Binance Sued by US Watchdog for Alleged Derivatives Rule Lapses (bloomberg.com) 10
Binance Holdings, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao, were sued by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allegedly breaking trading and derivatives rules. From a report: The CFTC filed the lawsuit Monday in federal court in Chicago. The derivatives regulator said Binance shirked its obligations by not properly registering with it. Since at least 2021, the CFTC has been probing Binance over whether it failed to keep US residents from buying and selling crypto derivatives. CFTC rules generally require platforms to register with the agency if they let Americans trade those products.
Refreshing (Score:4, Interesting)
Because this is what a regulator regulating crypto within its unambiguous jurisdiction looks like in the US. The CFTC has not claimed crypto as a commodity because unlike the SEC, the CFTC seems to realize that crypto fits into a new category that does not fit very well into regulatory legislation passed in the 1930s. So instead of launching a full frontal "muh authoriteh" attack on crypto that could easily end up with them getting their ass kicked by an angry federal judge, they are carrying out a limited enforcement action on illicit futures contract offerings.
My guess is that Binance will either yield or leave the US entirely because the CFTC will almost certainly win if this goes to trial. That is in stark contrast to the sordid history of the SEC around crypto which is exemplified by their handling of Ripple/XRP [twitter.com]. The SEC is almost certainly going to lose that case because their own behavior and language strongly suggests that from 2009 to 2019, the SEC's internal consensus was "crypto is a currency market, not a securities market."
Re: (Score:2)
The CFTC doesn't regulate financial scams?
No, that would be the FTC or CFPB (Score:3)
The CFTC, per its name, regulates commodities and futures. These are futures contracts. Calls and puts in the stock market are futures contracts. The CFTC has a clear case here. You can't even write up futures contracts on pet rocks and bottled farts without running afoul of the CFTC if you don't file paperwork with them first.
Unlike the SEC's bullshit cases, the CFTC actually has a slam dunk case against Binance.
Re: No, that would be the FTC or CFPB (Score:2)
Calls and puts are options.
Few people trade futures (or options) in crypto, the instruments being targeted here are the perpetual swaps.
Crypto just looks like a security (Score:2, Redundant)
But yeah, Binance and the rest of the exchanges will be leaving the US soon for one of the dodgier countries where they can engage in money laundering & ponzi scams with impunity. Eventually they'll be frozen ou
You're not a lawyer, stop playing one (Score:3)
Actual lawyers who practice securities law as their daily career have skewered the Hell out of the SEC on their attempts to apply the Howey Test to it.
As one of them noted in the twitter thread I provided, the SEC's own in house lawyers never acknowledged this "obvious jurisdiction" until a decade after Bitcoin was released and then couldn't come up with a coherent explanation for why Ripple was a security, but Bitcoin wasn't.
I know this may come as a shock to a lot of you here,
I think I see the problem here (Score:2)
Crypto Bros are desperate to be declared a commodity because the cftc has much much weaker regulatory Powers than the SEC.
In that sense this lawsuit is probably just a stealth way to try to clear crypto a commodity but some of their allies at the cftc.
Assuming you're not a crypto scammer you don't want this. It would open the door to a never-ending supply of Ponzi schemes until the whole thing
Re: (Score:2)
I have a great idea for a show. It's a camera viewing all your perverted wanking in your basement bedroom. Nobody will watch because nobody cares about you.
The only effective regulators (Score:2)
I wish more regulators would step up on crypto and international scams.
As it stands, the Europeans, Brits, Koreans, Japanese and other advanced economies could do more but seem not to scare anybody into behaving well, let alone go after these dodgy characters.