is that you are giving up on the violence of physical violence being done to you an have chosen to negotiate and trade fir goods and services instead. That is why people chose capitalism, because it was better to trade with others than it was to go to war with them. We do capitalism because we are against physical violence.
So it really doesn't make sense to me to support web3, and allow people to do violence instead of being constrained to capitalistic systems, because web3 is a downgrade to our security and allows people to interact with capitalism and commerce while also skirting the laws around "no violence if you want to be a capitalist". Web3 is simply a back door to allow violence to take part in capitalism.
The people who support web 3 just want violence and chaos. They just want to be able to scam people and not allow them to seek refunds if things go wrong or not in their favor. As a customer, there is no reason for me to support web three or electronic currency because it doesn't give me the same freedom that a bank does; Its a downgrade and its less secure, by default.
So yeah, the Crypto crackdown will keep going, because the people who are doing it know how much they're protecting people by doing that. And so they're going to keep doing it until the job is done, just to protect people.
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Without the laws there is no recourse when there's a crime. There's not even a crime without laws. Someone can beat you up and take your money, and that's "freedom" only for the thief and the victim has no one to omplain to. That's how things worked in the days of lords, warlords, kings, and others who were essentially thugs with an army. Anyone wishing to go back to such days would do better to move to Mogadishu. Probably why most crypto customers are illegal enterprises.