Topline
The U.S. faction of Binance will no longer allow users to trade the U.S. dollar on its platform, the crypto exchange operator announced late Thursday, after banking partners began cutting off the firm amid a crumbling crypto market in the U.S. as regulators sued two industry giants this week.
Binance’s U.S. division plans to stop trading the US dollar amid banking turmoil and a SEC lawsuit.
Key Facts
Binance.US will transition to a crypto-only exchange, halting all USD withdrawals and deposits, as soon as June 13, the company announced Thursday night.
The company’s payment and banking partners “signaled their intent” to close out USD trading with Binance due to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit filed Monday alleging the company was dodging regulation and operating illegally, which Binance reiterated in its Thursday statement was “baseless.”
The halt on USD trading will last “until we secure more stable banking partners,” Binance said.
Key Background
A day after suing Binance, the SEC asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to freeze assets tied to Binace.US’s holding and operating firms, BAM Management US Holdings and BAM Trading Services. The SEC said the freeze request was an effort to protect U.S. customers’ assets and safety given Binance’s “evasion of regulatory oversight, and open questions about various financial transfers and the custody and control of Customer Assets.” In the first 24 hours following the SEC’s lawsuit, Binance and Binance.US lost roughly $790 million from investors. The SEC followed its Binance lawsuit with a slightly less damning suit against Coinbase, a major Binance competitor based in the U.S.
Tangent
On Friday, mobile trading app Robinhood announced it would delist three crypto coins, all of which are among the most valuable coins on the market. Robinhood will pull Cardano, Polygon and Solana from its platform on June 27, at which point all stocks will be sold and credited to former holders’ accounts. Together, the three coins have a total market capitalization of $31 billion—still a fraction of the market compared to Bitcoin’s $540 billion market cap. Cardano, the largest of the three, was down 4% on Friday.
Further Reading
SEC Asks Court To Freeze Assets Of Binance U.S. Units Named In Suit (Forbes)
Binance Out $790 Million As Investors Move Assets After SEC Lawsuit, Research Firm Reports (Forbes)
SEC Charges Binance With Dodging Regulation While Piling Up Billions Of Dollars (Forbes)
SEC Sues Binance For Multiple U.S. Rule Violations (Forbes)
Cryptocurrency Prices Today By Market Cap (Forbes)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/06/09/binance-will-stop-trading-us-dollar-amid-sec-lawsuit/